Hellgate: London Preview

The editors at Ripten have conjured up some initial impressions of Hellgate: London, presumably based on the game’s ongoing beta test or recently released demo.

While Flagship did a great job handling the twitch combat, they did not fair so well in the enemy AI department. The monsters in Hellgate are stupid, if not broken, as they would miss their mark on more than one occasion, jumping right past me, getting caught in the environment, never to be seen again. This is particularly disconcerting due to the fact that Hellgate ships on October 31st. Speaking of stupid, the placement of in game advertising totally takes you out of the experience. Seeing Nvidia and Dark Horse posters right behind the main quest givers screams shameless promotion.

Problems loom ominously over Hellgate like storm clouds over London, however if technical difficulties are clouds, the addictive nature of collecting rare items and exploring randomized dungeons is this game’s sunlight. The replay value is virtually endless as every time you venture into an area it’s different than the time before. Bosses are also randomized throughout the dungeons, making it nearly impossible to know when you will encounter one, and when you do, it will likely scare the crap out.