With patch 1.3 out I once again loaded, patched, and played Hellgate. The child in me refuses to give up on this game but the adult in me really wants to talk about the tears of blood I am getting all over my keyboard.
From the very beginning I told all of my friends about this game coming out. The Diablo team was making what was to be Diablo 3. My very favorite 3D company Blur even did a trailer for it that was on constant loop in my PC and brain. However there is a sad fact to face in this game. It is just boring, and the explanation is loose at best.
The combat is repetitive, the story is near non existent, the levels are pretty but generic and also very repetitive, and a multiplayer system that in the end adds very little to the game. I mean if you want to get from one station to the next you need to travel a good distance. Not such a problem but if you should log off (or get disconnected) you need to rerun that distance as if you had never done it before. Also there are two games in Hellgate. One game you play on a mid to low range computer, and the bright and shiny game I saw in the previews that must be played on the hulking, soul costing, gamer rigs of doom. Should you be playing the former, well it looks like you are in an all grey world of mush.
If you are not into story at all the game is great for you. The monsters are unique and fun. The action never stops and often times if you just run around with collected quests you can solve them without even knowing you did. What you have is a true RPG action game. However I think the reason it falls flat for me is because it was offered up as Diablo and then something more. It really isn’t more than Diablo at all. The MMO portion of it isn’t worth paying for since the point of MMO is to “multiplay” and the other people in the game generally just get in the way.
My guess is that even with the advent of new tools PvP in the 2.0 update these are all just notes for the next game. I remain faithful to the Roper and his clans but Hellgate wounded me in all the faults I never expected. I wish I could have been more funny here but I really am bummed out. What am I going to look forward to now? Elf Bowling?
On the Left Hellgate on a 8800 Nvidia tiny God. What it looks like on my 256 crap AGP.

