Hellgate: London

[Unstoppable]

Difficulty: Just Right

Time Spent: 20 to 40 Hours

"Grows on you"

Ok time for me to review the Hellgate London game along with the collector edition. First lets see what the collector edition has to offer assuming you pre ordered.

 

The Hellgate: London Collector's Edition contains: Special Packaging and Art Design Hellgate: London Game 2 DVDs Bonus Disc containing:

- “Making of Hellgate: Londonâ€

- Official Game Soundtrack Hellgate: London Map Poster 106 page Dark Horse Graphic Novel Unique in-game pet – Mantawraith Founder's offer 149.99 one time fee

Hellgate London Poster (both founder, lava dye kit, and poster with pre order box)

Dye kit depending where you pre ordered. For me Lava from Gamestop

 

So with that out of the way lets examine the first disc. The making of Hellgate: London is no cheap dvd here. It's actually well made and shows a fly by of the city. From the departure of Blizzard to the last few weeks of development. A true insider look at the team and the companies behind the game. Very well made.

 

You also have some slide shows showing off weapons and all the classes. How they evolved throughout development gives you a good insider's look. There are also about 9 videos starting from E3 2005, E3 2007, and a bunch of class videos. As for the comic book it's no push over neither and I found it to be a good read. (5 chapters in all)

 

The soundtrack also included in the bonus dvd is not just 3 bonus tracks like you got with the Bioshock disc. 13 tracks in all and I must say I love the music very much. If you have a program called powerdvd you can view it like you would a regular dvd movie.

 

On to the boxes itself. It's one big box and has special art packaging which is nice. On the left it has a pocket containing the comic book and the special map poster, along with some catalog goodies.

 

The game box contains the manual along with both game discs. Now to review a bit of the game. From beta to release there have been definate improvements. I'm already a level 20 Guardian or 21 and am around Act 4. I have a pretty good feel for the game.

 

I am a Founder also and I think it's something you definately should take advantage of if you see yourself playing a year or two or three from now. As for the storyline itself if you take time to read what the npcs have to say it becomes much more fulfilling. The game play of course is something I have not played in a long time. The engine is unique and it's all randomized fighting areas. You either love it or you hate it, perhaps you can be somewhere in between. The sweet thing is you won't be playing through the same exact place twice. It has an advantage at keeping the core combat game fresh. Eventually as you progress through the game new tilesets start opening up. Add that plus the subscriber updates and you have one happy customer. Perhaps the only gripe about the game are some major game breaking bugs. Like the memory leak issue which they are working hard to fix. As for crafting I think it's really well done. You have no need to return to base if you keep breaking down all the great loot you find into several different components like tech, shards, runic fragments, and pieces of metal. Then when you zone back in you go up to an NPC crafter and if you see a nice legendary or rare mod/weapon/armor you craft it with all the salvage you've been saving up.

 

This eliminates the tediousness of MMO's when you had to keep farming for the same exact components found in the same exact location. By having randomized loot, and randomized crafting, but keeping the materials easy to get you have a great crafting system anyone can use.

 

To conclude my review of Hellgate:London Collector's edition i'd like to remember when Flagship Studios first announced itself. Their logo use to be a purple/bluish guy with a hat. They didn't even have a publisher. The only concept art was an Evoker avatar. Since i've been following the game from the first departure of Bill Roper and co to release I have a good sense of everything that's been accomplished. All in all I think with the Founder's offer out there and the promising content updates coming, Hellgate London: Collector's Edition deserves an 8.5/10. The only thing holding it back are the bugs like memory leaks and what not. Pros

-Great collector edition. You really get more than enough for an extra 10$. At 59.99 the PC gamers save what would normally be a 69.99 title on consoles.

-Great gameplay and unique engine. Randomized loot and crafting keeps things fresh.

-Above average soundtrack both in game and on the disc.

-Graphics are also really good utilizing the maximum from Direct X 10. -Founder offer and subscriber based content give a good advantage to those wanting to avoid constant fee's and just pay 1 lump sum fee.

-Pretty good CG movies as you progress through the game explain the storyline.

Cons

-Memory leak and other blugs still plague the game but are being worked on.

-Late announcement of pricing/subscriber deal sorta a kick in the nads for some people.

-Perhaps the game should of been released two months later.

 

In conclusion if you're interested in this game wait till next year when all the issues have been ironed out. I'm enjoying the game but it should of came out at end of the year or next year.

 

8.5/10 Gamespot gave it a 7.0/10

Edited November 12, 2007 by Unstoppable

[Unstoppable]

Same thing could be said for Gears of War PC. However an easy fix by enabling administrator mode fixed my crash. Game is not working for many people however which sucks.

[SneaksieDave]

Not that I would have played it anyway, but between this game's troubled release, ridiculous policies and spying, and fees (just search blue's news for hellgate london posts), I wouldn't touch this steaming pile with a 10 foot pole.

[SplaTtzZ]

Not to mention the simplistic storyline, stupid dialogue, dumb combat, retarded AI, useless skill tree, ridiculous system specs, drab textures, poor animations, bugged code, CTD's, only 2 servers, repetitive level design, 'random trash generator', no online community and a rather annoying and pointless mini-game.

 

Now that I've exhausted my supply of adjectives, I too would suggest that everyone stay away from this video game. the engine and graphics are not much of a step up from Diablo 2; which this game is basically a complete clone of. there's nothing new here and don't think its an rpg, because it isn't. The only other game this year that was this big a disappointment was Fury.

 

Sorry Unstoppable; but i really can't see this game being anywhere near the price people have to pay for it. In my opinion, its maximum a 5/10; just another silly click-fest like diablo was.

Edited November 12, 2007 by SplaTtzZ

[Unstoppable]

Don't be sorry your points are valid and it's your opinion =D.

[Vadrosaul]

Between this and the Witcher, the other RPG release that came out in the Halloween period, there is no contest. The metascores don't lie, the Witcher hands down

[Ombrenuit]

I loved Diablo 2 and I'm looking forward to Diablo 3, but yeah, I have to say that I was disappointed with the reviews and the impressions. It's a forumla that if not done right, can easily grow repetitive. Admittedly, Diablo 2's main appeal is loot lust, but I'll just stick with Diablo 2 for what it's worth. My room-mate and I just co-op it and it's just as fun as it ever was on the internet (actually it's better considering that most people who play it now are kids whose parents won't let them use a credit card for an actual mmorpg).

 

Sure Hellgate was a nice idea, but I'm disappointed in Flagship for rushing the product out, and over-hyping the hell out of it. One of the biggest turn-offs for me was the useless quest system. I hate those in mmorpgs like WoW where the quests are a repeat of "Kill 10 Bugbears for me" or "Get me this item that has a .005 chance of dropping off the bugbears".

 

I'm just tired of developers white-washing what amounts to grinding. It's no longer a game if it's mindless, it's a chore.

Edited November 12, 2007 by Ombrenuit

[SplaTtzZ]

Well thats one problem i had with hellgate; there really isn't any reason to group with anyone. The dialogue interface I found was very annoying and clunky so most of the time I had it switched off. And the game really doesn't give any incentives to group up with people to finish quests like other mmorpgs do. So provided you know someone else who has the game and you can play online with them at the same time then the game has some redeeming features; but I found it difficult to group up with strangers to play online and ended up doing everything myself because most parts are pretty easy.

 

Im playing Call of Duty 4 at the moment, which I have found to be quite enjoyable; not only the multiplayer which was always very good for an fps but even the single player campaign, which has improved alot since earlier incarnations.

[jdude]

I was really looking forward to this game, but given the horrible reviews it's getting [see IGN] I'm very weary of buying it. I might just end up waiting a couple months until it's 20 dollars.

[Ombrenuit]

I definitely wouldn't feel so cheated if they had made a quality product instead of rushing the production. Essentially their entire marketing campaign was, "We're former Blizzard employees! This is essentially Diablo 3! Buy our game!" Talk about riding your former company's coat-tails. They blatantly used Blizzard and Diablo's success to sell copies of this game.

[SneaksieDave]

Just one of half a dozen such stories (I can't be bothered to find the rest - the pages of user comments help give the overall attitude though):

 

http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?...old&start=0

 

If you value your money's worth, stay far away from this piece of shit.

[Dram]

What really angers me about this game is that the teaser trailer they released a while back looked so cool, and yet the gameplay of the game itself is so incredibly poor. I never buy games these days until I've played a demo of it or played it at a friend's etc - there are just too many crap titles these days.

 

Though you do get the occasional good title. When I saw Crysis I wasn't planning on getting it as it looked like it was going to be no story and only graphics/technical tests etc packed along with some bullcrap copy protection. As soon as I installed the demo I immediately deleted the unskipable EA logo etc - I hate unskipable logos which take up a minute. Anyway, I tried out the demo and it appears to have a very well done story, and the world itself seems quite well done. I only played it on Delta of course, as anything easier would probably be too easy. Delta seemed about right, except the only thing about the game in general is the nanosuit's cloak ability, which is waaaay overpowered. But with a bit of restraint it's good. Point is, unless EA pull some bullcrap copy protection like Star Force etc I will probably buy the game.

[Nyarlathotep]

I had figured that Delta was going to be as fucking hard as Far Cry on Realistic was. In fact, it was actually easier than Far Cry on Easy. I had assumed that the difficulty increase was much more than just turning off the training wheels--my bad for actually expecting a proper challenge. The only real challenge came from fighting the framerate (or lack thereof) whenever my video card overheated (about every 7 seconds of gameplay).

[Ishtvan]

No kidding...

 

For instance, incoming grenades are no longer highlighted, so you've got to pay attention now, and your health regeneration is slower. And the best part about delta is that all enemy soldiers speak fully in Korean, so unless you understand Korean, you're going to have a much harder time trying to figure out what they're planning to do.

 

Hilighted grenades, wtf? They should have just called it "player not retarded mode."

[Nyarlathotep]

I prefer the highlight to the random smoke trails that grenades always emit (I mean, otherwise, how would your enemy know you just threw a grenade at them? ). At least the highlight is explained away as a feature of your already preposterously advanced suit.

 

Your suit with augmented-reality and advanced computer-vision processing giving you actual, tactically useful data? Totally unrealistic! Massive smoke trails being emitted by frag grenades? OMG >_<, that's just like IRL!!!

[Dram]

LOL, I never tried any other difficulty, so I didn't even know that the grenades get highlighted! It's pretty silly imo, but I guess if you choose easy - you MEAN easy

[Unstoppable]

I had figured that Delta was going to be as fucking hard as Far Cry on Realistic was. In fact, it was actually easier than Far Cry on Easy. I had assumed that the difficulty increase was much more than just turning off the training wheels--my bad for actually expecting a proper challenge. The only real challenge came from fighting the framerate (or lack thereof) whenever my video card overheated (about every 7 seconds of gameplay).

 

You are in wrong topic haha, this belongs in Crysis topic.

[Nyarlathotep]

There's a Crysis thread? I thought we'd just been going off topic!

[Unstoppable]

Yes there is and Crysis is quite good!