There's something creepy about being the only human player in a simulated MMORPG. But at least our virtual friends take the time to send us caring email. "X-Play" hurtles through cyberspace toward the fourth and final episode of the serialized ".hack" experience. The game within a game receives its final building block of story, but does the action-RPG gameplay still ".hack" it?

What's wrong with The World today

The World is a popular MMORPG played by more than 20 million people worldwide. But it's more than just an online game. Some players were left comatose after visiting The World, and now the corruption of the game has leaked into reality. As Kite, a character who has witnessed everything from the beginning, you team up with longtime friends and new faces to put an end to the corruption.

If you've played the three previous episodes, you have a good idea of what's going on and who these characters are. If not, you can watch the very short movie that provides basic background info. But let's not beat around the bush: If you won't play though the opening episodes, you have no business playing "Part 4."

.hack and Slash

Like previous episodes, "Quarantine" puts you through a series of randomly generated fields that lead to randomly generated, multi-floor dungeons. The game uses warp gates and systems of keywords to generate often hilariously named areas, such as Generous Bemused Virgin and Reincarnated Elusive Lyric Poet. Keywords determine how the area will look and what type of enemies you'll face. You'll often receive email from online comrades requesting that you accompany them to a specific place.

You can enlist the aid of two other characters who have given you their IDs before heading out. Lucky for you, they have no adventures of their own and never take a bathroom break. Although your party members chat with you and carry on to the best of their ability, you always control Kite directly. A simple tap of a button attacks nearby enemies with your twin blades, but you need to access menus to use special skills or magic and to direct other party members.

The action pauses when you bring up a menu, giving you time to think. However, this also spoils the illusion that you're playing an online game. Although many enemies have specific strengths and weaknesses to exploit, fighting is straightforward. You basically alternate attacking and healing, though this can be quite brutal. There's no shortage of powerful enemies lurking around, and the bosses have a few nasty tricks and are fittingly the toughest to overcome.

This is exactly the way combat worked in the last three installments, which is disappointing. You often use data-drain hacks to cut an enemy down to a lower level or to increase your chances of finding a rare item, but this is nothing new. Combat is light on strategy and quite repetitive, even more so because the environments and dungeons lack distinctive elements. Even after three entries in the series there's nothing new worth noting in terms of the battle system. Unfortunately, the same can be said for the entire game.

Additional content

Your character will start out powerful regardless of whether you've carried game data over from a previous game. And, as in many real MMORPG expansions, there's additional content. The level cap is raised to 99, allowing incredibly powerful characters, and a few new quests have been added as well, such as a grueling item-completion quest requiring you to find and register more than 500 game items, which may take you the rest of your life.

But where many online RPGs add new classes, The World sticks with the same six it introduced in the first game. This makes most of the 20 or so individuals interchangeable with members of their class, and it gives you very few strategic options. Certain characters receive more development, though. Mia and Aura, in particular, figure heavily in the story line, and there are a healthy number of cut scenes that include extras such as the final epilogue for players who finish all four games. An included 45-minute anime DVD supplements the story.

Logging off

Featuring a simulated (and completely offline) MMORPG tied to a real world that isn't really real, the series is sure to give you something to think about -- including whether it's worth it to pay for the same game four times. It's not. Other than a bit more plot and a sense of closure, there's nothing here that warrants a separate game. Still, what it does offer makes it worth a rental and possible purchase for fans. For anyone else, ".hack Part 4: Quarantine" is a repetitive action-RPG that isn't as interesting as its concept and is almost impossible to enjoy independently of the series.

.hack Part 4: Quarantine