Hellgate: London Review

GameZone sees some charm in Hellgate: London, but its flaws drag the experience down to a 7.1.

Hellgate wants to be a Diablo-esque type of game, with the random monsters and items generator each time you enter an area, the idea is that you never know what you are going to get when you enter a new section (or return to). The developers try and keep things relatively fair as you enter areas in the beginning of the game that shouldn’t provide too much trouble for your character and allow them to level up. Clearly using a familiar leveling system, the game provides a current experience point total along with the total required for the next level. Now depending upon what type of character you chose, you are allowed skill point(s) to put towards the skills you start off with and when certain level requirements are met, additional skills are then offered. For example, my character is a marksman type, complete with machine guns and modern weaponry. Initially I only possessed the steady shot skill. As I leveled up I was allowed to keep beefing up my steady shot skill (because the game actually gets this part right), because you aren’t that steady a shot in the beginning. But as my character got more skilled, I gained new abilities, like grenade-throwing skills and dual-wielding abilities and about 20 more. The point being, your character has quite a bit of leeway in terms of really customizing him/her. Plus the intuitive inventory system and relatively easy to navigate menus makes the downside to the action almost enjoyable.

The look and feel of Hellgate is hot and cold. The city really looks good, burned out, massive destruction and you get to wade through it. The HUD displays are clean and the lighting effects along with the general demon design is pretty good. But, they do use recycled location ideas and creatures but only change the colors. How many exposed basements can one person explore before realizing that it is the same thing over and over with subtle differences. The character designs are smooth and decent looking but I noticed that everyone is too healthy and clean for a game like this. The citizens and even the Knights Templar should be sweaty, rough looking and dirty. There is no running showers, there is not hygiene in this future, everyone has hair that belongs in a “Garnier” commercial and scar/blemish free skin. I would have loved it if every character had bad teeth and looked like the business end of a donkey.