Hellgate London (PC)

(Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Tolerate Puzzle Quest 2)
1/31/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 3

Hellgate still has the (addictive) puzzle-like elements that made Diablo successful; you're constantly upgrading your kit, and then modifications of said kit, as the core gameplay. Hey, new gun! Look, new armor! ID it, wear it, upgrade, or sell. Wash, rinse, repeat. It also has the crafting element made popular in MMOs, that is, farming resources and making various objects de guerre. Hellgate's loot system is an exercise in combinatorics that is only a little less addictive than the best match-three puzzle games. And it's got the flash of cool items, not colored gems; how appropriate as the rising tide of consumerism engulfs the Sunday paper and Techbargains.com, not to mention the interstitial advertising that slips through my relentless TiVo fast-forwarding. Hellgate's all about getting the latest stuff.

I'm hoping it was by deliberate choice that Hellgate doesn't take itself seriously. At least that would explain the awful introductory pre-recorded dialog for each non-player character interaction -- the character's unchanging goofy voice-over, followed by the text quest details delivery: 'My God, we need to kill [baddie] here, it's a mission of the utmost importance.' Wasn't she just dancing a jig when she greeted me a second ago? All the NPCs hang around waiting for you, lifting not a finger to aid in the 'grand cause,' there to take your money, give you stuff, heal you up, and point you in the right direction. Mass Effect may be talky, but at least they tried to make it feel like the NPCs were having a conversation with the player.

As a result, it becomes clear Hellgate's focus isn't on the player -- it's on the multiplayer. The single-player campaign character isn't playable in the multiplayer -- you've got to start over. There's no reason to play the single-player -- so much of the loot is class-specific -- even early on, you'll just be selling it for the gold -- I mean, the Palladium. (What happened to good old pounds sterling?) And despite the focus on multiplayer, you'll wonder why the chat interface is so unusable (though a promised patch will address these issues, allegedly).

But if it's all about the multiplayer, the premium subscription service cost seems out of whack -- if I'm paying an MMO a chunk of change every month, I know there are lots of dedicated servers running 24/7, continuing development, giant databases and lots of customer service being offered. What's Flagship offering? More character slots? A few special events? It doesn't seem like we're getting the same sort of value; I suspect most of us in the US will be playing online, with a few less features, for free.

There's a pile of stuff to do in Hellgate -- it's just that the game doesn't grab me by the shirt collar and compel me to do it. It feels like running around from place to place, optimizing my character, mowing down legions of pliable bad guys, punctuated by the near-death experience of a particularly difficult boss battle. I have a hard time taking the game seriously, and as a result, Hellgate's joined the pile of games that aren't able to leap over the (admittedly high) threshold of quality that demand a complete play-through. Those with a higher tolerance for Hellgate's flaws will no doubt benefit from the upcoming patches; as for the rest of us, Flagship might find they should have taken with them one of Blizzard's unofficial mottos for their new studio: