So what is it?
No it's not a white hole, it's a Hellgate: London, the basic story is you're the last survivors of the human race holed up in the London underground fighting the creatures from hell who now infest the city. The games' basically a cross between Doom and Diablo II. You'll play one of six character classes; Templar, Cabalist or Hunter, so in rpg terms they are your Warriors, Mages and Archers. So yeah, Diablo set in the future and in first person or third person depending how you want to play it. If you've played Diablo and loved it, then this might be the game for you but be warned it's probably not unless you really really loved Diablo.
So what did I think of it?
"This is rubbish, utterly rubbish, I'm just going to play it another 5 minutes" were my first feelings after watching a rather lovely CGI intro and then starting to play. About three hours later I stopped for a quick break before going to play a wee bit more. So obviously it's not THAT rubbish. Well actually it is but it isn't at the same time.
So what's rubbish about it?
The combat. It's pretty much pants compared with most third person shooters, basically point in general direction of monsters and press the fire button or press the fire button and run backwards while doing so if it's a boss creature / lots of enemies. It's not exactly rocket science. Melee is a case of getting close and pressing fire or running...you catch my drift. The graphics are pretty enough for the scenery of which there's little interaction other than running around jumping over it, no destructible landscapes but then I guess that couldn't really be expected when the monsters are just sprites and not rag dolls, as we've come to expect from FPS. Couple the sprites with the combat and you get a rather bland, uneventful feeling when you kill anything no matter what you're using. The developers
have made an effort to make the weapon effects flashy, but combine that with the basic sprites of the enemy and you don't really get any feeling of momentum, the weapons have no real discernible recoil effect and all in all I'm kind of bored.
So what's good?
It's the same crack that made people keep playing Diablo II,; stats, getting the next weapon, the better armour and the new stuff, similar to the crack you get from World of Warcraft. Every time you kill something you get new weapons equipment coins to upgrade your character and that keeps you playing, in the end though I think only the most dedicated Diablo players may enjoy this beyond a few hours of fun. You also might as well play the game online because then you'll have the option to team up with players - though you can happily play the whole game offline, however you'll be missing out on a bit of interaction.
Anything else?
Well you get six classes, two types of Templar (Close Combat), 2 Cabalist (Mage) and 2 Hunters. The mages and hunters are long range and if I'm honest don't really feel that different from each other, magic and weapons have rather similar effects. You get some pets with some classes but all in all whatever you play you'll just get different flashes from weapons and be limited to certain items. I'm sure in a group they will make a little difference but nothing major to the game play.
Finally, is there much point?
The potential for this game was immense if the combat/graphics side of it had been of the same level as Half Life 2 or any of the other FPS's released
in the last few years. It could have rocked my world, but as it is it limped in and out rather rapidly. If this is in the bargain bucket and you liked Diablo then possibly give it a shot, by that time it might have had some upgrades. As of writing this articles it's at content update 0.7 which for me is about how we'll finished this game was about 70% done.
