YouGamers.com

Reviews

Hellgate: London

Son of Diablo?

So, what went wrong? Diablo was a huge hit, so why not a modern 3D remake? Well, the problem is that was ten years ago, and redoing a ten year old game and slapping on a subscription fee to it is not made of "Win". This fundamental problem is further compounded by lack of final polish and generally uninteresting map design. Diablo and Diablo 2 turned to classics because they were polished, and because back then the concept of a randomly generated dungeon romp for loot and experience was freshly ripped off from the turn-based Roguelike classics such as NetHack, Moria, Angband and their numerous variants.

Orange = Shiny.

That's ten of that. I think I've seen this quest mechanic before...

The whole online play scheme also reeks badly. Subscription fees - listen to Yoda, do, or do not. There is no try. The current two-tiered system tries to weasel the game to those who simply refuse to subscribe by promising free online play* (*with added small print). Yet, if you actually like the game and want to play online properly, the character slot limitation together with the inability to reallocate your skills means that either you subscribe, or you don't play online as you rapidly run out of character slots - and ten bucks a month is a lot for some extra character slots and promises of subscriber-only updates, especially as the online play is very much instanced, bearing very little resemblance to a proper MMO and hampered with silly limitations. As an example, there is no way to trade with other characters outside the stations, and the stash is character-specific, so the only way to move items between your characters is to ask a friend to hold it while you switch to another character. The chat system is also a mess, and I guess that's why it's hidden so well that most players probably don't even realize there is a chat system.

In summary, Hellgate: London promised to be a lot more than it actually manages to deliver, and while I must admit that the game does grow on you over time, it's a rough road. If you can stay interested past the poor initial experience, and you enjoy the genre, you might end up liking it over time, but I must say it failed to keep me interested.

Summary of YouGamers Hardware Testing

The publisher of this game state the following specifications for their minimum and recommended requirements:

To learn more about how YouGamers performs its hardware testing, click here. Through our extensive gameplay and hardware testing across the full spectrum of PC configurations, YouGamers suggests that one should use the following guidelines for an appropriate minimum and recommended setup:

To learn more about our scoring methodology, please click here.

(*) This assumes you are using Vista and DX10. For DX9 play, a Radeon X1900 series or GeForce 7900 series card with 512MB will do fine.

If you wish to comment on this review or discuss the game further, then click right here (registration not required)

2nd Opinion

My initial expectation of Hellgate was set on fire (pardon the pun) with the awesome cinematic trailer from this time last year. I was sold on the game from that point on but my faith was tested, oh Lord, with dark screenshot images and tales of subscription nonsense; it was shook to the very core with the demo but I still persevered! I had still kept the faith! Which the final game well and truly killed off...

Listen, Flagship Studios. If you're going to just redo Diablo, then you need to get some things right. First of all: voice overs on the cinematics. What on Tolkein's toenails possessed you to hire an actor who sounds like he's just stepped out of a children's TV programme to do the narrative? Hello boys and girls! What's that Sooty? Demons have taken over the world and destroyed London? Oh, how simply awful! Next up: the story. Like... actually have one please and not some bizarre, confused yarn that tries to act all deep and meaningful, but fails miserably. Also: if you're going to keep the gameplay simple, don't pile in countless other "features" into the mix, such as the multitude of different ways of getting a decent weapon; they clash horribly and in the end, you can get by easily enough with just one or two weapons that you can pay to be enhanced anyway. There's a bit of spate around at the moment with developers taking old games and their ideas, and "modernising" them by making things detailed but without actually adding any depth.

The thing is, though, even with this ham-fisted update of the Diablo game concept, the core elements are still surprisingly addictive. Yes it's mind numbingly cyclic in nature (same environments, same monsters, same "quests") but the feeling of "oooh, go on then, just one more go!" is definitely there. But it's like Mindsweeper: there's no real feeling of success or progression; it's gaming, for gaming's sake. Obviously this isn't necessarily a bad thing but I was just expecting so much more from Hellgate than I actually got.

Nick Evanson

Page 1: IntroductionPage 2: GameplayPage 3: Visuals and PerformancePage 4: Multiplayer, subscription servicePage 5: Final Thoughts and Scores

Related Stuff

Tags