Hellgate: London Review
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According to its web site, Flagship Studios is "the first, last and only voice in the world of action-RPGs." That is an incredibly bold claim to make, even with such a pedigree staff. Admittedly, "helped create Diablo" is a pretty impressive bullet point on a résumé, but it's hardly a ticket to unmitigated hubris. Pride goeth before the fall, as it were. Does Hellgate: London live up to the self-preening of Flagship Studios's PR department tear sheets? The short answer is, "not really," but do read on to see why.
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In a nutshell, Hellgate: London can be thought of as "Diablo meets Doom 3 meets City of Heroes meets '28 Days Later'." Quite a barrage of pop-culture comparisons, no? The Diablo connection is self-evident because the gameplay is almost identical: kill monsters, gain experience, level up, gain new skills, collect treasures, tweak your avatar, later, rinse and repeat. The Doom 3 analogies lie in the technologically advanced hordes of hell that you're slaying. The endless urban/suburban/subterranean ruins you're stalking through are quite reminiscent of City of Heroes instances and the abject emptiness of post-invasion London echoes the chilling introduction of "28 Days Later."
As previously stated, the gameplay of Hellgate: London is quite standard for action-RPGs. You select from a list of classes, talk to non-player characters who hand out objectives, explore the game world, collect loot like better equipment and money ("palladium" in the new dead-world economy), build up attributes and skills, etc., and so forth. The classes from which you can choose are: Blademaster (offensive melee, specializing in damage per second), Engineer (similar to the Summoner, except they create and use drones and other assorted technologies), Evoker (an elemental direct-damage caster class), Guardian (defensive melee, with a focus on getting tougher and harder to kill when surrounded by hordes of enemies), Marksman (ranged high DPS) and Summoner (summons and controls infernals, fighting fire with fire, as it were). These classes are diverse enough to please most tastes, but I personally went with a Blademaster and a Marksman while I was working through this review.
