Hax

October 12th, 2018

One of my earliest characters who saw time in the City of Heroes, Alice Haberdasher was born into a life of heroism, though she didn't know it at first. While in school pursuing a business degree, the insomniac Alice grabbed an axe her mom insisted she hang on the wall of her cheap apartment, and used it to chase off several ne'er do wells who were loitering rather loudly outside her door.

Though she didn't know it, and neither did her family, the axe had been crafted with numerous special powers housed within. The product of an ancestor with technopsionic talent, it made her nigh-invulnerable to conventional, physical damage, and offered a few other bonuses, such as the ability to fly! Suddenly not caring about getting her degree, Alice decided to go into business for herself - as a bounty hunter!

Donning numerous green costumes over the years, some more ostentatious than others, Alice made a career for herself as the super-powerful Hacks. Sure, she's often confused with some sort of computer expert thanks to her code name, but Alice doesn't care. After all, most people seem to think of such experts as physically frail nerds, and if that helps them to underestimate her, so be it!

Of course, being a minor, super-powered celebrity is as much a blessing as it is a curse, and Alice soon found herself serving as a hero. A lot of the job skills required are the same as when hunting down fugitives from justice, after all, though admittedly the pay is a whole lot worse. But Alice takes it all in stride, because she's found that marketing herself more than makes up the financial difference!

Story aside, playing Hacks was rather fun. Sure, she was nerfed all to heck with the 'issue 5' release of the game, which cut her resistances down to mostly bashing and slashing damage, with a bit of energy resistance on the side. Even then, something about the character was satisfying. Another tanker, like my main tank, Crystalline, her damage output wasn't nearly like Dash Apostrophe's, but it was a hoot.

Though slow and unwieldly, the game's axe secondary just felt powerful when you did eventually connect with somebody. And nothing is quite so fun as chopping up bad guys with a double-bladed battle axe... for justice, naturally. Not just because you're having a bad day, and really need to disassemble a body, no sir. That totally wasn't why I took Hacks out for a spin so frequently. Not at all. Honest!

Bonus nerdery: Hacks written up for the nerd game I support on my nerd site. Complete with even more screenshot imagery!

Installments in this series:
01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

firebomb@obnoxiousjerk.com