Great Game -- IF You Know What You're Buying
Gertsmann's statement:
" This storyline plays out the same way whether you play offline or online, which essentially means that the offline mode is useless."
sums up exactly how badly he misunderstood the game he was playing.
So, for those of you trying to decide whether or not to spend your PC gaming budget on Hellgate: London, let's clear up a few things.
1. Hellgate: London is not a no-fee MMORPG like Guild Wars. It's a single-player RPG with the option to play out sections of the single-player story in free online multiplayer with a group.
It's not World of WarCraft; it's not Guild Wars; it's not "MMO Doom". It's a single-player RPG you can also play (or re-play) online if you so choose.
We clear on this? :-)
I was surprised that the reviewer, and several readers here, didn't seem to know what they were buying. All the advertising, interviews, and other media I saw, made this pretty clear.
Maybe public relations was handled differently in different regions, but I never expected Hellgate: London was going to be a Guild Wars style free MMORPG. It surprises me that so many people -- especially the Gamespot reviewer here -- seemed to expect this.
2. Hellgate: London's gameplay mechanics follow those of the Diablo series to the letter.
The overhead camera view has been swapped out for an MMO-like third-person or first-person (your choice, via mouse-wheel) character view; the game has a science-fantasy, instead of a gothic-fantasy storyline, and the graphics are profoundly improved -- but Hellgate: London's gameplay is structured identically to that of the Diablo RPG games.
You start in a safe area (where there are necessary things like healers, merchants, and so forth) and then you take quests and side-quests from NPCs which take you out to dangerous areas.
Just like the Diablo games (and recent Diablo knock-off games like Titan Quest) you gain access to personal teleporters very early on, so trudging between the quest areas and the safe areas is never really an issue.
The gameplay of Hellagate: London (like the Diablo games, and games like Titan Quest) is action and loot oriented, with enough story to get you saying "just ... one ... more ... mission!"
Given that a bunch of the people working on the Hellgate: London game used to work on the Diablo series (something which has been widely publicized), it shouldn't surprise so many people that this game plays more like a graphically-revamped and improved Diablo game (or Titan Quest) than an MMORPG such as Guild Wars or World of WarCraft.
Hellgate: London lets you replay parts of its single-player story online, for free, with friends -- exactly like all the Diablo games did.
The fact that reviewer Gertsmann didn't tweak to what Hellgate: London's online aspect was supposed to be -- when the Diablo connection for Hellgate has been widely publicized -- makes me wonder if he was the right man for the review.
Yes, the online play aspect of Hellgate: London is buggy as hell right now, and definitely needs some tweaks and improvements -- but developer Flagship knows this already, and is patching in improvements as I write this.
Console gamers used to XBox Live don't seem to understand that the only way to really tune and correct a PC game's live aspect is to go live -- to see what's wrong under real-world conditions, and then patch as fast as you can. Even beta-testing can't prepare you for the crush of people playing your game online for free.
So -- if the idea of a Diablo-influenced science-fantasy single-player RPG sounds interesting to you, download the demo and give it a try. You'll probably enjoy the optional online play too (once they get all the bugs worked out) -- provided you're not expecting some sort of free MMORPG, the way the Gamespot reviewer did.
I really enjoy Hellgate: London a lot -- but then, I always knew what I was buying.