Anyone who's ever frequented our fair capital's Elephant and Castle and its environs, will know that such a concept is not too far removed from reality and your correspondent ventured into that godforsaken place three times a week for three years - thank you, the university clearing system. So Flagship Studios' decision to set its debut title in a demon-infested Laaahndon Taaahn is fitting, at least in our bleary eyes.
That said. Flagship has picked London mainly because of its history and sadly not because of its less salubrious denizens. The city positively drips with it, and its age means that it's been knocked down and rebuilt more times than John Travolta's acting career. The result is an aesthetically pleasing at least if you're a games designer hodgepodge of architectural styles, and lots and lots of tunnels: Roman aqueducts.
Tunnels are important in Hellgate: London, because they're humanity's only remaining hiding place. From what? Well, from the legions of the damned on the rampage, that's what. The game is set in , five years after the opening of the titular portal that let millions of demons and other assorted nasties loose on the streets of the city. Slaughter and destruction on an unprecedented scale was the predictable result, with the military finding their weapons to be useless against this paranormal foe.
Anyone lucky enough to survive the onslaught quickly made their way underground, out of harm's way. But now it's payback time. The Knights Templar and other assorted Fortean Times favourites Hellgate's packing more secret societies than ten copies of The Da Vinci code have known about the demonic threat for centuries - in fact they've prevented invasions several times throughout history - and now they're striking back.
Their main weapon, if you haven't guessed by now, is you. Now there's a thing. This is RSI-inducing, balls-to-the-walls action all the way. Think Diablo with 3D graphics and a nonfantasy near-future setting and you're nearly there. Seeing as many of the Flagship team actually worked on Diablo and its sequel, this comes as little surprise. Like the Diablo games, Hellgate will have randomly generated levels. There are certain pre-designed 'safe areas' in the game, where you can rest up, visit the medic or do a bit of shopping, but the rest of the time you'll be duking it out with demons in randomly created parts of London.
You might argue that this is an easy enough feature to stick in a 2D game, but getting it to work properly in three glorious dimensions is a staggeringly difficult task. Little wonder that Flagship has had to create its own engine to get the likes of lighting and shading right. The upshot is that no two gamers will experience the. The randomly generated monsters you kill drop randomly generated loot and items, and scripted events will be sown in at randomly generated times.
Everyone will play a slightly different game? As befits an action role-player, there'll be an abundance of weapons - at least of them, in fact. But don't expect to see old favourites like AK47s and Uzis among them. Conventional weapons can't hurt demonic creatures, so all the toys in your potential arsenal are at least slightly magical in nature. You don't spray lead from an M16 - you unleash flaming shells of righteous fury with your Vulcan Bolter.
That kind of thing. It ain't all about guns, though. There'll be melee weapons too, and it's when using one of these that the option to switch to a third-person viewpoint will come in useful.
You'll also be allowed to pair up smaller weapons, toting one in each hand John Woo-style. Nothing new there, we hear you cry, but hold your horses: Hellgate lets you mix 'n' match your armaments. Fancy sticking a flamethrower in one hand and a sword in the - other? You got it.
In addition to modifying your weapons and armour, you'll also be able to customise your character by increasing his or her stats as you gain experience, choosing where to distribute points. Several character classes will be available, but at the moment we can only confirm the Templar, a heavily armoured, close-combat type of fellow who vaguely resembles a medieval knight.
Hellgate: London is already looking exceptionally promising, and with time on Flagship's side there's no release date yet, just a suggestion that the game will be out at some point in , we're expecting a thoroughly polished end product. Well, it's got to be better than a sightseeing trip up the Old Kent Road. Hellgate: London's Been a long time in development, but it's finally gone into a closed prerelease testing stage that appears to be hovering somewhere between alpha and beta.
Having secured a place on the trial, we cheerfully clicked all the boxes and playfully set up our accounts, before jumping into the action and splashing around like idiots. What this whole pre-release thing means is that the servers are up and down like a bride's yo-yo, and any talk of glitches is best left for the review. Which, for the developers, must feel alarmingly close. Rather than let this hamstring this whole piece into a sodden mess of apology and conjecture, I'll just describe what happened in my first few hours in the game.
What I'm interested in is this: does Hellgate feel, in my bones, like the reinvention of the 2D dungeon trawl that I've hoped it would be? Is this, in other words, the 3D Diablo we've all been waiting for? A quick recap, so everyone's up to speed. Hellgate: London is set in , in a world under assault by the demons of hell. To fight them you have six classes to choose from, split across three factions.
Tine paladin-esque faction of the Templars contains the attack-happy Blademaster and the defensive Guardian. The hand-wringing witches are represented by the Cabalist faction. Here you'll find the Evoker - the template weedy dude with big spells - and the Summoner , who'd be wise to stand back and let his uncanny menagerie do the work. Finally, there's the Hunters faction. The Marksman plays the game most like an FPS, while the Engineer is essentially a Summoner who deals with robots instead of infernal imps.
All factions are on the same side - it's no Alliance vs Horde scenario. At this stage, Hellgate definitely isn't geared towards PVP play, apart from the odd duel. I chose the Summoner. I like ets, and I like my pets to be on fire. Populated with a dozen fodder zombies to get you used to your weapon, and a guy called Murmur who guides you to your first Tube station.
Sealed by the Freemasons, these underground sanctuaries act as hubs for progressively more difficult batches of sometimes randomly-generated mission areas. First impressions were that it instantly felt smooth, and right - the content of Diablo with the presentation of WOW. The graphics, in particular, have come a long way, and it's far more satisfying to see loot burst from a dead body than it is to ransack the poor sods.
The first-person perspective is a token option - you'll end up settling on the third-person zoom level that gives you most view of the playing field. The Summoner starts with a shin-high flaming imp. He died more than I like my pets to die, so I spent my first skill point on a new pet. With my new rune-infested, erm This isn't a problematic balance issue at such an early stage, but I suddenly felt a little redundant.
What was far more frustrating was the lack of control over my pets. It was like walking a particularly randy dog, only when he humped someone's poodle, I'd shoot the poodle with an explosive bullet instead of apologising to its owner.
Then, I'd shoot the owner. Often my pets would run off completely. At higher levels of combat - and especially in groups - the last thing you want is your pets acting like a freelance Leeroy Jenkins, r If Flagship don't want this class to be underused, they'd do well to sort this out.
Meanwhile, items you find are typical adventuring fare. You can dismantle loot to produce raw engineering materials, and use those to upgrade other items at hub stations. Rare weapons will often feature upgrade slots, depending on the type of damage they deal. Get something good that you can't use? Sell, trade, or dismantle. I'd be stupid to suggest that any of this is original, but it's 3D and you're running around in it.
I thought I'd better get a more rounded view of the game before my slim umbilical cord of server time was severed. My usual role-playing preference is to be that insipid 'please like me' class, the priest.
No priests here, though - even the tank seems responsible for his own hit points in London. So I grew a pair, and went for the Blademaster. This is the class I had imagined from reading and talking about Hellgate. This is the guy who approaches a bunch of enemies, slings his grapple-hook into the mob, drags one of them out and chops him up quick smart before dealing with the rush of his mates.
The one-hit killer. The dual-wielding sod. The bald dude with a goatee. We've been told that the game wouldn't rely on the twitch skills of the traditional FPS. Easier to use a gun, maybe - but the grappling hook feels cooler. It was all a walkover, until I found my first Hellgate. After about 90 minutes, I found myself in Covent Garden. This is one of the non-random areas, and it looks unexpectedly like the real thing - I tentatively stepped through an 'anomaly', and found myself instantly pummelled upside my helmeted head by a creature twice my height and five times my width.
I responded with a panic and a swear, but the demon was too clever for my tactic-free flailing. Luckily for me, there's no real penalty for death, unless you want to pay money to resurrected on the spot. This demon guy was too tough for me I was going to have to make some friends.
Luckily, everyone's happy to be playing, and are forgiving of the numerous glitches and moments of confusion in this early code. Bits of your avatar disapearing, inventory items duplicating, the limited availability of the server -everything's forgiven because we all felt special.
For the same reason, everyone's pretty friendly and helpful. The nature of the classes mean it's more 'every man for himself than a fully-fledged MMORPG, hut I was lucky enough to team up with people who weren't morons, and it made the game five times more entertaining. Until I dropixxl down a staircase in the Kingsway Sewers, and aggroed three floors of monsters at once.
Needless to say, they had the last laugh. Then, the server stopped. I've tried logging on for three days since, hut no luck. I'm left genuinely intrigued - I definitely want to got my characters out of their early stages, and find out how the game develops. Basically, what I'm saying is that I can't wait to review Hcllqate: London, localise I think, despite a good few worries about the overall gameplay and pricing structure, that I'm really going to enjoy it.
Before today, my last visit to Tottenham Court Road saw me missing the last tube and finding myself happily eating a Bacon Double Cheeseburger on the night bus home.
There were definitely no demons, no apocalyptic warzones and very few gaping chasms reaching into the very depths of hell itself. It was definitely an improvement on today's trip to London's electronics-laden High Street, in which a boy called Lil' Timmy asked me to retrieve his prosthetic leg from some hell-spawn he'd encountered.
If there was any doubt that Hdkjate: London will be dark in both its setting and its offbeat humour, it's lost as soon as you begin playing.
The search for the kid's missing appendage took me from Covent Garden tube station, through randomly generated tube tunnels and desolate London streets, on to a final encounter with a 15ft hulking mass of flesh.
Exactly why he'd nicked the leg remains a mystery to me, but Lil' Timmy promised he'd give me the stump of wood an entry-level melee weapon he was using as a replacement leg if I brought his prosthetic back. I have to admit, the pedant inside me had a bit of a cry when I discovered that London Underground refused to allow their trademarks be used in the game, meaning familiar logos and posters will be absent in the final release are yon listening mod community?
However, that's really not what Hellgatc: London is about. You can also download Titan Quest. Following are the main features of Hellgate London that you will be able to experience after the first install on your Operating System. Click on the below button to start Hellgate London.
It is full and complete game. Just download and start playing it. We have provided direct link full setup of the game. Features of Hellgate London Following are the main features of Hellgate London that you will be able to experience after the first install on your Operating System. Awesome action and role playing game. Set in the city of London in the year Got loads of challenging missions. These are paired up into three main archetypes, referred to as Factions in game. Players need to choose one of these classes for their role playing character before they can start playing the game.
The factions are split as follows;. Templars, the fighter faction, are of an order of divine warriors who wish to preserve humanity and smite the Great Dark that has fallen upon the world. Their two classes are Guardians and Blademasters. Cabalists, the mage faction, are seekers of knowledge who want to control the fate of mankind by studying the Great Dark and using their powers. Their classes are Summoners and Evokers.
Hunters, the ranged faction, are highly trained ex-military operatives who have been through almost every warlike scenario imaginable. Marksmen and Engineers are their classes. Melee classes are set to a third-person view and cannot select first-person perspective, whereas ranged classes default to a first-person view but can switch to third-person if so desired. Precision aiming is not required to use most weapons; which track their targets, "lock-on", or carpet an area with explosives.
The game contains sniper rifles and other weapons that require accurate manual aiming, though most are exclusive to the Hunter faction. Players may choose the character's name, and various visual physical attributes. Depending on whether playing singleplayer or multiplayer, several different difficulty settings will be available when creating new characters. A character is permanently locked to the chosen mode. Normal mode is the default difficulty setting.
Elite mode is designed to be harder than normal difficulty with several adjustments to game mechanics. Augments are also more expensive and merchants pay less for goods. Hardcore mode is played in either Normal or Elite difficulty with the added attribute a character permanently dies and turns into a ghost when all health is lost. Hellgate: London uses a heavily randomized item system of at least a hundred base weapon types and many armor types, with a pool of random special properties and bonuses magical affixes applied to them to achieve re-playability and promote item collection.
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