Prior to the release of Hellgate: London, there were rumours of it being the “next Diablo 2”. With all the hype going around, Hellgate: London was eagerly anticipated by gamers everywhere, and as has been proven time and time again, the rumors were just rumors, and Diablo’s shoes were far too big for Hellgate London to fill.
Hellgate kicks off with an impressive video showing the opening of several portals which have allowed demons from hell to travel between worlds, ultimately ending in the near complete extermination of human kind. Of course there is a small remaining human contingent who is determined to take back planet earth.
In the beginning, Hellgate does offer up a lot of fun. The classes are familiar, allowing the player to choose from Guardian, Blademaster and other classic fantasy stereotypes. Like any RPG, the player’s initial character choice plays a determining role in the type of play style that they will have to adopt to succeed; for example, a Blademaster will enjoy a Hack ‘n Slash style of gaming whilst the Marksman will assume more of a Shoot-em-up based method of play. The initial action and fighting in Hellgate is extremely enjoyable.
Any fan of Hack ‘n Slash RPGs is bound to have a lot of fun in the beginning stages of Hellgate London. However, its biggest flaw is the rate at which the early enjoyment begins to wear thin. Hellgate follows a boringly linear storyline, and it takes no genius to figure out that Flagship Studios focused their efforts on the fight scenes and completely forgot what makes a game meaningful and fun; the story – the curse word of the gaming industry.
While there isn’t a man alive today who would deny that slashing away at demons all day is productive and enjoyable, I’m sure we’d all agree that if you’re not given enough of a reason, it becomes just a bit boring after eight hours.
Your mission in Hellgate is to put an end to the encroaching evil, and to do that you need to trace it back. Sounds simple? Well, that may be, but when the only people who can impart the necessary wisdom required to do so happen to live at the other end of a demon-infested subway, words like “fun” and “enticing” seem to lose their oomph. After stumbling your way there and back several times over, with an unchanging storyline, the game becomes a bit of a boring grind.
Hellgate London makes use of the standard RPG leveling and character development dynamic. In order to advance and level up, the player must complete quests. However, with very little story to back these quests up, and just two basic varieties (gather and kill), the quests fail to compel and are sadly lacking in originality. After enough time, questing becomes boring, like so many other aspects of the game.
With each level, you unlock new abilities. These are limited to your reach within the skill tree, exactly like the mechanic used in Diablo. The leveling process in Hellgate can actually be quite rewarding, usually allowing the player to either learn a new skill, or improve an existing one.
We must be fair, Hellgate London does have a few fairly decent qualities. The graphics are at least solid and mostly on par with other games in its generation. Environment detail in particular is quite impressive, and the architecture does the “gloomy post-apocalyptic London” bit rather convincingly.
The character development and leveling system is nothing new, but it works well enough. For gamers who are not particularly concerned with things like story and depth, Hellgate could actually provide something worthwhile.
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