Hellgate: London Collector's Edition

List Price: $59.99 Discount Price: $16.75

Features:

• Includes: Hellgate: London Game, 2 DVDs, Hellgate: London Map Poster, Bonus Disc containing: Making of Hellgate: London and the Official Game Soundtrack
• Infinite Replayability: Dynamically generated levels, chance events, and massive quantities of randomly created items
• 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
• Misery Loves Company: Dont be a glory hog fight online.

Customer Reviews:

A bit, well, "meh" [Posted on 2008-01-15]
Hellgate: London was one of the most highly-anticipated games of 2007. Developed by the same people responsible for Diablo and Diablo II, it promised something that games in the similar genre could not: randomized levels in an online environment and instanced play where players could bring in a teammate after the group had already entered the instance. At the same time, the game's business model was never clearly defined. Always billed as "free," about a year ago, the developers mentioned that the high quality of service they would provide was normally associated with some sort of monthly fee. When pressed on the issue, the developers reiterated the game would be free for online play. The same kind of murky cloud surrounded key issues like guild support and the multiplayer experience.

Fast forward to release. Hellgate: London is a fine single-player game. The storyline is fairly basic and in fact is also predictable. This isn't a detraction, though, as the Diablo series also offered a very basic story that served as a framework for the real fun of killing things and gaining loot. In HGL, the London Underground serves as an extended dungeon crawl. The visceral experience of the fps is not to be underestimated. It's fun to shoot stuff. It's fun to blow up barrels. The game is filled with a lot of quests, and items are plentiful and interesting. In particular, the ability to salvage components useful for upgrading and crafting better weapons will appeal to people who want to make bigger and better guns.

The multiplayer aspect is problematic. The free version of the multiplayer game is very much like D2 in that it is merely a multiplayer version of the single player game. The subscription version does offer additional features, more quests, and the ability to create guilds (non-subscribers can join guilds). However, the multiplayer version is still buggy, even though nearly 3 months have passed since release. A broken chat system (since improved), poor guild support, a memory leak that produces game crashes, and significant lag in crowded outposts--all combine to undermine the social experiences that are the backbone of online gameplay.

Gameplay is often compared to that of Diablo II. This is both the strength and weakness of HGL. D2 fans will be familiar with the look of the interface and the inventory management. Health injectors are the HGL techie version of health potions. Components are the new rune words. Fighting monsters is little more complicated than a click-fest, though HGL monster AI is a bit smarter than that of D2's. For players who really love D2, still play it, and yearn for something like D2, this is a great game.

However, for those who remember D2 fondly but have moved to games like World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, EVE, RF Online, or are looking forward to Warhammer Online, Hellgate will seem, well, dated. The random level generation, which sounds so cool on paper, ends up disappointing. Yes, the levels are randomly generated, but they still look the same. Items are fun, but the inventory management shows none of the improvements in design made over the past 10 years. The game lacks the innovation, the fresh spin on the genre that the Diablo series achieved.

Overall, if you like and play Diablo II, you'll very much enjoy Hellgate: London. If you once had a D2 addiction, but moved on to play other games, you'll probably get the sense that you've been there, done that, and you expect more.

The Working Man's MMORPG [Posted on 2008-02-12]
Every RPG fan remembers Diablo and D2 with great fondness. It had a very fresh feel and addictive gameplay, coupled with crazy loot, to make a very good RPG. That was 12 years ago, now in 2008 we are presented with the rebirth of the Diablo era. However this is no Diablo. That being said it is a working man's game. A game you don't have to spend countless hours to try and get where everyone else is. It's a game for people who have to get up early in the morning, ad don't wan to explain to their boss that they stayed up all night trying to finish all the quests in Stranglethorn Vale. It's a game that almost has a take me or leave me feel. It won't grab you with its enormity like WoW does, but it does keep
that loot fiend inside of you happy. Nothing is cooler than killing a Legendary Goblin and watching it drop lots of loot.

The gameplay and overall feel of the game is very similar to that of its grandfather game. The skill tree is new along with character classes, but for the most part Diablo fans will feel right at home. Now when talking about the gameplay let me say first and foremost, singleplayer is a waste of time. There is no point and no reason to play on singleplayer, it doesn't give you any advantage or change of pace different then that of the mutiplayer. The only thing you will feel like is completely alone almost like a private server feels on games like WoW. This will in fact take away from the positives of the game. That being said multiplayer is as good as any others. Thats right I said it, it is just as good as WoW, City of Heroes, Guild Wars, Everquest, or EVE to name a few. This game does what it set out to do and it does it well. Because what Hellgate offers is unlike anything it's competetors can offer, fast and furious questing with great party features. I have leveled faster on Hellgate than any other game. Another aspect that I really like is the great party functionality. With great features such as Party Portal, you can teleport to any member of your party at anytime, even to places that are too high for your character. You also have online features that are standard in MMO's like PvP, Trading, Selling, Guilds, and parties.

I wont talk about actual gameplay much because others have posted in depth reviews of that. But what I will say again that one of it's strongest points is that you won't waste time getting from point A-B. That to me was one of the most frustrating aspects of WoW. It makes you waste time on things unrelated to character developement. Hellgate is exactly 180 of WoW's speed. From the start to finish you will always be doing something.

Now to the negatives, and there are like any game negatives. First and foremost it is not a game, unless you are determined to meet an objective, that you can play for long periods of time. For someone like myself with a family and a demanding job this is actually a plus. In WoW I found myself over-extending myself. But for hardcore fans it will get old after an extended period of time. So you will want to put it down, but it will always call you back. Another minus is the setting in which Hellgate is located. In today's MMO's you can see some amazing settings, however Hellgate (as of now) has no truly amazing settings. A lot of your time is spent traveling through recycled level layouts and destroyed gloomy environments. This adds to the weariness of playing it for extended amounts of time. Also the NPC's in the game are generally bland and unengaging, butt there are some that will make you chuckle. And the last thing I should note is the abundance of loot. This is the staple of the game but I can't tell if it's good or bad. Sure everyone loves getting stuff all the time, but after awhile it seems almost excessive.

All in all Hellgate is truly one of the best MMO's I have played. It may never be as strong as WoW ( who can?) but it should hold its own ground. As new content has been released and new environments (Stonehenge) prove to make it more diverse, this game should be around for a long long time.

Interesting Game: A little buggy and repetitive [Posted on 2008-03-22]
As mentioned in my title the game can get repetitive. The game also lacks common features many games of this type have. The subscription model is ill conceived imo.

What a waste... [Posted on 2008-05-01]
Avoid it as if it were the Plague. IMHO, it was a bad and rushed release, that had bad support. Such wasted potential for what could've been a great game...sad, really.
I was actually excited for this game, as the beta seemed ok, but that bubble burst when I got the final product in my hands. So-so packaging for a collector's ed. box, so-so extras. That's ok, I think.
Then I get to the game: some games stay on my hard drive for over a year (Dawn of War, Company of Heroes and Hearts of Iron 2. Call of Duty 4 will probably stay for a while. The Witcher is still on my drive after being finished once...), this one didn't even last a week.
So I set it aside, thinking that I'll give it a few months. I mean, Neverwinter Nights got better after several months. Not Hellgate: London, IMHO. After getting the latest patches, and struggling with the horrible auto-updater, I gave up. Maybe I'll give it another go in a year's time or so, as I'm sure I'll get really bored again.
Also, when the beta seemed (and probably, was) more stable than the actual, released, game, that should say something, too.
Ultimately, it was, IMHO, a waste of my money and time.
So don't buy it, please, lest you know what it means to be 'flagshipped'.
There are better CRPGs out there. Get The Witcher, or NWN2 and it's expansion, or play Baldur's Gate again...just not this one.

Fun, somewhat flawed, well done, but worth it in the long run [Posted on 2008-05-23]
I was one of the early Hellgate buyers who was massively frustrated because it wouldn't install, wouldn't start, or just crash. Bugs, goodness, lots o' bugs in the beginning. But the developers got them all fixed, and then some. I actually went back to it one day, fired up the launcher, and lo and behold, a single player update came down, and then it just started, and I never looked back.

Played through twice so far, and I must say, its really really fun stuff. There are LOTS of great characters with great humor, tons and tons of funky monsters and enemies, and lots of battles. There is very little in the way of getting stuck, and stumped, which I liked quite a bit. There were just a couple of situation where you had to think hard, or get some help from a forum, but in general, it was great and logical gameplay.

The single player campaign was LONG indeed. I must have been hacking at it for several months here and there. Many many hours of fun and monster killing.

This game does have a VERY steep learning curve. It takes a long long time to figure out what all the gadgets, weapons, enhancements, characters, and machines do. The directions simply suck, no 2 ways about it. You MUST rely on forums and other players to figure out half the functions in the game.

But its worth it for sure. While Hellgate is not exactly the most intellectually challenging game ever, its great fun, and a great release. I can see having a game of Hellgate running at all times for years. It reminds me of Painkiller in many ways, although its much more complex than PK. But I had a Painkiller session going for several years, and whenever I was in between games, or just bored, I started it up and killed some demons.

Hellgate is in that vein. Fun, bombastic, challenging, sometimes mindless, interesting, only mildly repetitive, and very very deep.

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