Hellgate London goes gold, demo this week

[Steven W]

Details in the press release:

http://gaming.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=10139

[virokka]

it looks pretty cool dont know if i want to pay for extra features though

[Whiternoise]

Requirements

Below are the minimum recommended system specs for the Hellgate: London Beta. Please keep in mind that these specs are not finalized in any way, and only apply to the Alpha that you are participating in. Over time, as optimizations are made and the game nears completion, revised specs will be released. Thanks, and have a great time with the game!

* OS: Windows XP with SP2 or Windows Vista
* Processor: 1 .8GHz or faster (2.4GHz for Vista)
* RAM: 1GB or more (2GB for Vista)
* Video: DirectX 9.0c/10 compatible device w/ 128MB RAM or better and Pixel Shader 2.0 support; requires NVIDIA GeForce 6200/ATI Radeon 9000 chipset or greater
* Audio: DirectX 9.0c compatible device
* Disc drive: 8x DVD or faster
* Hard drive: 6 GB or more free space
* Input: Keyboard and mouse
* Internet: Connection required for multiplayer

Had to dig around on the site for a bit, but if anyone's wondering..

[Tobeman]

Have some singleplayer demo mirrors:

http://www.3ddownloads.com/RPG/Hellg...ondon_Demo.exe
http://www.4players.de/4players.php/...oad/46470.html
http://computergames.ro/en/downloads...ndon-demo.html
http://files.filefront.com/Hellgate+.../fileinfo.html
http://www.fangaming.com/fileinfo.php?fileid=2450
http://www.fileshack.com/file.x/1129...e:+London+Demo
http://www.fileplanet.com/176044/170...e:-London-Demo
http://www.gamershell.com/download_21548.shtml

1.4gb

[virokka]

it looks good demo dl now

[virokka]

the demo seems pretty good but only with the sword class - the gun felt very poor and innacurate while playing

[JIM_BOB7813]

The graphics don't look fantastic from what ive seen, especially when compared to UT3. How does multiplayer work for this game? Is it an MMO-style like GuildWars?

[virokka]

im going to pass on this i think and go for witcher instead

[acrobat]

Tempted to break my NDA but I might just wait until I'm allowed to speak. I heard the demo was pretty rubbish by the way, compared to the real thing.

And if what I heard about it only giving you a handful of levels it true, then that was a big mistake. Thats not to say more levels will make you adore the game or anything though, just... its rare that a game which gives just a few levels out of 50 in their demo, gives a good impression.

[shackahn]

anyone know of a cheap pre order for this game?

Played the demo thought it was average at best but thing the game will be good

[jonathan_phang]

I just download and played this and it felt well - a bit not right. I cant put my finget on it. Graphically it ran well, but looked a little uninspired really. Felt a little disconnecte to the combat (Sword guy) and, well, it just got uninstalled.. No more wasting of my Bioshock time

But maybe the full thing will be better. I think that I was borderline for this game anyway, so this isnt going to ruin my world if i dont like it.

[kalniel]

Tempted to break my NDA but I might just wait until I'm allowed to speak. I heard the demo was pretty rubbish by the way, compared to the real thing.

And if what I heard about it only giving you a handful of levels it true, then that was a big mistake. Thats not to say more levels will make you adore the game or anything though, just... its rare that a game which gives just a few levels out of 50 in their demo, gives a good impression.

Hasn't your NDA expired already? There's been a bunch of posting from other beta testers already saying their NDA expired.

[PenguinJim]

I didn't really like the demo immediately. Then I found it a bit better, once I had both classes up to level 5, I was starting to enjoy myself. I've just started another Blademaster and taken him to level five and had a bit of a blast. Definitely looking forward to the full game again, now, after an initially disappointing demo.

[acrobat]

I didn't really like the demo immediately. Then I found it a bit better, once I had both classes up to level 5, I was starting to enjoy myself.

indeed

Hasn't your NDA expired already? There's been a bunch of posting from other beta testers already saying their NDA expired.

Just checking now. And then hopefully I can write a bit about what I think about it.

[acrobat]

Ahh the NDA is over. Ok well here goes.

I only got in the beta a week or so ago. So this is not as all ecompassing as it could have been. I only had time to try one class, and I only leveled up into the teens. But I got a good taste of the game which I'm really glad about. By the way: Its best to either not read this, or read it to the end, because some of the best things about this game is near the end. Ok, so first things first:

What is this?:
This game is cool. I am pretty impressed. Its so modern... it uses all the latest tricks and technology of modern online gaming. I had a lot of fun playing it too, but its mainly the technology that I was really interested in. Having said all this though, I'm not sure if I would buy it or not, but LOTS of people will and they will love it. So its the kind of game you need to read reviews carefully to know if YOU will like it or not. Because some people will love it. Some people will hate it.
One easy way to start, is to mention that this game is kind of just a descendent of Diablo 2. Its kind of Diablo 3 really.... But there are some big twists. You play in 1st person or 3rd person view - not a top down view. But there are some other major differences too.
But I would be willing to guess that, if you loved Diablo 2, you will probably love this game. If you hated Diablo 2, you would probably not like this. But there are a few twists, so read on just to be sure...

Character Customisation:
Its dead simple and a not particularly in depth. Its better than some games (Two Worlds), but its not a patch on the likes of Vanguard or something. You can't make a character that looks like you (unless you happen look like one of the models in the game ), but you can customise your guy/girl a bit anyway. Complete with typical modern, spazzy emo trendy musician wannabe hair cuts that many young people favour nowdays.

Graphics:
Good. The graphics are good. Not amazing, but not average either. Its not as good as the likes of the new unreal or Crysis, and maybe not even as good as Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. (Although that game does look particularly awesome). And its not quite as good as the very latest single player games. But its close. And its not fair to compare MMO style game graphics to single player game graphics. But to compare it with other MMO type games, its a definite step up. And a thousand times better than WoW or Everquest etc. There is really good fog, reflective surfaces on stuff, generally just a really nice looking game. The only downside, is that its a bit claustrophobic. You spend a large portion of the game, underground. Because thats where humans live in this modern version of London etc... But I am fine with that. What I didn't really like, is that when you finally get to go outside, the outside areas are all enclosed spaces with low sky. Imagine something like a Counterstrike map. Basically, you are outside on a high street in central London. But there are shops and buldings on all sides of the map, and you can't see beyond them. So you are sealed in by buildings, and consequently, there are no long distance views - at all. So don't ever expect it to be like Oblivion, or Two Worlds, or Vanguard or anything. Because you will never be looking into the distance and seeing long rolling hills with winding rivers and the sun setting in the distance etc.. Also, the sky is usually either very cloudy, or firey like hell. And its fairly low... So basically, outside only just about feels outside-ish. And it is quite claustrophobic.

One thing that I did quite like though, is that some of these little zones, aren't that little. Again, I only got into the teens, but the early zones where really small and I was quite worried. But by about level 10, I was going to zones that where bigger and around the size of one of the old world Everquest dungeons. (Have you guys played that? If so, they are like the size of Lower Guk or something - although - without the awesome layout).

Style:
Errr, its like modern, sci fi, fantasy, kind of thing. Kind of Bladerunner-ish. A bit of WoW mixed with Unreal Tournament kind of thing. Its good.

Performance:
Uber. I have quite a good PC, but I had the game absolutely cranked to maximum, with maximum AA and maximum AF and stuff. It looked really nice, and my frame rate was dead smooth. Not only that, but there was very little in the way of hitching, and the one or two I did experience, where most likely my fault for not defragging my hard disk for 6 months, and having all kinds of crap running in the background. (I always have firefox open with about 15-20 tabs in it - and I never disable my virus shield for gaming unless I absolutely have to). So the performance was really good. Other beta testers said it wasn't so good in DX10, and needed a beefier PC, although it was meant to look even more pretty graphics wise, so is probably worth it.
And lastly, I never experienced any lag. At all. I am in England, and yet I was playing on an American Beta server with over 2000 players on it, and there was no lag. Which bodes well for the full game.

Gameplay - quests/story:
One thumb up, one thumb down. Basically, the thumb up is that they have a proper story line and a proper "main quest". So if you have played Morrowind, Oblivion and Two Worlds and stuff like that... you will know what I mean by a "main quest". Its a proper story line, and you can follow it, doing quests that progress that main story line. This is a big deal to me, because even if a game is pretty crappy.... a decent storyline can actually keep me playing. So Vanguard screwed up royally here, because they didn't have one at all, and consequently, it suffers the same thing Everquest did. You start off and everything is cool, then you get to about level 20 and you realise you are getting a bit bored, and all you are doing is grinding through the levels, by killing millions and millions of virtual creatures... At that point, I usually start thinking about quitting the game. But when the game happens to have a "main quest", I am often compelled to atleast keep playing to see what happens in the story.
Admittedly, I didn't really know wtf was going on in the story. And I didn't see enough of it to say if its a good story or not..... But it HAS one And thats important I think. Because when most people start to "feel the grind", the story can be enough to keep them playing.

The one thumb down, is that besides the main quest, the game is made up of two thousand trillian billion zillion mini "side quests". (Aaargh!). Some people lap this stuff up.... But personally, I bloody hate it. I hate feeling like a virtual errand boy. If I wanted to run from A to B doing mindless tasks, I'd get a paper round or something and atleast I would be making money in real life... The quests are ok... But they are just bloody side quests, and it annoys me. One of the first ones is to recover a kid's lost peg leg. Because its based in London, he's a little cockey "Oi guvna! Elp me foind moi lost leg will ya!" kind of kid. But theres nothing to it... You go to a zone, kill a bunch of baddies, and bingo, you found his leg. Most people, after about 50 of these "quests", just stop reading the dialogue, and spam through the dialogue until its in their journal. And then they just rush off and kill stuff until it says quest completed, and then hand it in. Thats the bulk of the gameplay in this game. So you can hopefully make your own minds up from that. To me, it sounds crap. But it can't be that bad and not everyone must think like that... or there wouldn't be 10 million odd people playing World of Warcraft.

Loot / Lewt / L00t / Lawlzlootszorszlawlawlwololol ^ ^ dog ears rofflecoptorz etc /
This is a loot fest game. Love it or hate it, thats what it is. All games with RPG elements have loot in, I know. But this is truly a relative of Diablo, in that you are constantly looting stuff. And you are therefore, constantly checking its stats against your current gear, and you are hoarding the good stuff into your inventory, to wear or sell later, and discarding the stuff that isn't especially valuable. This alone makes the game really addictive... Becuase you are thinking, "I need to log out and get some work done", and then a pair of boots drop that increase your running speed, so you put them on. And as you are putting them on, something attacks you and you kill it, and it drops an awesome rifle... "Ooooh! NICE!" you think... and you add that to your inventory too. And then you think, "Hmm I'll just try out my new rifle before I log out"... and then you spend another half an hour doing that.
So basically, this game is crack and smack mixed together with some chocolate. But although some people will just jump in head first and you won't see them again for another 4 years.... some people will be tired of this kind of thing, and it might just not be your cup of tea. Maybe its because I've done all this before for several years in Everquest.... or maybe its because im getting old..... but I sometimes get the feeling that life is too short for me to be sitting in my bedroom hoarding virtual phat loot....

Don't let that put you off though. If you have free time, and you want to play something fun, then play it and enjoy it, because thats what its for, and you deserve to entertain yourself. So don't feel guilty. But if you do feel shame or guilt by playing something like this (perhaps you are 30+ and you have a family and a girlfriend/wife and a pet that needs feeding and walking, and you have mates that want you to out drinking with them etc...), then it might be something you would want to opt out of. But only you can decide that. I have been on both sides of the fence. And I often flop back and forth too... Sometimes I think "I am too old for this", and then I find myself hungover on a Sunday with bugger all else to do.... so I mayaswell play it and enjoy myself. So there ya go.


(continued on the next page)

[acrobat]

Technology and Grouping and Combat:
Technology
What makes this game different and special.... is this. (imo). The game is heavily "instanced". Like... 90% instanced even. For that reason, this is not a MMO (massively multiplayer online - game). Its just a MO (multiplayer online). You might be on a server with 2000 people, but you will never see them all or even a lot of them. Anyway. the way it works, is that you are running around in the tube stations and stuff under London. In these areas, there are other real players running around too. These areas are like the "hubs" of the world. And these are the areas where you get your quests, and you buy and sell your gear. So basically, you talk to some NPC, and they tell you that they hate zombies or whatever, and want you to kill 10 of them... and they tell you where to go. So you check your map, and you see little portals throughout the tube station, and you just find the right one to send you to that area. When you load into that area, you load in to your own private instance. So you will never see other players that you aren't grouped with, running around doing stuff in there. If you don't know about instancing, it might be worth reading about it elsewhere. But this is pretty much the crux of it. The down side is that its a lonely experience. You feel like you are playing the game by yourself, offline. You are just running around fighting hoardes of creatures in an abandoned subway station or wherever, and the fact that you are playing online, is hardly even noticeable. The plus side though, is that nobody gets in the way, nobody steals your loot, and there is nobody to annoy you.

But the major plus side is that it allows the developers to do much more, technology wise. For example, in a true MMO/MMORPG/etc, you couldn't shoot some barrels and have them explode and blow up a bunch of other nearby barrels and make a big explosion that destroys a bunch of boxes and kills a bunch of nearby mobs... That just wouldn't really work because there could be hundreds of people in that area and that explosion would have to be simultaneously presented to everybody. But in a private instance, its almost like playing a single player game. So you get all the goodness of real time explosions and stuff. This is cool. And it works well for this game. Whether I would prefer it to be a true MMO or not... I don't know. I suppose its personal opinion. But basically, don't play this game expecting it to be a really social experience, but it isn't. It CAN be, but it generally isn't really like that.

Grouping:
Although the fighting areas are instanced, you can still form groups, and you can still go into these instances with your group mates. So it is private, and you will never see people you didn't invite in there... But you can go in there with a group of your choosing. So it can still sometimes feel like a real MMO. It actually works really well too. There is an option to allow "auto grouping", which you can turn on or off. Its great... Because if you have a quest and there is someone else nearby who has the same quest, the game will automatically team you up, and let you both into the same instance. So you go into a dungeon/area to kill a well known bad guy, and as you start fighting your way towards the enemy, you will see another player come up behind you. They are your team mate and the game put you together, and now you can stay together and fight together. It works great. So although I said it feels lonely most of the time (and it does), its not always like that, and you can group with real people. I think this might get even better for people who play with real life friends, or for people who join guilds/clans/whatever, and then you can play with people in your guild and say, "anyone want to and kill xxxxxx?" and you can go and do it with your online friends. And again, you get all the benefits of it being instanced, so nobody will get in your way, and you get to blow up stuff together and its almost like playing a proper single player game over a LAN or something.
Also, whenever you are in these private instances, you can still communicate with the rest of the world via the chat window too, which helps.

Combat:
The combat is probably the strongest point in this game. Unfortunately, I haven't got high enough level to really know for sure though But its REALLY promising. Basically, its like this. The game is a FPS and RPG in equal measure. If you have played a MMORPG like WoW, Everquest, Vanguard, Etc.... then you will understand this and probably be impressed too. You still have the spells and the abilities that your class has, and you can trigger them whenever you want. But instead of your basic attacks being done automatically (auto-attack), you actually do them all yourself with guns! like a first person shooter.
This is really cool I think. I think there are proper melee classes who may not use guns, but my Summoner is basically a mage type character... and yet he had a pair of guns One in each hand. Or you can just use one bigger rifle. So the game really plays more like an online First Person Shooter than anything else... You run around shooting stuff, and blowing stuff up with rocket launchers and stuff. I really loved it, and it was such a big change for me - to play something that resembles an MMORPG.... but with PROPER combat finally! So I knew nothing about the game, and I start off as a Summoner (like a Mage), and I start off in an alley way, and I realise I've got a gun... I then summon a pet, and yet I've still got this gun. That right there is something really new - to me atleast. I then see a zombie, and I shoot at it. The gun fires a bullet that sticks in stuff and then explodes... As I described above, all the combat areas in this game are instanced, so the game doesn't need to hold back on explosions and stuff, because they aren't being presented to hundreds of players. Its just for you and anyone you might be grouped with. So I end up with two of these guns anyway, one in each hand, and I am fighting in a dungeon, and it kind of resembles the Serious Sam games, in that I get attacked by hoardes of enemies... But they all run for my pets, and they all surround my pets to fight them, so I fire my explosive little bullets into the hoard of enemies, and the explosion blasts them all to pieces! Some of them explode and bits of bloody body parts spray all over the place (not really gory though), and some of them just die from the explosion.

So its super cool basically, its like a FPS but online. That fact alone changes a lot of things about this game. Because where as you can get bored by "the grind" and the endless little quests/tasks in MMORPG's, the fact that you are actually running around shooting stuff... can make it seem completely different. Because some of us played Serious Sam and Quake and Doom and stuff for ages... so this has gotta be better than those games, because its kind of the same thing - just with these quests/tasks in addition.

But there is one other twist too, in that you are still an RPG character. So I may have had a pair of guns and I was running around gibbing stuff.... but I have a hotbar, and I have most of the stuff you would expect a mage/Summoner to have from other RPG's. So I can summon pets, and I can heal them... and I can actually drain the health from dead corpses to heal myself, and I also have a gate/teleport spell that takes me home. And at later levels, you just keep getting more and more "spells"/skills that just make you more and more of an RPG character. But with the guns in addition... its just great because its best of both worlds. None of this is a last minute addition either... They are all key integral parts of the game. So there is no shortage of guns and they all work work brilliantly. I got one gun that was like a flame thrower, and it actually spewed out a kind of liquidy gas... that I could spray all over the ground infront of me (or wherever), and the enemies would run into it and get seriously injured. Or I could run around and get all the enemies to chase me and then I could just spray the ground around me and watch them all die horribly. And I had another gun in one hand that fired an electric beam that stunned enemies, and then I had a normal gun in my other hand. So I was holding left mouse to fire the stun gun, and right mouse button to fire the damage gun, so I could run around killing strong enemies like that too - all while my pets assisted me, and I assisted the pets too with heals and healing myself.

I did wonder if it was all a bit mindless, and a bit spammy... but even if it is, its still quite good fun and quite satisfying... but what really interests me, is that it does progress properly as you level. So by about level 10, I started coming across the occasional enemy who was huge and had lots of hit points. I had to circle strafe and run around a lot while shooting him, and he took a LOT of damage to bring him down, and he was fighting back with weapons of his own. He was killing my little pets constantly, so I was constantly summoning new pets while fighting him too. So its not always fighting hoardes of mobs... it does get a bit more one on one at times - which is important.

The start:
One of the few negative things I have to say, is that I didn't think the start was that great. Its partly because it was only a beta, so it didn't have a proper intro and stuff. But I also didn't think the story did a very good job at bringing us in. Compared to say... Oblivion, its poor story telling in comparison. In Oblivion for example, you are following the king around and then he gets killed right infront of you and gives you the amulet and then tells you to find his son and basically save the world... So its all kind of big, and involving. This game is not like that. You basically kind of stumble across some dead dude and you have to take something from him and give it to some other guy later on... Nothing is really explained very well, and it just doesn't really suck you in at all. That could all change of course when you progress a bit further, and maybe the story draws you in at that point. But I never felt that at first, and thats silly because a lot of people will judge a game based on its first few hours.

The demo:
One crucial flaw was that the demo was only a few levels (evidently). I know this was a cruicial flaw, because my first few hours I wasn't impressed. The story hadn't sucked me in (as I just described), and I had a few silly mini quests, which weren't very interesting too. And I only leveled a couple of times, so I hadn't got much in the way of cool spells or cool weapons. So if the game ended then, I would be thinking a great big, "MEH!!!!". But give it another few more levels... and you start finding yourself addicted and all of a sudden, 4 hours have gone and you are sitting at your PC like a junky, fixated at some pair of pants with extra stamina on them or whatever. So basically, think twice about judging this game by the demo alone.

PVP:
It has it... evidently. I still haven't seen it yet, and I don't know how it works. Which is annoying. Because PVP can make a decent game, into the most awesomestest game ever. And it can also turn people off depending on how it works... I wish I could tell you more, but I can't. Hopefully you can find that out somewhere else. But to me, knowing that its possible is a huge bonus to me. Its something that makes me think I should get into this game because in the later levels, its not going to just be about boring raids like Everquest and WoW and stuff, (maybe it does have those too), but the PVP aspect in those later stages could be really great, and something to really look forward to.

Conclusion:
I think thats about it. I can imagine former Diablo players, and perhaps many current WoW players, and probably crap loads of other people too.... will end up seriously into this game, and will be playing it a long time. But some people might just not be arsed with it, and the virtual loot collecting and mini quests are not for everyone, and therefore, not everyone is going to love it. And also, although the graphics are good, its no Crysis, so its not really going to draw in many people who are just interested in the eye candy.

I think if this game existed for the last few months or so, and without thinking about the future.... it would be the biggest and best online game by far. With the PVP aspect (and even without it...), the game kind of offers you what most other shooters offer you... Its maybe not as "pure" as the new Unreal Tournament 3. And its maybe not as "uber" as Crysis. And it maybe doesn't have the strategy and tactics and depth of the likes of ET:QW / Battlefield etc. But its still a good shooter. But then it has the online elements, the questing, the addictive loot, and most importantly.... all the RPG aspects to add even MORE depth to the combat, and it ends up seeming like a pretty awesome game to me. So personally, I think its better than anything else out there at the moment.

But with the likes of POTBS and AoC, and "WAR", on the horizon, I don't know if this game will live up to those. And theres also Huxley and Tabula Rasa which I know hardly anything about, so maybe this game can't live up to those either. And then there are the shooters like UT3 and Crysis... So its a hard one to recommend. Its a good game, and its up there with the best today. But tomorrow, maybe it won't be able to compete.
Ultimately though, I think its all down to what you personally like. The loot and quests are the bulk of the game, so you'll either get sucked in to the game and we wont see you again, or you'll not like that and you'll avoid the game. Only you can really decide that, (or ideally try it out somehow), and see for yourself.