.hack // G.U. Vol. 1: Rebirth

"Rebirth makes some minor improvements on the familiar formula, but it's still hampered by repetitive, tedious gameplay and a story that never seems to get anywhere."

"With such a solid base already existing with Rebirth it will be fun to see where Namco-Bandai can take the series, especially at the near-end of the console’s lifespan. If they continue to improve the series as they have this time around, the final two installments of .hack//G.U have the potential to really make their mark in the RPG genre."

".hack//G.U. Vol. 1: Rebirth is the start of another great set of games, different enough from the originals to appease fans tired of the one dynamic and good enough to stand on its own."

The game takes place in "The World R:2", a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game run by CC Corp., nine years after the events of .hack//QUARANTINE. Revision 2 of “The World” came to be after a fire at CC Corp. headquarters wiped out the servers. Though the new, steampunk-style game has not reached the popularity of the original, over 12 million players now participate. One of the new features of this revision is the ability to player-kill, and PKs are rampant. A subculture of PKs who only go after other PKs, called player-killer-killers or PKKs, has arisen to punish PKs and protect innocent players from them.