Hellgate: London Collector's Edition Review
I've been following Flagship before they were even that. Same goes for Hellgate: London.
Played beta, demo, and release. Bought the collector's edition and am a Founder's subscriber (150$) I will cover everything I can, as short as I can.
The collector's edition is a good deal for 60 dollars. You get a well made making of hellgate london dvd. Very nice concept and class art with slideshows/music. All the trailers as well and a nice box. A map of the game as well in case you're lost. Also the comic book is great.
I will break down the game into five parts. Gameplay, graphics, storyline, customer service, and community.
The gameplay is great because with the random generated levels you never see the exact same layout all the time. However this game is all about warehouses, sewers, streets, basically a slum filled game. Flagship released the game too early and it shows. However it grows on you and later acts bring fresh new areas.
The skills though is something that should be redone. Unfortunately the devs have said they don't plan on redoing them. Also hardcore mode is not soloable all the way and you need to grind to survive with certain classes. To top it off the developers have said this is working as intended. A group beat the last boses in over 6 hours though but who the heck wants to fight a boss for that long.
The bugs that were at launch are still there. Suffice to say though some of them have been fixed with the latest patch. I have not crashed but my settings are on medium instead of high. Memory leak bug is still out there and being worked on. However the Flagship staff is severely inexperienced at it shows greatly.
Graphics are great and direct x 10 has some nice effects like smoke, dynamic lightning, blurriness while turning etc. Problem is you need a powerhouse rig to run the game at this setting. The game is not optmized as well as it should be. It still looks nice on medium though.
Havok physics add to the atmosphere and you can use the environment to dispatch enemies quickly. Slice barrels, blow up co 2 cartridges etc and stuff goes boom. There is never a dull moment in hellgate: london.
The storyline is decent at best due to it being complicated for no good reason. With the CGI you get some very nice scenes but there just aren't that many. Most of them are a book and you hear one of the characters talking. The other CGI was no doubt done by Blur Studios. It's possible Flagship did the end CGI but I doubt it.
I was happy how the game ended though and it leaves it open for continued addition to the storyline.
Now on to the customer service. It is in one word totally lackluster. If you call the number you can immediately tell they've outsourced it. Yes it's an Indian lady at the other end. This is bad because half the time they do not understand what you're trying to say.
Secondly if they wouldn't have outsourced it they you would at least have some people in the states that understand your frustrations with the game. For all I know someone half across the world couldn't give a rat's ass that my game keeps crashing.
Besides that when you e-mail them many of their replies are automated. Also numerous times have there been typos. This is so unprofessional it's insane. Also you CANNOT get a refund through them for your subscriptions. Lets just say I'm going to be disputing my Lifetime's Subscription with my credit card company.
Reason being they just pulled a bait and switch. They advertised 24 character slots for subscribers only. Instead of giving people without a subscription 10 they went ahead and gave em the 24 for free.
That's right completely free. Which means those that paid for subscription just got baited and switched. You still get to use items that non subscribers don't use but half the time they are more combersome than you think.
Imagine having a Warhammer Online event where you pick up your enemies ears, arms, and make recipes. Problem is you can only find ears and hardly any arms. Also you seem to be finding so many recipe's that they clog up your inventory. Sure you could destroy them but that's not the point.
Also you have this one recipe you can't get rid of cuz you crossed into nightmare mode. So you're forced to literally exploit the engine to get rid of the stupid item clogging your inventory. How would you feel?
I'll tell you how I feel. I feel like I could make a better game with a pencil and paper. No kidding here folks the content is usually rushed and not well though out. Tack in the customer service and well you get the idea...
Moving on we have the lovely welcoming heart warming community. NOT! If you thought the World of Warcraft forums were bad, hah! At least you got mods there. Half the time in the Hellgate London forums they got without any mods.
Also the forums are restricted to those who own the game. Which means those that don't won't know how bad it can get. The community is torn and here is why.
From day 1 there was NO mention of subscription. This came out about 3 months before launch. 3-6 months at the most. It was like a slap in the face. It was as if Diablo never existed. For 10 years Diablo 2 has been free to play on battle.net and so has every other Blizzard game.
This was the ultimate knife in the back, the ultimate betrayal, and I was stupid enough to fork down 150$ for it. Which I will get getting back in a week or two.
In conclusion Hellgate: London was supposed to have been so much more. Bill Roper instilled faith in his followers. He is a great man but when it comes down to management Flagship failed and failed hard.
Their inexperienced developers released the game when it wasn't time to. The game needed honestly about 6-12 months more to be polished. In the making of DVD bill says and I quote "Flagship studios was founded with the concept to make great games."
Well Hellgate: London is a great game but it that does not make it a good one. There is no doubt Flagship will learn an immonumental amount of from their mistakes. That does not mean they won't commit them again.
There is communication between the community but instead of giving people refunds they totally change the subject on you when you contact them. Also they really seem not to care as much as they should.
To conclude Hellgate: London is a game that was not executed well. I think they should of stayed 2D as Mythos their 2D game is much better some day. If you're interested in this game you should definately Ebay it but don't pay full price.
I think 1up.com summed it up best. This game deserves a 4.0 out of 10.
I'll definately be getting my money back for Founder's offer. I just feel hurt that a company could do this. Especially with Bill Roper being one of the men in charge.
Honestly I feel like he should be ashamed of himself to release a game like this. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed it. It's all the other little things that compound to one big heart ache. Hellgate: London can burn in hell. (Definately quote me on that!)
-Pros-
Nice gameplay and graphics.
Some good parts to the storyline and CG movies.
Nice moddable weapons and looting system.
Cons
It don't work right all the time.
Confusing storyline.
Subscription based system segregates community.
Customer service which is 1/10th that of Blizzard's
Inexperienced development team
Rushed buggy game.
-Conclusion- Hellgate: London can burn in hell. /cry :(