"A shallow game probably not worth your time"

Hyped up with a marketing campaign of "from the creators of diablo", Hellgate London will probably be successful no matter what any reviewer says. However, if you look at the game objectively, it's a truly mediocre game as I'm about to discuss.

Gameplay / Game mechanics- 6.5/10

The fundamental game mechanics of HG:L is fps mixed with rpg. In terms of the basics of shooting monsters and picking up loot, there's nothing wrong. With fps games having had so much development lately, it's pretty hard to screw this part up. The monsters have almost no AI whatsoever. As soon as they see you, they essentially bee line straight for you. They don't retreat and gather more forces to attack you, they don't flank you, they don't pop in and out of cover. Thus, the game is truly a grind, since the enemies are simply fodder for you to level up and offer no intrinsic entertainment or satisfaction from killing them. Take far cry for example; it's considerably old but the enemies' AI offers a thrill of danger and you really need to be careful how you explore the island.

Depth - 2/10

Yup, this is the Achilles heel for the game. The game is as shallow as a kiddie wading pool. In Diablo II, there were a multitude of very different characters you could build. Many people even had multiple characters of the same class, all spec'd differently and each character would get playtime. In HG:L the skills are uninspired to the point that they are beneath the level of even Diablo II, which was released 8 years ago! Why does a game that was just released have even less character depth than a game released almost a decade ago?

In HG:L, you can play the game and willy nilly assign points to whatever skill you want to try out at that instant and your character won't really be any weaker than one who meticulously planned his character's development. In general, there's no skill that fundamentally changes the way your character plays. It may change the range of their attack, or allow you to hit multiple monsters, but there's nothing there that really distinguishes subclasses from one another.

However, the skills that are available ARE different. Nonetheless, using a different skill as your main attack doesn't truly make a different build. It just means your killing monsters with a different skill. In WOW, for example, a warrior has a rage meter, a rogue has an energy meter, and a mage has mana. Because of this, they each behave inherently different. Thus it becomes more than just killing mobs with a different skill; each character is truly distinct. Another example of classes being different is Team Fortress 2. In that game, each class has a chance of killing every other class if the player has enough skill, but they still all play different and excel at different roles. The only roles in HG:L are melee, ranged, and pet-master. I could go on and on about this and write essays on the subject, but I'm sure you get my point.

Weapons are decent. They're about what you expect them to be in a typical fps game. There's not really any groundbreaking weapons or effects.

Because of the fact that the skills, weapons, classes, and monster AI's are so shallow, HG:L suffers from a lack of diversity in the game play and provides very little or no room for players to come up with their own unique strategies for their characters.

Presentation / production value - 4/10

This game has randomly generated dungeons. The first question you should ask is why do you want a random dungeon? Is it to change your gameplay experience? Is it so that you can't memorize a level? These are all valid reasons to want a randomly generated dungeon, but you need to realize there's a trade-off by having them.

Case in point, which would you rather have, the ability to have a square level and occasionally a triangle level, or a hand-crafted area full of ambient props and effects with rooms and monsters structured in a way that creates atmosphere, tension, and excitement? Until randomization can do this, I feel that it is a cop-out of good level design, which is exactly what HG:L suffers from.

Furthermore, the story is uninteresting and not very compelling. There's never a point in the story that you feel "whoa! What happens next?" The dialogue is for the most part uninspired and breaks the 4th wall a lot (which is great for comedies, but inappropriate for serious games like this one). There's a few funny NPC's and the occasional witty dialogue, but in general, it's quite bland and you'll find yourself just skipping it all. To rub salt into the wound, the way it's presented is one line at a time. When NPC's have a lot to say, you end up having to mass click if you want to read all their text. Fortunately, story is generally not the reason people play these games. However, its these kinds of touches which elevate a game to one that is remembered and cherished.

Graphics/animation - 6/10

In my opinion, graphics isn't really the important thing in a game like this. I've included this section for anyone who may be interested. The graphics in this game appear dated by 2 years. I haven't seen any other game released this year with a triple-A budget like this one that looks this bad. That said, the monster's animate well in general. However, the sword swinging animation looks awful and very unrealistic. There's occasionally clipping problems as well.

Technically, the game makes little use of shaders when compared to current games. There doesn't appear to be any dynamic lighting, no HDR, no depth of field, etc. All these are current shader techniques that are well known and understood now. Anyone in this field knows how to do this.

The texture resolution also appears low. When moving close to any person, object, or creature, you will only be greeted by a mess of jumbled ugly blocks of colours.
However, with the game's default darkness, it hides most of the sub-par graphics so under normal settings, you probably won't notice that much.

Sound - 6/10

I don't really have much to complain about here in terms of the basics. The music is OK, but most people will probably turn that off anyways. The monsters sound like monsters, and various weapons and attacks generally sound like what you'd expect. However, you're talking about hell taking over London. There should be atmospheric and ambient sounds. There should be occasional screams in the distance. In completely deserted places, you should hear the lifeless howl of the wind. Sound is often neglected in terms of taking a player's experience to the next level, and HG:L only covers the bare minimum.

Replay value - 4/10 or 9/10

To encourage players to keep playing, there's a hard mode after you've beaten the game once. There's also a harder mode if you subscribe. There's also 6 classes available and although they don't really play intrinsically different, they are different enough that you would probably want to try them all. Each character also has skills that are only accessible at certain levels so there's another motivation to keep playing.

"Replay value" is probably what really separates the market. People who play games for an "experience" will not like this game. People who play games expecting an evolution of things they've played 5 or 10 years ago will not like this game. People who want to build unique characters that play very differently depending on how they've planned them will not like this game.

People who enjoy repetition with very basic fps mechanics and don't care about game depth, deep character building, or presentation will probably enjoy it.

Conclusion - 6/10 (not averaged)

This game is the lovechild between a very shallow version of diablo mixed with an fps. The marriage between the two unfortunately brought no depth from either camp. The AI of monsters and environmental ambiance you'd expect from an fps these days is completely lacking. The character building and customization is incredibly shallow. You may even find yourself not really excited when you level up. Don't worry, this is normal in HG:L, as there's not much to be excited about. If you enjoy mindless killing things and you don't really care about anything else, this may be the game for you. On the other hand, if you like games that allows you to explore various strategies, have good story lines, or offer a rewarding game experience, look elsewhere.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/06/07

Game Release: Hellgate: London (US, 10/31/07)