The Gates of Hell Have Never Been So Inviting

I can't stop playing Hellgate. It is the most fun I have had playing a video game in a while. Though the character creation in the beginning of the game is kind of weak, you have hundreds of options to edit your character. Though the gameplay almost becomes repetitive, there are amazing climaxes in the story that are accompanied by epic levels with fantastic scenery and scary-as-hell bosses.

I love this game and wish more people I knew played it. It seems like playing alone is half of the fun, but getting a party of adventurers would triple the game's fun. The classes, though few in number, are varied enough to make the game repayable as each one.

The Hunter faction consists of the Marksman and the Engineer. The Marksman is a pretty generic sniper/rifleman. Playing as a marksman makes the game seem like a pretty solid FPS until a message comes up saying "Level up!" The skills expand on the gameplay and make it entertaining to no end. Being able to throw a grenade that increases in damage as you play the game may seem slightly uneventful until you add new combat stances and robot minion types as well.

Finding and customizing new weapons make the class infinitely more entertaining as you acquire new upgrades for your very own, tailor made BFG. Perhaps my personal favorite part of weapon customization is the visual change weapons go through as you upgrade them. You can SEE the new battary or scope or ammo type that you put onto your gun, making your character even MORE unique.

The wonderful folks at Massively.com wrote up a bit about the classes that I would be hard-pressed to outshine.

Until next time
~Mike

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Mind the Gap

I have been awaiting Hellgate London for the past month with bated breath. Today is finally the release and I just played for an hour and a half in what seemed like minutes. For those who don't know, Hellgate is an action/adventure/mmo/rpg/fps. You play it standard hack n' slash mode with the option to switch to a first person view. As you get kills you level up and get the oppertunity to get new skills and attributes. This is the most faithful reproduction of Diablo that I have seen since the genuine article.

The game is definitely entertaining, but I have some problems with it to get out of the way first. FIRST! The most glaring problem with the game is the atrocity of the graphics. They look pretty terrible.... I am running the game on medium/high settings (best my card can handle) and at times it looks like an N64. The models look ok, but the textures are pretty terrible. SECOND, its really easy.... I hope the difficulty picks up later, but it seems that I don't have to worry about health. I kill things so quickly that I rarely even get hit. Perhaps it is the nature of the Marksman class to just pwn really hard, but I was expecting more of a challenge. THIRD! Every part of this game's production seems botched. To participate in the beta, a preorder of the game was required. Not only that, but between the beta closing and the game release (a few weeks) the forums closed down. It seems Flagship is trying as hard as they can to destroy any vestige of a community. Also, the only reason I am writing now is that the servers required maintenance ON LAUNCH DAY! Come on guys, hammer out the bugs BEFORE the game is released.

Now the good part! I think the game is very entertaining. Playing an fps with skills and expandable equipment is fun. Adding in multiplayer co-op and a buy/sell mechanic and you have a game that is arguably more entertaining than WoW. I enjoyed every minute of my play, despite the shortcomings. I encourage anyone with 50 bucks and a desire for a new RPG or FPS or MMO to pick it up.

If you DO get it , I am Revik on Shulgoth