I’ve been looking around for a new game for some time now. A few weeks ago I saw one that looked potentially interesting, supposedly a hybrid action/RPG type game, sort of like “Doom meets Jade Empire”, called “Hellgate:London.” This game was made by some of the people who made Diablo and Diablo 2. I never played D2, and thought Diablo was OK, but not great. However, the game looked interesting.

The premise, briefly stated, is that it’s London of 2038 or so, and a gate from hell has opened up and poured demons into the world. Most of the world is now in ruins and it’s crawling with undead and evil spirits, and such. A few warriors, called the Templars after the ancient Knights Templar, are out there trying to even things up, and you are, of course, one of these warriors. Hellgate can be played solo like KOTOR or Half-life, on your computer, all by yourself. Or, it can be played in a pseudo-MMO setting, where you log into one of a small number of “servers” and run the campaign adventure with groups of people. I don’t know much more than this about the multiplayer variant because I have not tried it.

Before buying this game, I checked into the reviews. By and large, they have been lukewarm. The primary criticism seems to be that people were expecting “Diablo 3″ and got something that did not quite live up to it. One of the biggest knocks against the game is that it has a low replayability — D2 people apparently played the same exact levels over and over again for hundreds of hours in the course of days and weeks and (somehow, which I will never understand) did not get bored, but after playing the game a few times with Hellgate: London (HGL) people get bored.

Personally I find this to be a bit of a silly complaint. If I get a decent # of hours out of going through the pre-made campaign once, I think that makes the game worth my while. Replays beyond the first are just gravy. And even my absolute favorite games like KOTOR or Jade Empire, I never played through more than 2 or perhaps 3 times total. I’d rather do something new than re-play the same old game again. However if that is what you are looking for in HGL, it may not be worth your while.

One of the other big criticism of the game is the lack of a decent “atmosphere,” and here I have to agree to some extent. It’s Hellgate “London”, but there is really very little other than a few names of things to indicate where on earth you are. It’s all a generic post-apocalyptic wreckage. If they’d called it simply “Hellgate” and put it in Anywhere, USA, or heck Anywhere, China, you’d not be able to tell the difference. However, this wasn’t a huge deal for me and certainly has not decreased my enjoyment of the game. At any rate, here is how I rate the game:

Visuals - 9/10
The graphics and visuals are excellent. Animations are good, character models are well done, and the 3D world is realistic and believable. However, doing this is one thing but making it so the game is smooth in terms of performance is something else, and they have delivered here as well. I notice very little hitching with the game nearly topped out on my now 3-year-old system.

Sound - 6/10
Sound is a mixed bag in this game. The sounds for combat and spell effects and the like are excellent. However, there is very little “background noise.” Twice now I have journeyed into hell itself to close down a portal or destroy an altar or something, and after killing the monsters in the area, hell is silent. Where are the screams of the eternally damned? Or the deep whispering voices of demons? Or something to make it creepy and make my skin crawl. There is just nothing like this. Perhaps they were afraid that the rating would be “over the top” if they added this, as the visuals are pretty creepy in themselves, but I heard creepier sounds in NWN back in 2001 than we have in this game. Also there is very little “ambience” music or sound anywhere, not just in hell. They could’ve worked on this a lot more.

Character development - 8/10
I don’t really love level/class systems, but of course in most RPGs we have to live with them, and HGL is no exception. What I do like is that with each level you gain, you get some stat points and also a single skill point. This point can buy a new skill or improve an existing one. You won’t get enough skill points to buy and level up every skill, so there are different types of builds you can make with the same character class. There are about 4 “skill lines” (sequences of improving skills) for each class, and you have to choose to either be a generalist (sampling “buffet style” from each line a little) or a “specialist” (going full-bore on one skill line and maxing that one out). According to the forums either style is playable, but I have only gotten to 11th level so far, so I can’t say for sure. At the very least, it’s interesting. Additionally, there is an interesting loot system where you can, of course, find better items, but you can also find “upgrades” for old items and buy improvements to them, so you can keep that favorite sword instead of having to turn it in for the new item… as long as you keep upgrading it.

Controls/UI - 5/10
One of the downfalls of the game, at least for me, is that you have all these skills but they make it really difficult to smoothly or easily use them. The controls are “sort of” set up like an MMO’s controls, with WASD movement and a hotbar. However, you cannot mouse-click the hotbar buttons — you absolutely have no choice but to press the number keys. For someone like me who has always preferred mouse-clicking, this was almost enough to make me uninstall the game the first day. However, I have gotten (a little) over it, and it is mitigated by the fact that the right and left mouse buttons can be bound to skills… so your two favorites can be mouse-bound. I’d still much rather be able to click if I choose to, rather than HAVE to hit numbers. I just in the middle of battle can’t always remember what button is for what skill, and I have a much more visual memory, so it’s easier for me to click on the icon (I can remember what the icon means easily) rather than remembering what button to press. I’m also much less likely to mis-click the mouse than typo the wrong button. Also, the inventory UI is pretty lousy. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that they don’t give you anywhere near enough inventory space… I am not usually a loot glutton but you have to carry around a HUGE number of scrap items to be able to modify a weapon, and it’s never really clear which ones you might or might not need.

Finally, the game’s absolute worst feature is the lack of a save command. That’s right, there’s no way to make a “save point” in the game. It saves continuously like an MMO. So there is no way to do the typical gamer trick of “OK this is a dangerous area so I will save here so I can re-load if things go south.” There’s not really a “death penalty” in the game (there is some minor XP debt), so I don’t care about that for saves. BUT, when I am picking a new skill I know nothing about, it’d be nice to be able to save the freaking game first so if I find out after trying it that I hate the skill, I can re-load and pick a different one. Not giving solo players the ability to do this is absolutely unjustifiable.

Story/Ambience - 6/10
The story and game atmosphere is mediocre. It doesn’t “suck”, of course… but it could be a lot better. The idea has so much potential — demons swarming all over London being battled by modern-day Knights Templar. Sadly it doesn’t really “come out” in the game because things are too generic or simply not done. The quests are just a few sentences of silent text in a window — no voice acting, no cutscenes, none of that. And for a solo game, the campaign has an awful lot of “kill 10 demons in this zone” types of quests — which I usually associate with an MMORPG (and even then, with bad ones). I would have liked to see more here. However, the quest simplicity is not shocking since this is an “action/RPG” hybrid, not a pure RPG. I could forgive that if the zones didn’t all look like they were basically the same. Part of this is of course due to their level engine, which generates each level at random for you, making it different each time you play. This should in theory add to replayability, but since the chunks they work with have very little variety, I’m not sure I’d even be able to remember if a given zone was any different the next time through. Hell I can’t tell one zone from another the FIRST time through. More than once I have gone to an incorrect zone with a similar name to the one I’m supposed to be in, and gotten stuck looking for a boss monster and not finding him, and been utterly bewildered until I realized this was not the right zone — because they all pretty much look the same. They needed a much greater variety to the zones here.

Fun - 8/10
Surprisingly, despite all of these technical flaws (or technical mediocrity), the game is rather fun to play. My Blademaster, who is a dual-wielding sword fighter, is pretty darn awesome in combat. The effects are cool, and there is nothing more fun than mowing down a street full of demons and undead. If you’re in the mood to just turn off your brain and go kill something, HGL is a great way to do it. However, don’t go looking for sophistication or depth, because there isn’t much. It’s sort of like a solo demon-killing version of COH. Great action, no real depth — and probably not much replayability.

Overall - 7/10 (straight average of the 6 scores)

If you are looking for an action game with some character level and stat development, this is your game. If you are looking for a straight FPS or a solid RPG, though, I’d look elsewhere. I’m happy with it because at night after work I often want to just shut off my brain and kill things, and although COH lets me do that, this gives me some variety. But it’s not a great game… merely average.

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