Hellgate: London

"'Hellgate' is an incomplete and utter disaster of a game"

I purposefully waited a few months since the release of ‘Hellgate: London' to review it. Actually, I don't think it's a half-bad idea for anyone reviewing an online game. It gives the developers and programmers a little extra time to iron out the kinks of bugs so that the writer can give a more accurate and up-to-date description of the online components, and thus better accurately review the game.

Unfortunately for this overly-hyped RPG, another year couldn't increase its score at the rate it's going.

The Hype

‘Hellgate: London' was the next big “thing” I was awaiting in the world of online gaming. I've played Diablo, World of Warcraft, and Guild Wars, and have been respectively obsessed with all three at one time or another. Given what all the previews, videos, and screenshots of this game showed, Hellgate could be another gem to spend countless hours with.

There were a few things that made me nervous as the release date approached, however. The system of paying an optional monthly fee for some extra content didn't sit well with me. Was I going to feel like I was playing a full game since I wasn't planning on forking over the extra cash? Was this new business model from Flagship Studios going to work out for them, and will the promised bonus content eventually entice me to pay?

And then there were reports of bugs, but those came with every release of an online game, right? Right, of course they do. The demo rolled along, and while many complained (and plenty of folks claimed to cancel their pre-order) I remained hopeful, reminded people it was a demo, and continued to look forward to the Halloween release date.

The game was released on the last day of October, and of course there were fans who celebrated and there were people who knocked the flaws and bugs. I waited a few weeks, got a copy for myself, and began to play.

I then stopped playing less than a week later.

Never Release an Incomplete Game

‘Hellgate: London' is and was an incomplete game. There were so many inherent flaws that no amount of patching can make it live up to its original hype.

After choosing one of six available classes (I chose the Summoner myself), you are thrown into the world and are immediately handed your first quest. Soon enough you'll reach the first “station” (Hellgate's form of towns or outposts) and the unoriginal quests start to pile up.

The funny thing was, when I brought my Summoner into that first station, I saw only two or three other people around. Hmm, that's funny. The stations are the one place where you are supposed to see fellow players. I had no problem with the instanced combat zones (I loved the original Guild Wars, after all), but Flagship ripped the soul out of the online component of this game by providing only a handful of visible players in the public stations. Finding people to group with would be harder than I thought.

Hellgate being an incomplete game goes beyond the bugs, however. Another major complaint is the lack of tile sets, which is a fancier phrase for “gameplay environments”. You spend an awful lot of time in the same looking sewer, street, and buildings. The names of the areas changed, but the look did not. The lack of monster diversity didn't help matters either. Flagship tried to rectify the problem by (shortly after the game's release, I believe) arranging tile sets to sync more with the acts of the game, of which there are five.

And speaking of incomplete, check out the weapon descriptions. How much damage does your gun do? Oh, I guess you can't tell, and neither can I. The decision, or lack thereof, to not show weapon damage on weapon descriptions was not so wise. This is an RPG, and I'd like to customize my character as much as possible, and I'd certainly love to know exactly how much damage a particular weapon is capable of doing.

Play With Me

Let's say, hypothetically, the above problems were cleared, aside from the lack of players in the stations. Let's assume there are a variety of tile sets, monsters, weapon descriptions, and brilliant quests.

So of course you want to share these awesome experiences with a group right? Great! You can form parties with other players in stations to venture into the zones together and battle the demons of hell alongside your friends.

And that's unfortunately where that “lack of players in stations” comes into play, but there are many more problems with the grouping system beyond just that. The friends list was unfortunately bugged from the beginning, meaning you couldn't add offline players to your friends list, and even when they were online, sometimes bugs would kick in that wouldn't let you see them online or message them properly.

The chat system isn't anything to brag about either. Because there aren't players socializing like other online RPG's in the towns, there are a few too many channels to manage, and it is sometimes too confusing for its own good. A global channel, for example, does far too much when you are trying to find someone to help you with a specific quest or area.

To put it simply, finding a group is far too difficult for an action RPG such as Hellgate because of the lack of players in stations and confusing chat system, as well as the bugs surrounding the guild and buddy lists.

Backpedaling

I'll quickly return to one of my original questions about the optional monthly subscription fee: Was this new business model from Flagship Studios going to work out for them, and will the promised bonus content eventually entice me to pay?

Let's start with the first part there- will this business model work out for Flagship Studios? I am, by no means, an expert on the economy or development of video games, but something told me it wouldn't. I thought that paying $10 a month for an action RPG for some extra features just wasn't worth it, and it wouldn't work out too well.

I saw the original pre-release list of subscriber-only content too: PvP mode, hardcore characters, extra zones/quests/weapons, special events, auction house, elite mode, achievements, more character slots, raid-level areas, more character classes, etc.

It was definitely intimidating. I wanted those extra character slots and raid-level areas, and trying out new character classes months after the game's release would be great, but remember how I said I didn't think this business model would work out too well for Flagship? Turns out I was right, as the developers started backpedaling pretty quickly to bring in regular players instead of getting people to subscribe.

That demo in mid-October, less than 2 weeks away from the release of the game, left a sour taste in players' mouths. They complained, moaned, and some cancelled their pre-orders. Hellgate was already losing its player base, and Flagship needed a way to reel them back in.

So what was their solution? Give us regular players some subscription features! Suddenly, in patches before and shortly after the game's release, non-subscribers found themselves with plenty of character slots, achievements, PvP mode, and the ability to make elite characters. The list of subscriber features was dwindling in hopes of bringing back their loyal fan base of Hellgate.

And on to the second part of that question: would the promised bonus content eventually entice me to pay? Well, the key word here is “promised”, because Flagship hasn't exactly lived up to all of its promises. It's almost half a year since the release and there have been no signs of any new character classes, and raid areas (meaning combat zones for large groups of players) are non-existent. Extra zones have been added, yes, but recent patches (I'm looking at you, 1.3) have scared off many players.

Is there even an auction house yet?

The Game That Never Was

‘Hellgate: London' had promise. It could have been fun, but Flagship (and EA is to blame as well) screwed it up. The subscription service should have never been implemented, in my opinion. Six months after it's release and I'm still not convinced it is ready to see store shelves. They needed perhaps another year to not only fix the bugs, but just make the overall game “better”. I know it's such a simple word, but that's how it is with Hellgate.

Well, I wasted $50 on it, but the lesson is learned. Hype can be absolutely misleading. Demos can actually be a sure sign of a game's demise. People that create a great game such as Diablo 2 might only be a one-trick pony. That, or there are plenty of wizards still left at Blizzard to make an incredible Diablo 3.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 04/28/08

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