GH Review: HellGate London (PC)

***Zardon*** · Jan 23, 2008, 02:35 PM

Read The Review Here
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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.

bug77 · Jan 24, 2008, 07:57 AM

One of the man flaws of HGL is repetitiveness. I mean, D2 was repetitive, too, but in HGL there are like 5 setting total. There's actually streets and tunnels, plus the occasional hell, open field, some cave-like setting and some necropolis type. Now, 80% of the time you'll be seeing either the streets or the tunnel. There's also very few enemy types: in about 5 minutes you've seen almost all of them. I could actually spot some AI on the ravagers: I had them round around half-level maybe, just to jump me from behind 2 minutes after the initial encounter. Scary, sometimes, but completely ineffective, as they don't group.

Then there's bugs. After 4 or 5 patches, there are still outstanding bugs out (like skills not working properly). I even had the end-boss not spawning. If you play SP, you get flagshipped (yes, it's entered the vocabulary) even more. FSS only released a couple patches for SP and does not seem eager to pursue this further. SP bug example: after you complete the game, you should be able to unlock elite mode, for extra challenge.

There is something (maybe my passion for D2?) that tells me this can become a great game, but right now it looks more like pre-beta release, with a lot of missing content.