Hellgate: London....Hmmmmm
Hellgate isn't a bad game. The reviews are a bit average and they're probably right. I spent a lot of the weekend playing, with a level 10 Marksmen and level 12 Blademaster to show for it, and ultimately the game just lacks a focus.
I've heard that Blizzard doesn't really have a well organized dev process. Supposedly they just start making stuff and eventually they have a game. If you have infinite time to make something, I guess you can do that. I wonder if the Hellgate guys, former Blizzard employees, took the same approach. Only now, they had a limited budget and a publisher that likes games on time.
It isn't that buggy, at least it wasn't for me. I noticed a few here and there, but no crashes or game killers. The joy and frustration of PC gaming is that if you have
just the right hardware specs, you're in the clear. I do have issues with the design though.
Analyzers are a stupid game mechanic. They are expendable items that reveal an items (ex: armor, sword) true stats. However, they cost practically nothing in a game where money is ridiculously plentiful...so what's the purpose of their existence? I would think they'd be very expensive and using one could potentially reveal something really great on a weapon. Classic risk vs. reward.
Weapon modification is also poorly implemented and not very intuitive. The nano-forge upgrades items using junk you collect...but I'm not sure how. The Augmentrex 3000 (terrible name!) adds a common, rare, or legendary property. Huh? What the hell does that mean? You can add little mods to slots on weapons which is pretty fun, but viewing the details on a weapon is painful and frustrating. Also, it drives me nuts that you must remove a weapon from your character and place it in your inventory before you can put it in the machines. Ultimately, there should be one single upgrade machine for everything. Upon activation, you specify what you want, then a UI dialog appears with all weapons you currently own listed. You pick what you want to upgrade and it's applied. Simple. Fast. Elegant.
Combat is fun and fast, however that's where you bump into issues. They copied WoW's skill selection bar, which is fine. However, combat in WoW is resolved after a few turns. You have time to pick your next skill, think about things and take advantage of all your skills. Combat is resolved in one or two swings in Hellgate (usually) -- it's hard to use the skills on a character. For my Marksmen, they are all but impossible. Instead of copying the grenade throwing mechanic from every FPS on the market, Flagship made it so that using a grenade means you'll throw it somewhere in front of your character. It also takes several seconds to detonate, so even if you do throw it correctly, the monsters are already rushing towards you. I would have kept the fast combat, but switched the skill focus to fewer active skills and more passive skills. Players could even pick which passive skills are active to give them different benefits. Also, by focusing on 2-3 skills at a time, they could have killed that entire bar UI and freed up more of the screen. Less HUD = better experience (in my opinion).
The game has no real story and doesn't really take advantage of the London setting. What story they do have is pretty awful -- dreadful text, lame characters and standard "get me 8 demon ears" type quests. The world does resemble a destroyed London-esque street/subway, so that's cool. But, so far I haven't fought in Buckingham Palace. I haven't been to London Bridge, the Tower of London (a hot spot for Satan's minions) or traveled outside the city to Stonehenge. The movie National Treasure was a lot of fun, because they took American history and twisted it a bit. Why am I not going to Buckingham Palace to find this one jewel in the queen's crown, to then take to Stonehenge before the Hellrift or whatever is too powerful? It's corny, but it's something that uses the scene and gets me interested. Where's the Prime Minister to rally the survivors? Queen and country? When people think of the Battle of Britain, they are reminded of Churchill's speech, of the King and Queen navigating the ruins after an attack -- if you're going to use London, USE it. They might as well called it Hellgate: Detroit.
I have no idea why these guys didn't license an engine. When they started, they could have grabbed Unreal 2.5 and it would have looked better than the game they shipped. Source and UE3 are both available now. Hellgate is a mostly interior focused, online game. They do nothing that available engines don't already do. If I had a brand new studio, I guarantee I'd license an engine so that I could focus on design and content instead of a lighting system, FX engine, sound engine, animation system...etc.
Lastly, I don't care for the rewards system. Leveling isn't that big of a deal. I allocate stat points and I get more powerful. They have the short term rewards down, but nothing significant that makes me say "gee, I really want to hit level 20 this weekend!" In World of Warcraft you get new or upgraded skills every two levels. Talent points eventually tick in and they give you new abilities over time. And early on you are told that at level X you get a mount, the ability to wear new armor or dual wield...big, character changing things. I don't know what I'm getting with each level in Hellgate other than more power.
I'm pretty harsh, but the game isn't awful. It's pretty fun, even more so with friends and it just seems to lack a point. I don't know how long I'll be playing it, especially with Call of Duty 4 shipping this week, plus Kane and Lynch and Mass Effect coming soon. Is it a $50 game? Probably not. Will the subscription bring me back? Depends on what they offer. I'll try to grab some screens and throw them in later.
(posted by grant at 11/05/2007)
