Hellgate: London Cover Story, Day Two

1Up has published a second installment to their five-day Hellgate: London feature, this time offering a three-page hands-on preview of the action RPG.

For a look at what a more powered-up character could do we jumped into a midlevel Evoker, one of the two class options in the Cabalist faction. Members of the other faction, Summoners, get to call up demons to fight for them. And, as Roper demonstrated with a high-level character, that includes the named ones at the top of the demon food chain, like one called the Reaper he let out to rampage. But the attraction of the Evokers as the main magic blasters in the game ultimately won out: Most of their skill tree is devoted to different branches of magic such as spectral and electrical. As we learned once we began selecting some spells, that’s only part of what it takes to unleash your mystical power.

For magic to function in the Hellgate world, it needs to be channeled through focus items. These not only allow the Evoker to cast spells but they also determine the potency of the magic and can add to the spell being cast. In effect, they become magic guns. This two-part system brings with it a lot of flexibility. For instance, we put a spell called Spectral Lash to good use taking down individual demons. Channeled through focus items that looked liked crystal-spiked bracers, Spectral Lash would strike like a whip and stay attached to a target, doing spectral-based damage, for as long as we held down the button. Evokers get to play with some crazy guns as well, like the Jade Hydra we tested: It fired swarms of homing magic bugs that created a deadly luminescent swarm around enemies while inflicting heavy poison damage.