Hellgate London

Hellgate London is a blend of an FPS with an RPG. Mix Resident Evil and Neverwinter Nights and you got Hellgate. Does that spell good or bad? In my opinion, you end up with something bad... very bad.

 At first glance, Hellgate seems wicked awesome. More so when you view the FMV at the start of the game - "woah" will be bouncing around your mind. And when you begin the game, the hype will be there... cool skill system, cool guns, cool swords, cool aliens. Even cool realistic backgrounds.

And then the flaws come baragging in. First, the blocky movement of your character is noticed after all. Not so next-gen anymore, but forgiveable. Then, as you progress through the game, you'll notice that you're fighting the same monsters with upped levels, upped healthy and changed colors. Hmm, starting to dislike the game... then you realize the game is just you running through busted up city areas and subway stations. Okay, now that's just irritating and insulting. It's not even close to keeping with Halo!

Now, the storyline is a little bit like Resident Evil except there are more people around and there's magic involved. Maturity Rating is a bit close to above average as the skill system will not allow you any resets so you need to strategize your character... oh, and there's lots of bleeding aliens and exploding stuff so I guess that adds to that too :). Graphics, as I mentioned earlier, is pretty alright but gets tiring as you progress. The most exciting part would have to be the last part wherein you invade Hellgate itself... other than that, it's pretty much subway station hopping for you. A nice feature though is the fact that you can pick what type of fighter you want to be : if you pick a melee class like blademaster, you'll be playing a 3rd person RPG and if you pick a ranged class like the mage, you'll be playing a 1st-person FPS. Very cool and very flexible to the player's personality.

An innovative system that saved the game's rating for this review would have to be the item modifications. You can modify your weapons and armors to have extra benefits like Beast-monster Resistance or a glowing fire blade which deals extra fire damage. You can also break down items to recycle into better weapons and armors by fusing them with newer items. Now there's a bloody game that promotes Environmental Awareness :)!

Overall, Hellgate is a pretty okay game. Not too spectacular, but not too shabby. You'll hate the parts intended to be funny but in the end, you'll feel like a hero for beating up so many demons in such an evil looking place.