Hellgate: London – PC – Review

Taking place in an apocalyptic,
futuristic England, you stroll into this war-torn wastleland armed to the
teeth with a very large chip on your shoulder. Don’t think about winning this
campaign, that’s a foregone conclusion. Instead, you must kill, scavenge and
unpgrade not only yourself but your abilities and weapons. If this sounds
strangely familiar then you have been playing games for a while, for although
it is a tried-and-true formula, Hellgate is an enjoyable experience provided
you come armed with patience and a heavy-duty system.

As a gamer, you should know that
setting up Hellgate can be a long and somewhat pain-in-the-butt experience.
The title takes quite a while to load as it is quite large, but then –
depending on your system – you may need to go to Microsoft’s Web site for a "hotfix."
Then load the thing on, restart the computer and then boot up Hellgate again.
Do I sound a bit frustrated? Well then you get my drift; not only is it not a
smooth experience for Vista users, but the game seems to take forever to load,
and this does include moving between sections. So while my mouth watered at
the promise of tearing a very large hole in some giant creature, my
frustration was beginning to cause me some indigestion towards the game.
Finally, after numerous reboots and a drink or two, I managed to begin
playing.

 
"I’m afraid you must pay a toll if you
want to ride the trolley, guv’na."

First things first, you must
register the software and register your online account using the same "key"
provided in the game case. Now I understand piracy and I do not support it,
but this was the kind of game that I would have liked to send my Dad once I
was done playing. He digs this sort of thing and I am convinced he would have
enjoyed this title, but since you can only register the key code once, this
makes for a cheesy way to combat piracy. So instead of someone else getting
enjoyment out of this title when I am finished, it will sit on my shelf for
years, only to be eventually thrown away – sad. Ok, enough whining, on to the
good stuff. When you finally do start the game, you will discover that you can
choose from one of many character classes that make up this futuristic Knights
Templar. There’s the standard soldier, the melee fighter, the sorcerer type,
the gadget maker and so on and so forth. You can change their hair color,
clothing, sex and all sorts of other things to give you the idea that the game
is really heavily involved; it really isn’t.

Now, the beginning of the game is
essentially a tutorial for you to learn the hot keys, the actions, how to
attack and collect the loot you find in the game. This loot is of most
importance as the game really revolves around scavenging. Taking its cues from
post-apocalyptic movies, you are constantly shooting up boxes and finding
lockers and, of course, blowing away anything moving that isn’t human, as it
may or may not have money or items contained within its grasp. Now most of the
items you find won’t be of any use to you as there are class-specific items
that can only be equipped by the correct character, but that doesn’t mean
anything in this world, because you can always sell it for cash and then buy
items that you can use. There is also a futuristic forge where you can take
items and metals and combine them to make a more potent "insert noun here."
The point is, the game really wants you to go find stuff and either use it or
sell it. This can be a terribly addictive thing as you constantly warp to
other parts of London in the hopes of finding some rare and expensive item.

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.

 
"Sadly, the profession of Demon dental
hygenist has a high mortality rate and really bad 401K."

The game does feature some pretty
good sound effects and orchestral accompaniment. Some creatures shriek at you
and begin running at you with a wild abandon, others die with nary a whimper.
The voice-over tutorial and sometime in-game voice work sounds good and clear,
a rich robust voice that probably shouldn’t be so upbeat considering rat is
the meat of choice in this bleak future. The sound is solid.

Now, the game can be controlled
either from the first-person perspective or third person. The controls are the
same either way and you may want to tweak things around a bit. The game
defaults to a 7.1 speaker setup so watching (and listening to the awesome
intro movie) can be strange initially. The controls are pretty decent; the
developers clearly wanted a game controlled with the most common of defaults.
There is an awful lot of buttons to push in this title and if you are like me
and like to play your games in the dark, then finding the right key in .000481
seconds can be irritating. But I must admit, the action comes in generous
heaps and I love the weird humor that can be found in this title. For example,
the "Sumatran Rat Monkey" is an enemy found in the tunnels. This is the crux
creature in Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive movie, arguably one of the goofiest and
gory movies ever made. That should give you some idea of how this game can be.

Unfortunately, the game is too
much action and not enough RPG quest-style play. The lite quests you do get
involved with are nothing more than a couple of uninspired sentences that
point you to take item "X" to professor "Z." From the
gut-wrenching introduction movie, I honestly had my mind made up of what kinds
of wonderful things I would need to do. It simply is not the case; you do more
wandering around, killing creatures and looting items than you do anything
else. If they could have come up with a really gonzo single-player campaign I
think it would have given the game a different set of legs. Here’s hoping
Hellgate: New York does something to improve that.

Now there is a serious multiplayer
mode to be experienced here, and initially you can only tackle a medium-level
online experience. Only by beating the single-player mode are the harder modes
unlocked and additional challenges doled out. The gist of the multiplayer mode
is to team up with other adventurers and tackle areas of London deemed too
difficult for any one person. Now when I say that I am really coming up with
my own verbage, nowhere in the game does it say that about teaming up, but it
sounds good so I wrote it. In addition, I do know that teaming up with other
players (preferably those who are not like you) makes for an enjoyable way to
pass the time. In addition, should you purchase the $9.99 subscription fee,
you will be privy to campaigns not allowed to the general public, new monsters
and some kind of cool theme missions. There was one that came out on Guy
Fawkes day that I hear was enjoyable (speaking with another online player).
However voice chat is still a bit spotty and the ability to chat in-game can
be cumbersome.

Gameplay: 7.5
The game controls easily on the movement front, but breaking in
action to press a random button can cause some frustration.

Graphics: 8.0
You had better have a hot graphics
card and equally hot system to match the demands this game has. The graphics
look good but are recycled too much for my taste. Moving from one place to
another requires the use of teleport stations. The game would have been cooler
if you had to go through checkpoints that were armed with guards and massive
turrets.

Sound: 7.0
The audio is good and does a good
job of reminding you that you are in a bad place, and can be humorous in
spots.

Difficulty: Medium
I must have killed 15 creatures
before I ever took a hit. You can go a long, long time before ever being
killed. Some creatures are so insanely difficult though, you had better be
buying and upgrading everything.

Concept: 6.0
I like the idea, but the lacking single-player campaign really hurts;
I would have loved a much more fleshed-out RPG experience.

Multiplayer: 6.5
I so wanted to get into this whole
game; the idea is great, the thought of rocking and rolling with others online
as we lay waste to all sorts of baddies is just … unfullfilling. I can’t
help but think the Gears of War multiplayer idea would have worked so much
better here.

Overall: 7.1
Hellgate: Cleveland had better get
things right where Hellgate London got them wrong.