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Hellgate: London is set in a ruined London of 2038, the devastation caused by the titular Hellgate opening up in 2018 and spewing forth all manner of demons from Hell. Take your place in the front line in the war against the demon horde in this action RPG...
Good review, conclusion is very true, the levels do get a bit repetative but its very fun, i like to think of it more as a co-op game, great to play with friends.
I have decided, in my wisdom, that it is like Baldurs gate.
Does the review say that? Reading it now...
Well, being playing this now for a few hours and the review is spot on. I play a fair few RPG's and have to admit the first few areas are very easy, literally just to get you used to it if you don't normally play this type of game. Challenge is literally thrown down when you enter the first gate and get your first boss. Pretty tough larger demon with Imps everywhere. Most of the tunnels and sewer systems do look very samey at this point, hopefully further you get into it you will start seeing a difference.
Not forgetting Wart! This game has been created by the origional Diablo team, you have to go and find his leg and lo & behold he gives you his wooden one as a reward!
It is a decent game but just seems to be missing something, already I've been thinking on the lines of yet another tunnel system! Most side quests will actually take you into various tunnels and sewers, mostly the main quests so far to move the story on have taken me outside.
With playing The Witcher alongside this I have to admit that The Witcher is a far superior title alround. Backdrops, characters and everything else is just a lot more polished. Not forgetting that The Witcher has full dialogue wheras Hellgate there is reams and reams of text to read through. You will find yourself flicking through the text and picking up on any highlighted words and just accepting the quest. Surely RPG's have moved on some!
It is very different in its own little way and I will play it through as it has managed to peak my interest. No doubt expansions will come out for it with Hellgates opening up in other cities in either the UK or European cities. All we need now is an addonn up here in the north. Hellgate in the toon like!!!
Hi Ferral, I agree with your review of Hellgate London. I'm just about to check out the demo of The Witcher now.
I think I might give this a go now
It's a nice fair review, and unfortunately reflects the game. This title had so much promise, and just... failed..
I was incredibly surprised that you couldn't take your single player character online because I'm sure at one point there were plans to allow you to play your online character in single player. Perhaps they got dropped for fear of cheating via editing the files (much like Phantasy Star online did via a USB memory card)
You couldn't use your Diablo II character online with the provided service, unless you directly connected to a pre-known IP.
I think there's a similar reason behind both; your single player save files are stored locally. You can easily mod them to change your level, gear, stats etc. So this makes complete sense to me.
Yes it's unfortunate, but it's that or players being able to choose their characters stats at will.
Hi, I'm new to your site, but I found your hellgate london review and found it to be one of the most accurate reviews of the game that I have seen! I wanted to thank you for your fair assessment of it. Most sites' reviews seemed to completely misunderstand the game.
But I did want to point out a couple of points I disagree with. Primarily, you assessed the monsters' AI as being sort of one-note, saying that most creatures "just run at you". This is not accurate, so I wanted to briefly touch upon what the monster design in this game is like.
There are about 25 major templates for monsters in the game (each is then subdivided into similar-yet different monsters, as they were in Diablo 2). Each template has different offensive tactics, and different powers that they can use depending on the situation. This means that each monster grouping must be approached differently to achieve optimal safe killing speed. Some examples of the different monster behaviors:
Ravagers: these little bastards will get about 40 feet away, then take a huge leap at you, doing massive damage if they land on your head. Once they land, they don't give you time to sit there and keep attacking them, they run away in different directions, hoping to get another chance to jump on your head. This monster's tactic underscores the importance of active dodging (one of the huge differences between Hellgate combat and other online RPGs). If you want to survive, you cant let these suckers land on you.
Imps: These frontline demons have a wide array of equipment. They try to flank you with their guns before switch to swords and rushing you.
Stalkers: These beasts will never rush you. They prefer to stay far away and shoot you with fireballs from a distance. If you run up to close range, beware, because they will switch to a highly damaging short-range fire breath attack.
Dunder Liche: These monsters are the bane of melee fighters. They will never rush you. Instead, they will unleash slow moving balls of spectral damage, and just back away from you, not only forcing you to run in the path of their damage balls, but probably leading you into more packs of monsters. Yes, these nasties will kite YOU.
Anyway, there are many more examples, but I wanted to point out that there is a good amount of variety in the behavior of the different monsters.
But mainly I wanted to thank you for your fair review! I've been playing HG:L for 3 months now (I'm loving the hardcore mode), and am having an absolute blast.
nice read thanks!