Soul Hackers Hacked

A few months ago Atlus polled gaming sites all over the Net for opinions on Soul Hackers, the second 32-bit incarnation of Japan's immensely popular Shin Megami Tensei series. The response was overwhelmingly positive, with over 1,000 votes tallied in the game's favor.

Since then things have been unusually quiet. Atlus was not available for comment, but Sony did confirm that the game was rejected by Sony game testers. Given the game's sales in Japan and the positive response from American RPG fans, this is a surprising and disturbing turn of events. If Sony's evaluators are not approving games that the public wants, why does it continue to approve the endless stream of Aquanaut's Holidays and Roscoe McQueens this industry continues to churn out? Perhaps it's time to evaluate Sony's evaluation process.

Fans that still want to show their support for the series should e-mail Atlus (SoulHackers@atlus.com) or send requests to Sony by mail (Sony Computer Entertainment America, 919 East Hillsdale Blvd., 2nd Floor, Foster City, CA 94404-2175). While it is likely too late for Soul Hackers, it appears that Atlus will need all the support it can get for Persona 2.