In Uplink, you play a computer criminal in the semi-near-future; someone who breaks into computer systems to make money.  I’ve had a lot of fun with this game, and while it might not be perfect, I feel no hesitation in recommending it to someone who likes the idea of portraying a computer cracker.

The flow of the game, at least in the early parts, is straightforward.  You visit the Uplink Corporation and take missions (contracts for jobs).  When you finish the mission, you get paid.  If you complete enough missions your rank improves, and this makes tougher missions available (and, often, easier missions unavailable).  Tougher missions require better hardware and software, which must be bought with the money earned from the missions.

But there’s an interesting side objective you can take on.  Certain missions require you to break into bank accounts to discover monetary balances.  Occasionally you will find a bank account with hundreds of thousands of credits—one or two orders of magnitude higher than the money you’ve accumulated so far!

Since the player has been encouraged to break into computer systems—even bank systems—from the beginning of the game, one obvious course of action is to break into a bank account and steal the money for themselves.  It’s difficult, but far from impossible.  After cleaning out one of the well-stocked accounts, the player can buy the most powerful hardware and software available.

This strategy could be thought of as an emergent property of the game’s realism.  However, I think it’s more likely the result of a conscious effort on the part of the game’s developers.  This game mechanic rewards investigating possibilities and orchestrating a breakin that you don’t fully know will work—in other words, acting like a computer cracker—and that’s what the game is all about.  Even without the “theme”, it’s still a delightful way to have a “sidequest” in the game.