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Hellgate: London Review (continued)
More User Submitted Hellgate: London Reviews
Date: 2008-01-14
Suck it Blizz
Awesome, as is to be expected from this team. More proof that Blizzard(c) had nothing to do with the success of Diablo(c), as if WoW gameplay wasn't proof enough. A definite buy.
Date: 2008-01-12
Diablo 3 rocks!!
So, I went into this a bit wary, wondering how they were going to pull off an FPS Diablo in a dark futuristic setting...but I've been very pleasantly surprised!
I really enjoy how they've just basically adapted the Diablo 2 Gift Set character classes into these. For the Templars we have the Blademasters who are the Barbarian and Assassin classes combined while the Guardians are more modern Paladin. Then in the Hunters you have the Marksmen as the updated Amazons and the Engineer is the modern day Druid using this urban environment. At last our Cabalists reincarnate Soreceress into Evokers and Necromancers as Summoners, still using the same elemental forces as ever. It's just a brilliant breath of new life into the classes I fell in love with playing in Diablo 2.
Date: 2008-01-10
Intriguing, but highly flawed. Not worth full price.
This game has great potential, but does not live up to it. The backstory is confusing, poorly fleshed-out, and can't seem to decide if it is serious or farcical. Gameplay is a great deal of fun at first, but rapidly gets extremely repetitive. In the end I was rushing through it just so as to finish. I will not play it again. It's worth picking up at greatly reduced price just to play for a few hours, but not worth the present-day value.
Date: 2008-01-10
If World of Warcraft and Halo got shot out of a cannon into a swarm of bugs. . .
Unlike many reviewers I have seen, I actually managed to install this game and play it. So, instead of simply reviewing the crash process of starting the game, I get to actually review the game itself.
The game takes place in a near-futuristic London. Essentially, demons have invaded London (not sure if they got all of the earth actually) and the cities population has retreated to the subways. Not entirely sure why but it seems that demons fear subways and have left them alone for 20 years.
I prefer to lay these reviews out in a Pro/Con format, so allow me to start with the pro's.
Pro:
Some interesting classes to choose from. With your melee, shooter, and caster classes having two professions each, you will likely find something you like. Skill tree systems (almost exactly like WoW) give you a limited chance to customize your character and different types of weaponry is available depending on your class.
The melee classes work in a third person view for some good hacking and slashing fun while the shooters and casters enjoy the use of a first person shooter system of dodging, aiming and rather old school shooter gameplay. The views are adjustable if you feel the need to play a different viewstyle, so don't think that you would be pigeonholed from the start.
Con:
Sorry that the pro's were so short, but that was really about it.
The failing point of this game is that it is simply pure grind. Now I understand that there are people who like grind in their MMORPG's, but in a single-player game, plotless grinding is about as much fun as.. well.. work. Multiplayer may spruce this up a bit, but then again the day I buy a game for the purpose of multiplayer is the day I jam my arm into my mouth and start chewing mindlessly.
I also got a bit annoyed with the "talent trees" for the classes. Due to the huge lack of passive skills and the large slew of pointless skills, you can count on investing points into three or four things the entire game. Couple this with the lack of decent hotkeys for your right mouse button (like Diablo 2 had) you really are only able to make use of 3 talents at a time. It seems that if Hellgate was so intent on ripping off WoW and Diablo 2 they should have simply gone all of the way and snagged the good parts too.
Balance issues were a bit annoying. I first started out as a Blademaster but soon found it to be a meaningless class. I love the idea of putting a weapon in each hand and rushing into combat, but when 95% of the baddies die in one swing, the second weapon is a bit pointless. Essentially, I was able to do lots of damage, but noting lived long enough to make it worthwhile. Since blademasters lack in any sort of defense, I got killed constantly. Rather sad when compared with my Marksman or Evoker characters who never died the entire game.
The user interface can go and dump itself off a bridge for as much as I love it. Due to a terrible inventory system, you can count on opening it and playing a bit of Tetris every three minutes or so. There is no autosort function and it seems that every rat you find is carrying a bazooka for some reason. The minimap does little but show you where you are in respect to the wall next to you, even when zoomed out completely. The main map shows you only that you are in a specific area, not where you are in it. So, enjoy wandering around in circles in a vain attempt to find your exit.
I noticed the random level generation plug in the game description somewhere, but I actually saw very little of it. I played through the first act about three times with different classes and vividly recall going through the exact same level designs. Items, monsters, quest objects and chests would be in different spots but the level layout looked the same each time.
Which brings me to the last con, the look of the game itself. To the people who have already played the game I ask "What was your favorite level, the smashed up city street, the sewer/subway tunnel, the red colored hell level or the red colored smashed up city street level. That was all that I saw in the game. It gets so repetitive that you constantly find yourself backtracking (thank you worthless minimap) and getting nowhere in the badly textured, unimaginative wasteland that is London (or will be, sorry anyone who lives in London).
To recap, Hellgate London is a grindtastic shootfest which exploits bits and pieces from World of Warcraft and any run of the mill shooter to make a dreary dull game. You will do the same quests over and over again, in what looks like the same exact settings. Gameplay issues will challenge you further than the creators ever actually intended as you attempt to uncover anything resembling a plot in this mess.
In all, amusing for the first few hours, but almost a chore for any longer than that.
Date: 2008-01-09
This is for Beginners
I am a huge fan of Diablo so I jumped on this with both feet. The graphics are good but they seem really similar on every level. It is definitely user friendly & easy to master. My problem was how easy it was to get to the final level. I worked with several Avatars & yes it is more difficult with some however if you use the BIG guns fahgetaboutit.
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