Hellgate: London

[Pesmerga]

Hellgate: London

Pros:
- Basically a Diablo 2 clone, which is a good thing
- Guns and explosives
- Awesome fights
- Great multiplayer
- Lots of items
- Good blend of FPS and RPG
- 6 unique classes
- Addicting

Cons:
- Buggy. Pitz and I encountered lots of pretty terrible bugs and crashes
- Skills aren't as important as they were in D2, there's a lot of "cool" factor missing from them
- Subscription users can suck the cawk
- Addicting

Classes
Classes are broken up into three factions. There are two classes per faction.

Templar
Blademaster- Basically, the Barbarian. Dual wields swords.
Guardian- Hellgate's Paladin.

Cabalist
Evoker- Sorceress type
Summoner- Well, summoner. Summons awesome demons, and lots of them.

Hunters
Marksman- Run and gun, shoots everything it sees.
Engineer- Creates bots and drones to help shoot everything the engineer sees

Now I've only been to level 8, and there are about 50 levels I think. It is the first released version, with the exception of a crash bug fix patch. There is plenty more contend to be added in the coming months, and the game probably starts to get really cool when you hit the high levels. So far the fights have been pretty epic (if not hugely unfair for melee fighters- there was a sequence when about 10 huge ghoul looking things chased me and Pitz down, but we just ran backwards and shot them down slowly, dunno how a melee class would have survived that). All in all, great gaming. Not Diablo 3 in the slightest, but it'll probably tide you over until Blizzard announces it.

Pesh's Score: 82%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellgate:_london

 

[Hazar]

pretty much agree with you on all of it

I've played quite a bit in both the alpha and beta but it's still buggy as all shit.

I'll prolly buy it in a few months hopefully when they get some of the worst bugs out.

Edit: the templar get out of situations different ways.... guardians (fav class atm) have a shit-ton of armor (at lvl 20 with the armor aura I had like 700 some in fights with a lot of guys which is like 95% damage absorbed); blademasters get around that by having a decent amount of armor and doing a lot of damage.

 

[Nitre]

Is it actually worth getting? I've been wanting a new RPG to play but i need to know if it's good.

 

[Deleted member 56031]

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/832/832739p1.html

 

[Stigmata]

Picked it up this morning because Pitz and Pesh are playing it. Started a new character and the game seems fairly interesting. I'll load it up again once I get back from programming class.

 

[phantomdesign]

I'm up to a level 13 Evoker, fun so far, but I just realized how much time I've put in it. The evoker is kind of cool, but not exactly what I was expecting. My main problem right now is you have to try spell to see if they are any good.

 

[Ravioli]

thats it...im picking this up this weekend.


I think an official Hl2.net hellgate clan is a good idea. What you guys think? I can probably fix a private vent server, but the game has ingame voice chat so i dont think thats needed.

 

[Pesmerga]

The game has in-game voice chat?

****. I was scouring the Earth for a vent server last night

 

[CyberPitz]

The game has in-game voice chat?

****. I was scouring the Earth for a vent server last night

it's true...how the helld o you active it?

 

[ktimekiller]

for a game that doesnt look that fantastic, its quite laggy.

Also, i cant progress, i keep crashing, quite annoying. I play a bit, battle gets a bit intense, bam crash. 4th time today. -_-

 

[Pesmerga]

We crash sometimes. But not that often. The major bugs we run into are not being able to see party members in an instance; they're there, just can't see them. Quite fickle.

 

[Letters]

I have a level 19 evoker. Name is "Letters" of course.

This game is pretty freaking weird... it's so good in some ways, and so bad in other ways...

Graphics... they're strange because my guy looks like a badass, the demons look alright, NPC's are "okay", and other players look like trash. Seriously I can't even compare myself to anyone else in town 'cause it looks like everyone besides me is wearing cardboard. This is on max detail levels, direct x 10, blah blah blah.

Physics... they're strange because it's nice to actually have them in an RPG/MMOish thingy, but they're kind of slow-motiony so they seem shitty next to what most FPS games have now.

Story and atmosphere is strange because it's got a lot of atmosphere... definitely its own game... but the story is major bullshit. Sidequests I don't even read anymore, and I skim the main story ones... but it's so convoluted and crappy it's not even worth that... it's like doing a really, really long quest chain in World of Warcraft only it doesn't even make sense. You go into a guy's imagination after putting some shit in there at one point in order to find truth. Uhkay... ? That was probably the high point so far by the way. Oh, and don't forget the cutscenes you're rewarded with at the end of each act... with a guy talking while it shows a book with its pages turning. How original and fun!

The combat is strange because it's alright-pretty good for an RPG but shitty for an FPS game. The amount of different types of guns and equipment choices is impressive, and I like being able to break stuff down into parts in order to upgrade my current stuff. Skills are all kind of bullshit so far though... almost level 20 so hopefully I'll be getting to some cool spells... my off-hand pistol that sprays a fire swarm is better than any of my spells unless I'm doing some hardcore AoE. Bonespear thingy that slices straight through and stuns is my second best. Some levels seem to have been designed to give evokers shit, but I'm mostly having fun.


So yeah, mixed bag and not the least bit worth subscribing to as of right now, but it's entertaining. And long! I feel like I've played a ton and I'm only almost level 20 out of 50, shit.

 

[CyberPitz]

Lol Letters, I hear ya. The story blows. I watched part of the first movie, was like "WTF?!?" then stopped. I just skip dialog.

And I"m an evoker, as well. What are you using? The elementals seem pretty shitty, and you can't have a witch doctor/any other type of minion together...so curious how you play it?

 

[Letters]

My plan was to do fire and bone and I've pretty much stuck to it. I have like 4 points in the fear spell, 3 in the first two fire spells for the minimum requirement for hellfire later, 3 in the bone spear thing, 3 in the AOE bone explosion, 1 point in dual focus just in case that's ever more effective than my offhand as a pistol. And that first point that I didn't get to pick was that long-range spectral scatter-shot thing that gets only a little use.


Pretty much I use the bone spear combined with my modded out and upgraded beetlebore gun (shoots lots of little fireball gnat things out that do 70 damage each... has a little cooldown to it so you can't spam unless you want to shoot out 1 or 2 at a time). That little gun is a beast that kills a lot of stuff in one shot up close since all those little 70 damage fireballs will hit 'em. The bone spear stuns and pierces through enemies so it's good crowd control if I can back up to get them all to line up for me. Throw in some bone explosions for AoE and quick box destruction! The AOE stuns too but it locks out any other actions for me except moving around for the stun duration as well so that sucks. Drains and summons really don't appeal to me. I'm really hoping that next bone spell that shoots an exploding skull and hellfire are both good or I'm screwed!

 

[Pesmerga]

You're a Summoner, Pitz

 

[Ravioli]

just wondering, does the overall scene ever change? Or is it the same streets, subways and hallways throughout the entire game? Is there absolutely no progess in the environment as the story goes along? Like in diablo2, there were acts etc. Also, is there like Unique items etc like in diablo2? and different sets of items?

 

[Pesmerga]

Can't say, Ravioli. So far there's about 3 different "tilesets". That's not including the gates to Hell, which are pretty awesome fights. There are five Acts- Pitz, Stig, and I are on Act 2.

On items... again I can't really say without probably being wrong. So far we've seen Magic, Rare, and Legendary items. There are probably Epic and Set items, too, it's just too early for me to say.

 

[Letters]

Yeah I've gotten a 5-star unique item (was a POS mind control gun that I broke down into parts). Still no 4-star though... just assuming those are set items.

 

[Ravioli]

read some reviews and ppl talking about it on other forums. Seems its not as good as i hoped, im probably not getting this anymore. The stuff i read is exacly what i feared for...

 

[CyberPitz]

I read some negative parts of the game, too. But really, it's mindless fun! I enjoy going around raping people with certain guns/spells/summons. Ahhh. But really, the levels do look a bunch alike, and there are a few annoying bugs, but really, I think it was a worthy purchase. I'm not even half way through the game! D:

 

[phantomdesign]

Anyone figure out how to change your spells or skill-points or whatever they call them?

 

[Sedako]

After playing since early alpha, and witnessing it go from having massive potential to mind-numbingly boring, I canceled my pre-order. I don't regret my decision either. FSS' ego went to their heads with this one.

 

[Absinthe]

I would have picked up this game if it wasn't for the optional subscription fees.

I don't want to purchase a title that will inevitably shaft me until I have no choice but to to cough up the cash, and their future "elite" content needs to demonstrate itself as worthwhile if I'm going to ignore this shady business practice and pretend it's an MMO.

It's a shame, because the heart of the game seems fun enough.

 

[ktimekiller]

SPOILERS

SPOILERS






I just beat the game, but im confused, murmur is a demon, yet he never bothered preventing you from succeeding in defeating that big dude? why did his fellow demon kill him? What happened to the hellgate? is it all over?

 

[phantomdesign]

Their attempts to make it MMO-like really kill it for me; there's a bit of grinding-like design that annoys me (more than a standard non-mmo rpg), but mostly the idea of paying a subscription for content that should have been included in the original game is a bit preposterous to me. An expansion pack is one thing, a bit disagreeable, but not as outright greedy as perpetual fees just to access certain character classes or cheats (inventory size). It doesn't in the least bit stand up to MMOs, so even pretending to be one with "optional fees" is just stupid.