From: Electronic Arts Average Rating: Binding: DVD-ROM ESRB Age Rating: Mature Label: Electronic Arts Release Date: October 30, 2007
Features:
Explore post-apocalyptic London: from ancient ruins buried beneath city streets to shattered cathedrals to the last remnants of humanity bunkered in the Underground
Misery Loves Company: Dont be a glory hog fight online
Infinite Replayability: Dynamically generated levels, chance events, and massive quantities of randomly created itemsUnderground
Have it your way: Three unique factions with their own visual and gameplay style
Beyond RPG: Experience new layers to the traditional hack-and-slash formula
Hell Never Looked Better: Delivers a true, DX10 experience, while being fully scalable for optimal performance on older PCs
Product Description: Hellgate: London combines the depth of role-playing games with the action of first-person action titles. It is a world devastated by a demon invasion, where players must create a hero and battle through innumerable hordes of demons while completing quests and advancing through experience levels. Explore a desolate city scorched by hellfire where the survivors meld science and sorcery to gain a foothold against the minions of darkness and save the bloodline of humanity. A robust, flexible skill and spell system, highly customizable items, and a massive variety of randomly generated equipment allow players to create heroes that are truly unique. London, 2038. According to legend, when the ravens depart the Tower of London, it will crumble to rubble and disaster will befall England. As man became more dependent on science, believing only in what he could define or create, ancient knowledge and rituals were lost to the antiquity of time. Prophecies that had stood as warning for untold generations were seen as archaic folly or ignorant superstition. So, when the harbingers of evil began to manifest, few saw and fewer believed. When the demons finally came, there was little that stood in their way. Compelling cooperative multiplayer experience - by creating unique and individualized game play instances within a vast online community, gamers get all the best parts of traditional massive multiplayer games Hellgate - London Game on 2 DVDs / Bonus Disc containing - Making of Hellgate - London; Official Game Soundtrack
Amazon.com: It’s 2038, and London lies in ruins... From Flagship Studios – creators of the award-winning Diablo® series and the fathers of the action role playing genre – comes HellGate: London, the next benchmark in the evolution of the RPG genre. Combining the depth of traditional RPGs with the frenetic, visceral feel of first-person shooters, HellGate: London offers infinite replayability with dynamically created levels, monsters, items and events that gives each player their own unique hack-and-slash experience. A post-apocalyptic London has been overrun by hordes of terrifying demons, leaving the city desolate and scorched by hellfire. Those who were unlucky enough to survive now gather in the only sanctuary left, the Underground, banding together in order to gain a foothold against the minions of darkness and ultimately save the bloodline of humanity. It is no surprise that these sole survivors come from three of society’s most elite factions, each of whom are masters of a robust number of skills and weapons essential to demon-thrashing. The Templar, a secret society preserving the rites of the original Knights Templar, mix futuristic technology with ancient artifacts to create powerful weapons and armor perfect for short-ranged and melee attacks. The Cabalists are students of the dark arts and edges of science which often leaves them standing right on the line between good and evil. Their mystifying spells make them suited for mid-range combat. The Hunters are mysterious, highly trained ex-military operatives who lay waste to their foes with hyper-advanced weapons that blend theoretical science and the latest in technology – and their bullets can come from almost any distance. HellGate: London delivers an amazing gaming experience to PC gamers of all types – delivering the eye-popping DX10 visuals demanded by the hardcore, and scaling to ensure the masses of casual RPG players can still get the best performance on older PCs. Key Features
The RPG Authority – Flagship Studios was founded by the core creators of Diablo, one of the biggest PC gaming franchises in history with over 13 million units sold worldwide – they are the first, last and only voice in the world of action RPGs.
Beyond RPG – Experience new layers to the traditional hack-and-slash forumla by experiencing the action RPG from the first-person perspective and through nontraditional character classes and playstyles.
Have it your way - Three unique factions with their own visual and gameplay style, offering something for every type of gamer, whether they prefer the longer-range blasts of the Hunter or want to get up close and personal with the Templar.
Infinite Replayability – Dynamically generated levels, chance events and massive quantities of randomly created items makes for infinite replayability -- no two experiences will ever be the same and every game will be it’s own unique event.
Mad Skills – Each faction has three character classes that contain a wide variety of skills and spells that are fully customizable.
London Calling – Explore post-apocalyptic London, even darker and gloomier than usual. From shattered cathedrals and landmarks to the ancient ruins buried beneath the shell of a once-great city, players will need to scour all of London in search of the unknown.
Misery Loves Company – Don’t be a glory hog – fight online. Gather with friends or recruit strangers in Underground stations and venture out into mean streets of London together to erase the Demonic threat.
Hell Never Looked Better – HellGate: London features all of the latest next-generation technology to deliver a true, DX10 experience, while being fully scalable for optimal performance on older PCs.
Minimum specifications: OS: Windows XP SP2 or better Processor: 1 GHz (or faster) Pentium 3 RAM: 512 MB or more Video: 100% DirectX 8 compatible device w/ 64MB VRAM or better (e.g., NVIDIA GeForce 3 (except 4 MX)) Audio: 100% DirectX 9 compatible device Disc drive: DVD Hard drive: 6 GB or more free space Input: Keyboard and mouse Internet: Connection required for multiplayer
fun game I've been playing this game on and off since it was released. I like it quite a bit. It's pretty easy to play so if you don't have a ton of time to invest in a game like WOW this is a great game to consider. You can play for an hour or so and still feel like you've made some progress. The classes are pretty interesting as are the things you fight. I honestly don't know why people give this game such a poor review. I found it very entertaining.
Only 2 reviews? Deleting all of the negative reviews will not save this game. The setting is boring, the game play is ok. I wonder if they managed to fix all of the bugs. But i don't care to find out as i stopped playing it after lvl 20 as every single map looks the same and the game kept randomly crashing.
DIABLO - THE AWAKENING UNREAL was one of these games that mark an era. Huge, gorgeous scenery, atmospheric and fast - there was nothing like it for many years. When UNREAL II: THE AWAKENING came out I could not wait to get my hands on it - only to be hugely disappointed. The new game had been graphically improved yet the UNREAL character was replaced by a bland and generic FPS feeling.
The DIABLO series enjoyed a similar, well deserved, success. HELLGATE: LONDON was released by the creators of DIABLO - leaving a similar disappointing aftertaste I am afraid.
Don't get me wrong, this is a good game. However, disappointment is inevitable for a game that tries to do everything: provide a 40-hour single-player FPS; double as an action-cRPG; and serve as a subscription-MMORPG (with at least two pay-grade classes: First & Standard) at the same time. Trying to please everybody, well, ends up falling short. They did put in a solid effort; however, in the end, both FPS and action-RPG fans will find the game wanting.
FPS-wise HELLGATE:LONDON is slow (by the way, the perspective is adjustable from FP to TP and back) and the character movement feels unatural . The weapons are inventive and impressive. Monsters and demons appear all over (popping from places that surprise you) and are dynamically-generated - as are the maps, every time a new game is started (adding to the game's replayability). Yet the rhythms are nowhere near those of a true FPS. There are tight moments but no high-speed tension. I guess that is the price of creating a single player game and aiming at the MMORPG market at the same time (trying to avoid lag-time).
As a cRPG, HELLGATE: LONDON fares somewhat better. It is not the first time, of course, to come upon a First Person cRPG (the classic ULTIMA series introduced this). Nevertheless, HELLGATE: LONDON manages to convey the DIABLO feeling from the FP perspective beautifully! The multitude of sold or looted items alone is staggering! Everything seems to be customizable and appears on the character. A nice touch is that unwanted items can be broken down to their raw materials - which can then be used in either crafting new items or enhancing existing items at a vendor. Thus, an item well beyond the one you are currently using can yield material capable of enhancing it. Similar to TITAN QUEST, creating unique items using a mold is also possible. There are three factions: Templars (aka: Knights), Cabalists (aka: Mages) & Hunters (aka: Rogues), all capped at level 50.
Graphically the game is crisp and clear but not cutting edge. The graphics are comparable to HL2 and QUAKE4 (3 year old games). The surfaces, the textures, the reflections and the weather effects are beautiful, and they are designed for BOTH DX9 and DX10! I cannot comment on DX10 (as I am running WinXP) however, for DX9 I have no complains - I encountered no freezes or crashes and the system demands are reasonable.
What is concerning is EA/FLAGSHIP's emerging intentions to charge for this game piece-meal. Since this is a heavily OnLine-oriented game, having the latest "installment" will be a necessity in order to survive and compete effectively. The multiplayer offers a number of choices: free (with limited gameplay capabilities, such as leading a guild), Standard monthly fee (for additional content such as new areas, more classes, weapons,quests, and game modes) and First Class monthly fee (premium content). It may seem a good decision on boardroom papers, however, I doubt that this...cast system will sit good with the MMORPG crowd. Imagine building a character exactly as you want him for, say, six months, only to have him wiped by a rich n00by with premium weapons...Yeah, that will work miracles in building your fan-base... So, for someone buying the game mostly for its multiplayer, be warned: £26 is NOT all you will have to pay (yes, even if you opt not to subscribe for the unrestricted gameplay).
All in all, a solid effort to mix-and-match different genre that falls just short of its raised expectations.
PS: There is a major storyline objection: presenting Freemasons and Templar Knights as the saviors of humanity is as absurd as describing Nazis as "cosmetic products manufacturers". Some things cannot be spinned I am afraid. Now, I did not take this into account in rating this game since no one is taught history by video games...is he?
Disappointing This game was developed by the team that brought us Diablo II. Unfortunately, it is a supposed MMO that feels way too much like Diablo II, and not necessarily in a good way. For being an MMO, there is really no reason to group as none of the classes really brings anything useful to other players. There is no healing or buffing that you expect out of an MMO, just mostly a hack and slash game much like Diablo II on Battle.net. The big difference is that this game gets very repetitive and tedious after a short while and just eats away at any enjoyment you may have had early on in the game. There is absolutely nothing new brought into this game and it starts to feel stale. Being an MMO, you would expect there to be added content and continuing development of the various classes, but being a free-to-play MMO, the lack of development shows.
Whatever happened to the rest of the reviews? They deleted so many reviews to give this sorry excuse of a game a fresh start? It was rank overall 2 stars out of 75 reviews? Sad...
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