AI Wars: The Awakening

AI Wars: The Awakening is a video game in the action genre developed by Nexus Information Systems & Marketing inc. and published by Nexus Information Systems & Marketing inc. originally released in 2000. It is currently playable on Windows.

AI Wars: The Awakening is an innovative and highly underrated FPS that requires a lot of effort to learn.

But your patience will be well rewarded with a unique and captivating blend of the action and strategy genres. Excerpts from this review in Adrenaline Vault explain quite well the basics of a concept that is difficult to explain: 'Unlike today's Internet, the NET [in AI Wars] is a worldwide computer network that incorporates all the information from previous networks. Expert applications, or agents, have been created that collect and interpret information for their external human masters. Technological advances in virtual reality have gone beyond controlling these agents using a keyboard. Scientists at MIT have invented a direct neural mechanism that allows them to connect directly with the agent, giving them greater control and flexibility. The first explorers of this cyberspace world were, and are called, cybernauts.

Today, cybernauts are known as avatars and it is this role that you assume. AI Wars: The Awakening offers you three goals or missions to undertake as an avatar: become immortal, achieve sentience or control the NET. The most remarkable thing about these objectives is that you can undertake one, two or all three at the same time, but I'll talk about them a little later. Once you decide which goal or goals you are going to pursue enter the cyberspace of the NET and begin your quest. Regardless of whether you are trying to control the NET, make your agent sentient, or achieve immortality, the basic tasks required to accomplish this are the same. While playing the game, the most important task is to collect data blocks. They are the lifeblood of the NET and actually its currency. Sometimes you can simply collect them, while other times you will have to use decryption software to access them or even hack into corporations. Even then there is no guarantee that you will be able to access the blocks because in your decryption attempt the data may be destroyed. Once you have collected the data blocks, you can sell them to a marketplace bot or use them yourself. These bots are an integral part of the game because if you don't have the right equipment you can never succeed. Buying a level 6 data manager when yours is level 1 is a big hit. Just as collecting data is an ongoing task so are the purchases or sales you make with it. As I said before, finding data blocks is the number one priority to advance your quest or missions, second is finding a market bot and selling them, and third if you don't sell them they can be used to research new technology that also furthers your quest or missions. Controlling the NETWORK is perhaps the most difficult of the three objectives to accomplish. To succeed you must access each of the key systems in the Grid, get into the core of the system and place a backdoor for continued use. Getting into the system is easy, but accessing its private nodes is another story entirely. All private nodes require passwords, and each entry point has a different password. These nodes are guarded by the ICE gatekeeper and if your hacking skills are not up to par, you don't have the password or you are not using masking software, the gatekeeper will detect you, tag you as an intruder and set off an alarm. With this alarm comes reinforcements in the form of black ICE. Immortality is achieved when you transfer your consciousness and memories to the NET. This is not an easy task, you have to develop six different technologies and then use both an organic computer and a positronic computer to complete the transfer. Developing a technology requires you to research it thoroughly and make the necessary breakthroughs. Some of these breakthroughs can be purchased, but most of them are in secure research facilities and again, your hacking skills will be used heavily. The six technologies needed to achieve immortality are the Concept Analyzer, Personality Replicator, Deep Neural Interface, Memory Mapping Device and Emotion Regulator. The third type of gameplay in AI Wars: The Awakening is for your agent to achieve sentience: to think and react of its own volition, becoming more than just a computer program. For this to be achieved, great advances must be made and technologies developed. For sentience to occur, its agent will have to collect a lot of data to learn and evolve. Unlike immortality, you only have to develop four technologies instead of six. What makes the game types and objectives so interesting is that by working toward immortality, you will be able to achieve immortality.

It is possible that we have multiple downloads available when different versions exist.