Before you start writing us e-mails about the game being several months old let us reassure you that we are well aware of the fact. And believe it or not, we know that the game didn’t exactly impress most reviewers back when it was released. So why on earth are we writing a late review to a mediocre game when newer, better games are finally starting to appear? Because sometimes you have to spend more than a day with a game to fully appreciate it. Because sometimes a game sees so many improvements after release that it no longer is the game it was when it hit store shelves. And also because we are huge fans of Diablo 2 and let’s face it – Hellgate: London is as close as we’ll get to a true Diablo 2 successor for the time being.

Going medieval in modern London

If you haven’t been following the development of Hellgate London you might not be aware that most of the team behind the project are ex Blizzard developers. The very people who created the action RPG genre are now trying to push it forward. Let’s leave the “how” alone for now and instead take a closer look at what their history actually means for this game. Well, for one they apparently have a fondness for demons and hell spawn invested worlds. So even though this game isn’t set in a fantasy world like its spiritual predecessor, the game still depicts a world where demons roam the street and where the very survival of the human race lies on the balance.

To describe the world of Hellgate London as original or even inventive would be stretching it, but that doesn’t mean it is a doppelganger of anything we have seen before either. True, the authors borrowed heavily from all winds of fantasy and Sci-Fi influences, but at least they managed to glue the whole thing together in a way that makes sense. The proverbial Evil, around since the time of creation, acts as a sort of inter-dimensional parasite force that destroys worlds one by one and as luck would have it our world just happens to be next on their to-do list. Since the game doesn’t take place in the present day humans are capable of packing quite a punch and offer a decent challenge to the newly arrived oppressors/butchers.

Like I said, the story and pretty much the whole scenario isn’t all that original but that shouldn’t really bother anyone. It’s the feel of the game, that intangible feeling you get from exploring the ruined streets of London with a laser gun in one hand and a demonic focus in the other that makes this game. In fact it is this very combination of fantasy, real world locations and future tech that helps give Hellgate a unique charm. Sort of like how Half Life 2 made it thanks to the alternative future based in the real world.

Diablo 3D

With all the talking of how Hellgate is the successor of Diablo, many questions were raised as to how the authors intended to mix the FPS nature of the game with the click-fest mechanics of Diablo. After all, half of the fun in Diablo is just mindlessly killing hordes and hordes of enemies. This approach tends not to work as well in FPS games, save for perhaps a few exceptions such as Serious Sam or Painkiller. Fun as it would have been to play an action RPG that was heavily influenced by these two titles, the developers decided to go in another direction.

The literally brought the Diablo (1 and 2) experience into 3D and then tweaked it a little to make it a better fit. The result? Well, it’s a bit of a mixed bag to be honest. On one hand you’ll end up slaying thousands of monsters (and I mean that literally) with relative ease, but on the other hand the only challenge these monsters will pose will be either overwhelming numbers or them requiring half a ton of ammunition in their body before they finally go down, that’s basically it. No foe will challenge you with his wits and no group will try to flank you as you are engaged with somebody else. In fact, the most cunning tactical maneuver they can muster is spawning right on top of you (and then going down in a blaze of glory in most cases).

You might think that this shortcoming only becomes apparent later on, but it is in fact glaring after about 30 minutes spent in the game. When you slay the 50th enemy without so much as flexing a muscle and holding down the attack button is all it takes to bring down foe after foe (who all very conveniently keep running right into the center of your reticule) you quickly start craving a greater challenge and diversity. This is quite possibly the single biggest issue with Hellgate.

If you start playing it expecting anything but a FPS clone of Diablo you are going to be disappointed sooner or later. But this huge weakness is also the games ace in the sleeve when it comes to its targeted audience. Think about it for a second – one of the most popular games in history with millions of copies sold offered the exact same thing only from an isometric perspective. No hard thinking, no wide scale tactical strategies, just spur of the moment decisions and mindless killing.

Saying that Hellgate is completely without diversity is hardly fair, since the game does offer a wide variety of classes that are all very unique. They are broken into three groups, each belonging to a specific aspect that Hellgate mixes so well. The templars are your run of the mill knights in shining armor, only that here their armor is riddled with microchips and their swords have more in common with computers than they do with ancient blades. Two templar classes are available to players, one focusing on dealing damage with the other one focusing on being able to withstand it. Playing either is a very up close and personal experience, which sometimes bites them in the ass when fighting flying enemies. Hunter members don’t have that kind of problem. Their reliance on technology makes them good ranged fighters and both the marksman and the engineer prefer to stay away from the heat of the battle. The main difference between the two is that the marksman tends to do his job while the engineer leaves his trusty devices and bots to do it for him. The cabalists, mystical followers have a similar separation with summoners ordering their minions about and the evokers only calling forth magic that deals damage on its own.

Tying it together

But as fun as it is to blast through hordes of enemies on your own, doing it with a group of friends is even better. Now, in order to allow players to have their fun and keep things under control the developers decided to completely split the single and multiplayer parts of the game. They both have access to the same content and all, but characters created in the singleplayer portion cannot be used online and online characters can’t be accessed for singleplayer purposes. You can always play on your own online, but should your internet connection stop working or if the game servers go down you’ll lose access to your character for the time being.

Now, under ideal circumstances that isn’t a problem and you’ll be always playing online. This means that depending on your preference you’ll be soloing and/or doing missions with other players at your whim. That’s the theory at least. Up until recently (and even now just barely) the social interface in the game was appalling and useless. Finding somebody to group with meant you either had to spam the social chat channels or know the person in real life in order to coordinate grouping with them. Patches fixed this and you can now actually use the games interface to find players, but things are still far from perfect. The developers are promising further improvements, so there is still hope.

Speaking of things that were criticized when the game was launched – the monotonous combat. Like I said previously, the combat is actually supposed to be like that. I know that’s a stupid reason to give and I’ll be the first to say that more variety and enemies that offer just a hint of AI would have been nice. But when you stop thinking about what the game could have been like with proper AI and just go with the flow you’ll realize that you are actually enjoying it most of the time. There, I said it. Hellgate: London is actually enjoyable if you don’t spend every minute playing it thinking how certain things could have been better. If you check around the various forum boards (unfortunately not the official ones, since those are only accessible to registered game owners) you’ll see that now, months after the game has been released people are still playing it and most are enjoying it to boot!

DX10 strike three

Saying this over and over again gets pretty repetitive after a while, but the DX10 implementation in Hellgate isn’t exactly the best. You need a high end graphics card to be able to run it maxed out and even then higher resolutions might result in performance drops. At least the game looks extremely good when DX10 is enabled. Bump mapped walls, motion and field of view blur, high fidelity shaders used on characters – you name it, this game has it. The problem is that while most of these effects look terrific they probably could have been done with DX9 as well. But (and we’ll never know why) the developers decided that DX10 would be the only way to see these effects.

That normally wouldn’t be a problem, but lacking depth of field and motion blur the game suddenly becomes a lot plainer looking. And while it was possible to ignore the generic looking (randomly generated) streets when they looked realistic due to the blur, that simply isn’t the case in DX9 mode. The character themselves also lose a fair amount of detail switching over to “last gen” mode.

Worth a shot?

When considering Hellgate: London you have to ask yourself – am I willing to give the game a chance and not overanalyze every single aspect of it? For you see, as hard as the game tries to hide it, it is at its core just a Diablo 2 clone tossed into a 3D world where the same rules no longer apply. That is perhaps the toughest part to deal with here – you aren’t playing a first person shooter. No, you are playing a click-fest RPG that just happens to use a first person perspective.

A final question remains – subscriptions. As you might know Hellgate London offers players the choice to pay a monthly subscription and gain access to extra content. Up until now this mostly meant extra loot drops and worthless stuff like that. But as of the 22nd January (if nothing goes wrong again) subscribers got access to the first content update, adding entirely new zones (with new artwork and all. Before you take the plunge you might want to play the game as a non-paying customer and see if it is your cup of tea. Word of caution – the game can become addictive without you realizing it!