Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3027 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Released on: 2007-11-02
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Platform: Windows XP

Manufacturer's Description
Hellgate: London is the first original title from premier developer Flagship Studios, whose team hails from such blockbusters as the Diablo, StarCraft, and WarCraft series. Set in the near future, Hellgate: London introduces a world devastated by a demon invasion. Players are thrust into a desolate city scorched by hellfire where the survivors meld science and sorcery to gain a foothold against the minions of darkness and save the bloodline of humanity.

Hellgate: London combines the depth of Role-Playing Games with the action of First-Person titles, while offering infinite replayability and an individualized gaming experience through dynamically created levels, monsters, items, and events. Players create a hero and then battle through innumerable hordes of demons while completing quests and advancing through experience levels and branching skill paths. A robust, flexible skill and spell system, highly-customizable items, and a massive variety of randomly generated equipment allow players to create heroes that are truly unique.

Customer Reviews

Don't buy this game unless you like playing solo offline
Don't buy this game the company (Flagship Studios) who made it no longer exists and when January 31st 2009 comes around the company currently supporting the multiplayer servers (Namco-Bandai) will be dropping their support and the US and EU servers will close.

Now on the other hand you can still play the game offline in a Singleplayer function (which is good if you can find the latest singleplayer patch online). It's not as great as the multiplayer was though (and things that were subscriber only for the multi don't appear in the singleplayer).

Diablo -ish
I bought this game without hesitation - if the creators of Diablo2 were releasing a game along similar lines, well it's a must have.

I've been playing Hellgate (single player) for 6 or 7 hours in total up to now - and in all, I like it - its good fun: good graphics, (not the absolute best but then playability is more important than graphics), great setting, interesting characters to choose from, lots of skills and character upgrades and the ability to modify/upgrade almost all equipment you find.

So why then am I not raving about this game as the best ever, rather than just saying its 'good fun'? I think the fundamental problem is that it has lost something in 'translation' from a 3rd person hack and slash to what is essentially a 1st person shooter. One of the main reasons people liked, (and continue to like), Diablo2 was that in addition to the character generation and loot grabbing, it has a coherent linear story, real plot development and excellent NPC characters.

Hellgate, in comparison doesn't have any of these. For example, it has some of the worst NPC characters ever - they sound like village idiots! Why did Flagship not just have them read out their quests instead of having them make stupid random outbursts? - I actually think that removing their voices altogether would be preferrable to what we have now.

Plot is another area which suffers - you don't really get the feeling you are progressing in the game as it seems to be just one long monster-shoot for no particular purpose. Even with the character upgrades to keep you interested, I think this will get a bit boring after time.

Fundamentally, this game is a halfway house trying to please both RPG Diablo/NWN fans and 1st person shooter Halo/Bioshock fans: unfortunately you can't please all of the people all of the time and I don't think it really represent a classic of either genre. While it is good, and I would recommend it, I don't think that this game will stand the test of time as well as Diablo has...pity really.

Not the London I remember !?
I bought this game on the strength of its story location having commuted through the London tube system for many years and the excellent `eye candy' marketing videos setting the scene. Oh, and that it was produced by the makers of a previously highly rated game called...Diablo!! Surely they know what they are doing? Oops, I was wrong ! The bugs in this game are just unforgivable. Getting you're character stuck on obstacles and having to reboot to clear it is a crime and something I thought had been left behind in early FPS games. It also, crashes if you play too long... Must be an inbuilt health and safety feature !?

The game is repetitive, with crap dialogue and the storyline doesn't flow. I've reached level 19 as an Engineer and have started to lose patience with the laboriously slow rate at which my attendant Bots are being upgraded (This bit could be fun if the tech tree was a bit more active). You can accumulate a whole `warehouse' full of tech items you think you may have use for later...don't bother!! You can waste a lot of the time reconfiguring weapons for no significant gain in hitting power. Also, the NPC's are morons and are really annoying. They are struck dumb after their first sentence of dialogue leaving you the antiquated task of reading the rest on screen. Finally, why is the layout of the London underground system so inaccurate plus, there's not a single surface monument or feature I recognize. Whoever developed the scenery has missed the essence of London.....what an opportunity lost!

Sorry about the gripes, but this game does not stand up to the slick competition out there. So, not the best game I've played and in all honesty not worth the money. It could have been so much more if they had at least developed the scenery, atmosphere and sinister storyline portrayed in the opening video.