Is HellGate London the Diablo III that we were waiting for? My answer is: almost.
After getting Diablo's fans waiting 7 years expectantly for Diablo III, Bandai Namco Games produced the most awaited HellGate London. Using the new graphics technologies, Bandai Namco created a game in full 3D which is far beyond the old Diablo's 2D graphics. They kept the usual hack-an-slash and magic gameplay but they tried to reach shooter's players by adding 2 classes using guns and the choice to play in first person shooter which isn't really completed. Except that players will have to live with tons of graphic flaws, bugs and illogical behaviour, they will surely find what they were waiting for as much in the single-player mode as in the multiplayer mode.
Story and quests
Although this game is suppose to be really innovator in the role playing game style, it gets pretty stuck with the common storyline plot; you start as a totally nobody who gets his first test mission and becomes eventually the hero and is chosen to go on an adventure and eliminate the super big demon at the end in order to save mankind. This can be seen in the previous Diablo series, in Baldur's Gate as much on the PC as on the Playstation 2, in the Champions of Norrath series, I mean, even in the Final Fantasy series and so on and so on. But hopefully, Bandai Namco created a good main background story that gives you an urge to know the end. Now, about the sub quests. The developers inserted a whole bunch of those which is really different from the old Diablo II which had only main quests. Doing those gives you experience, money and good magical items. But at a certain point, the dialogs with the quests giver become so repetitive and annoying that you'll stop reading them feeling that you are losing your time. But still, in the overall the game gives you the feeling that you're not just fighting with demons to level up and get new items.
Graphics
HellGate is really remarkable because it has such a great range of possible graphics. Unless you are still working with an old Pentium 1, a 3D accelerator card and 256 Mb of RAM you'll be able to find a level of graphics that your computer will be able to run smoothly. Just laughing here but it is true that even with the minimum requirements (which are really low for a 2007 game) you can get some decent graphics. But badly the game uses a lot of memory due to all those flashy and lights effects as much in areas as on the armours themselves. At some point, mostly Vista users, there are so much graphical effects that a 2 GB RAM computer will run out of memory. So this means only 2 things, upgrading your internal memory or else playing with ugly graphics. An awesome feature is that you can play with DirectX 9 or DirectX 10 and there is a titanic difference between those 2. First of all, running DirectX 10 at low graphics is the same thing as playing with DirectX 9 at high graphics ant still it is better. A good feature they add on since Diablo II is reflection, yes reflection on all those metal parts you wear and see. But there are major flaws with the DirectX 9 engine. When outside you can see the reflections of the other building in the windows but after some inspections you'll see that the reflection is in fact only a premade image defiling in front you as you change your point of you. I mean, if there's an alley behind you, you won't see it, there will be a building instead. Weird huh? Another example is the armours reflections, no matter if you are outside or indoor you will always see a reflection of the sky and buildings. Where in the world can we see the sky when killing demons in a subway? Hopefully DirectX 10 doesn't have those problems and has pretty good reflections, pretty more realistic personally. Finally, the major multiplayer bug is that when you appear in a station you won't be able to see others body except their weapons and shields. It doesn't happen that often but it surely will at one time or another. In the overall, except those flaws, the game keeps pretty flashy with all those cool effects and graphic possibilities.
Gameplay
What is totally new is that Bandai started their game with 6 all new classes differently to Diablo 1 with 3 and Diablo II with 5. But the most uncommon thing is that they are separated in 3 kinds of main classes: Templars (fighters), Cabalists (sorcerers) and Hunters (shooters). What is really great for Diablo II's fans is that they will be able to find a class in Hellgate that is based on the old 2000 game. It is when it comes to gameplay that we can see easily see a slightly remaked Diablo II formula. As soon as you open the start the game with your character that you can see the Diablo II battle screen: a circle of red representing you life on the left, a little circle showing you the action of the left mouse button, a little menu in the center, another little circle showing you the action of the right mouse button and a blue circle for your mana. On the upper left corner there is your friends and summons health. What's new thought is that there is a quick menu just below de general menu, there is also the mini-map which can be brought in a little circle on the upper right corner which is really new since Diablo, Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance and Champions of Norrath have all the map in big in the middle of the screen which blocks most of the view and the graphics. The internal menus are almost the same except that you see your character and you can rotate it in 360 degree circle to see everything. Again there is no limit of weight but a limit of carrying spaces. The skill tree is a lot simpler than Diablo's giving it easier to unused players. Each class has his own set of unique abilities and crossover abilities with the other class of the same main class. For example, both the Blademaster and the Guardian have the skill Sword of Reckoning but the Blademaster has exclusively the skill Whirlwind. Playing the game in the overall is pretty easy too; you begin by equipping what you can and setting your skills so they'll be easy to use, then go into an instance and kill some demons. Badly, although that the first person mode is quite innovative for a roleplaying game we can still feel that it's not quite done. First of all, using 2 small guns at the same time results in blocking all your view, your character almost lifts them right in front of your face. And worst than that, the guns have a ranged limit of about 25 meters except for snipers which have a good 50 meters. What in the world is that? Nobody in the world would go fighting with a gun that can't fire properly, but again it would make the game too easy if it was more real, imagine if you could kill an enemy and no monsters could ever reached you because you're so far, that would be really awful too. Hopefully there is a great variety of monsters in the game so you won't have the feeling you are fighting always against the same enemies. But lots of monsters equal more programming and more programming gives us a possibility of more bugs. And that's particularly the case of the Ravager, a demon animal that keeps jumping at you. Strangely, if you dodge its attack it's a lot probable that the creature will fall through the ground and just die, more than that the corpse will reappear where it jumped. This monster can jump and pass through walls; well everybody knows that body versus a wall it's the body who wins. No but seriously, where is the collision? Do the Ravagers have the power to pass through walls? Now onto the character, it happens sometimes that you'll get stuck touching a wall, or when jumping over an object that you shouldn't, or even when jumping between two near objects. Those bugs block your character to move, you can't jump, and you can't go in any direction. Attacking still works just like the inventory and every other game window but there's the worst thing: you can't teleport yourself back to the last station and that's because the Personal Relocation Device doesn't work anymore. So you have to exit the game, re-enter it and then you'll see that every single monster will have reappeared and this means to beat all of them another time. And watch out because you could get stuck another time. Finally, I'd like to talk about THE most horrible multiplayer flaw. Regarding trading and dungeons, in games like World of Warcraft and Everquest you could give items to other players in your party as you wished but in HellGate London you can't, if you want to trade with your friends you'll have to wait to come back to a station. Ok, that's fine when it comes to armour and weapons because maybe you don't need them right now but if an Evoker runs out of Power Pack and has no mana left for his spells, what is he going to do? His friends cannot give him their packs and why? I don't know, maybe London's heroes are a bunch of retarded people and they just can't imagine that trading could be the same in a dungeon to. What were they thinking?
Items
Now onto the items, well I must admit there is a huge and I must insist on HUGE range of different items, this regards as much armours as weapons, mods and general items. Weapons can be moded by adding mods into their mod slots. Mods will be compatible only with some types of items like an ammo mod will never fit on a sword, etc. Each item has its own unique look, reflection and light effect. Items can be modified in the Nano-Forge using different components that you get by breaking other items. Each time you upgrade an item it will cost more materials to upgrade it again. You can add special property for a fee by putting the object in the Augmentrex 3000. A good thing is that you can change the overall color of your amour by using the color mix of one of your gear; it's easy to get what you want. One other thing that was kept from the old Diablos or that we can find in game like Lord of the Ring Online is the different color names depending on the quality of a weapon. Normal items are grey, enhanced are green, rare are blue, legendary are brown and unique are yellow. This means an all new set of colour and one more quality type than in Diablo II. But everything has its flaw and her it his: you CAN'T drop the items on the ground. If you want to get rid of an item and you're in a dungeon then too bad, you have to destroy it. Dropping it could have replaced the problem of trading but it doesn't work either.
Other bugs
-Enemy's dead body floating in mid-air
-The character reappears at the beginning of an instance when you were right into the middle of a fight