Be the Cape
"YOU'VE SURVIVED THE DEMON APOCOLYPSE, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO NEXT? . . .I'M GOING TO LONDON."
Reviewing the game Hellgate: London from Flagship Studios.
Copyright © 2008, Anthony Bosco
I'd call Hellgate a new game, but among the circle of gamers this title has been a hushed myth scheduled for eventual release for years now. We were actually beginning to relegate it to the category of vaporware (games that were stalled so long in development that they were eventually scrapped, thus becoming as "vapor"), until the first videos started to appear on the internet. Then we got a solid release date followed by the "I'm going to London" ad campaign in gamers periodicals. Well my friends the demon apocalypse is finally upon us (strains of Lordi echoing through my head).
Hellgate is an action RPG with full 3D graphics usually viewed from the third person perspective. Your Character classes include the Blademaster, Summoner, Guardian, and the Marksman. It is while playing as the marksman class that the first person perspective becomes available allowing the game to play in a manner very similiar to a first person shooter (this option is also available for the Summoner). I use the term "action RPG" to note that the action does not take place in a traditional turn based manner such as Neverwinter Nights, but plays much more like Diablo for instance.
The premise - Some years ago a dimensional gateway, or hellgate, opened allowing demons access to our world and many were lost in the carnage that followed. Humanity has survived in underground dwellings, making use of subway tunnels and the like as defensible hideaways. Although altering our lives forever the demons were not able to wipe us from the face of the earth. We learned to survive, and now were learning to fight back. You play a fighting member of the surviving human race. Doing your part to someday take the fight back to the demons.
Gameplay is standard RPG fare with large quests, and smaller side quests for leveling up, and acquiring more equipment. Gateways take you from the various zones allowing you access to safe areas where you can trade and take on quests, and other hostile zones where the action takes place. All saving is automatically done when you exit the game, and places you in the last safezone. Magic, and technology are both your weapons. Items with special properties, and weapon upgrades of various sorts are available, sometimes for a price, sometimes as dropped treasure. Hellgate does this sort of thing as well as any of its predecessors, look out for the Diablo references in the non-player characters. (as well as a few non-gaming pop culture references).
Often times with these games that spend extended time in development the game engines, and graphics are dated, and unimpressive upon release. Hellgate manages to avoid this trap. On low end systems the graphics still manage to convey mood, and look rather good. On a higher end systems however we see beautiful lighting effects, and good use of 3.0 pixel shaders. Characters are highly customizeable adding to the visual experience. There are some issues however with the graphics options. You may find that the default settings are somewhat bland, and even slightly high overhead. You want to lower the antialiasing immediately in the options menu (should have it no higher than low), and be sure to enable trilinear filtering. Everything else will of course vary on a case by case basis, but if you can turn the shaders up to high I strongly recommend it.
This game is a classic style RPG with modern bells, and whistles. That's the core of what they're doing right here. This game doesn't reinvent the wheel, but dresses it up in a shiny new package. Also it's a damn good wheel.