Hellgate: London reviews

Would have been a good game, but it never really took off – its developer, Flagship Studios, went bust in July 08, and now the servers will be switched off on Jan 31st, so if you're considering buying it, your time with this game will be limited.

I must admit I was hesitant to buy the game because of the poor pre NZ release reviews it had received but am glad I did.

The game tries to fuse alot of different ideas from many previous MMO's some very successfully and some not so. From the content I have played so far I’m impressed with the games continuity and flow while not forcing the players hand (in actions) too drastically. You are limited to areas to begin with but things open up once the initial ‘opening content’ has been discovered, in my case the first few hours to level 10. The graphics are beyond expectation and far out-do any other MMORPG on the current market and the plot of the game provides an incising read to go couple with it. The game is riddled with humour and ‘in-jokes’ which make for (in my opinion) a really enjoyable experience.

The skill tree of the 2 character types I have Played so far Guardian and Engineer weren't particularly inviting to begin with but once you have played the character for a few hours and really got a feel for what they can handle, the skills that are available to that class fill the gaps in the characters class nicely. The weapons modification system is a brilliant and unique idea that allows player to fully customise a weapon for specific purposes.

The game is not without its issues. There are several major bugs causing crashes and graphical errors causing problems with gameplay, however anyone that got in at ground zero with WoW will know fledgling MMO’s are no picnic to balance and stabilise.

The game has a lot of potential if you enjoyed Diablo 2 it’s worth atleast looking into.

Worst game I've played in years,its looks and plays like a 1998 PS1 game

And there's still a (shaky) single-player component. FYI.

Having played this entire game through, online, there is much to it.

Firstly, it is called a spiritual successor to Diablo 2, because it is made by the same developers (though a different company). Having bought this game when it came out, and played it up until recently, it is not very well made.

The models are repeated, both in the looks of the instances, and of the enemies you face. You never feel like you've found something completely new

The sidequests are awful lategame

Playing online is essentially the same as singleplayer, except theres other people to trade and team up with (not as great as it sounds) and the updates come at different times

Enemies drop loot, however most items suck. For example, there are a variety of cool fun ranged weapons. Sniper rifles, rocket launchers, some interesting unique laser beam sort of ones, etc. But the only effective guns, are the automatic rifles. You have some cool looking weaponry which takes way too long to kill anything

Levelling is just a pointlessly long grind.

Overall, the game has potential, if you don't mind spending lots of time just to see what comes next, it does have a ‘not so bad’ storyline, its nothing amazing, but its not too terrible. But don't be suprised if in a few weeks, after completing the storyline once, and trying to play one of the other classes (originally has 6, but patches have upped that), it ends up on the shelf

Very cool game, implements a lot of features from Dungeon Siege and other RPGs and works well. Think Sword wielding guardian with a pistol for a little longer range reach. :)

Have just played part of the demo, and it's good. I like FPS, but this is RPG, so you aren't just blasting away, you're actually getting involved in a story. It is, however, a little hard on my machine, so I'll probably hold out on buying it till after I get an upgrade.

Those of you who enjoy Action Based RPG's such as Diablo 1 & 2 and Dungeon Siege 1 & 2 will love this game. Personally I'm having a blast playing it :)

Having been a World of Warcraft fan for some time, it's hard to impress me enough to stop playing it. However this is the first time I have thought, this isn't too bad. The graphics are very nice, the monsters, well they are monsters and beasts, what more do you expect for beasts of hell :) All look good and provide the atmosphere well. Fire and explosions are among the best I've seen for some time.

Options to fit items to your weapons to improve firepower or damage type is cool, with the ability to remove those additions and apply to your new weapons upgrade.

The usual pattern of getting quests, handing them in, gaining experience is there, quest givers remain where they are, so you don't need to go hunting them down. Quests vary from Killing Bosses to picking up 10 of this or that.

Have yet to play grouped, but looking forward to group encounters with larger amounts of foe.

It's still early days with it, and I found memory issues, but I am not alone and would imagine the problem are on the cards to be fixed.

All in all I found it to be one of the better online games I've played in a while, and it DOESN'T boast at being a WoW beater!

What a disappointment. This sounded so cool… a shooter/RPG horror. It's certainly a cool premise, it's just… crap. It totally missed the mark on the horror element. It's actually quite comical. Characters say stupid things in funny voices and the monsters are not even remotely scary.

The graphics are ok, but the level design is totally uninspired (I read somewhere they're randomly generated so no wonder). The monsters look crap and combat is totally unsatisfying. The guns don't even need ammunition. When you kill something all the loot pops out of it's body and hovers in the air like in an arcade game or something.

The RPG side of things is a let down. You get experience and level up, and get points to spend on your (largely useless) skills but that's about it as far as role playing. The dialogs with NPCs are very basic. They tell you what they want you to do, and you click the accept button. In addition, you level up too quickly and there's an overabundance of loot.

Another less than impressive thing is the way NPCs just stand around (with big coloured icons over their heads denoting primary or secondary quest giver, or vendor or whatever) waiting for you to come and talk to them. Not exactly lifelike.

The quests are tedious and repetitive (admittedly I didn't get very far into the game) and simply require you to travel to a connecting area, kill the monsters and pick up some items or whatever, then head back. The next quest might very well require you to go the same area, which has respawned it's monsters, and do it all again!

I'm sure there's a lot to like about the game if you give it time but it's just such an unsatisfying, tedious drag.