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Hellgate: London
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 2nd November 2007
Multiplayer is fun!
So far, I’ve been pretty harsh on Hellgate: London. I think that’s for good reason because, compared to other games around at the moment it really doesn’t look that great or do anything new. In my book good games should really try to excel in at least one area.There is one area where Hellgate does well though – one area where the bad graphics and overall design starts to make sense. That’s in the multiplayer.
The multiplayer side of the game makes everything suddenly seem more tolerable somehow and you start to realise almost immediately how the interface has been made to closely mimic the set-up of games like World of Warcraft. The game suddenly becomes detached from the dungeon romp which is the singleplayer game and suddenly feels a lot more like an MMORPG game.
That, I suppose is the intent. The lack of decent bump mapping and complex textures is now explainable in that it makes the game much more scalable and suitable to that genre. The interface, which has small touches like not pausing the game when you access the inventory, suddenly makes sense because in an MMO game, auto-pauses would be incredibly complex.
One thing to bear in mind though about the online aspect of Hellgate though is that it has two tiers of play. The first tier is available to everyone who owns the game and is pretty much the usual MMORPG game, just set in a demon-filled and more ugly than usual version of London. You run around with other players, completing quests which gradually increase in complexity until the game slips into grind-city without you ever really realising. Nothing bad about that and I’m sure it’s quite good if you’re into that type of thing.
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The second tier of the multiplayer game is available only to those who want to pay cash up front on a regular basis. I'm told the fee is around $10 in the US and is £7.99 in the UK. Paying that fee gives you access to a whole load of extra features, like fast-travel options which cut down the number of load sequences you have to go through or inventory slots which let you carry much more stuff.
I’m honestly quite divided on my opinions to this system. On the one hand it’s good because it rewards those who enjoy the game the most, whilst putting money into the hands of the developers and publisher so that more content can be developed later if it all proves popular. On the other hand though, this system ends up dividing the playing field and tilting it in favour of those who just have more money and so on.
I suppose the core question about the premium service is whether or not it’s worth paying for it. My view on the matter is that if you really like the MMO side of the game and find yourself playing it over the singleplayer version then you may want to consider dolling out the moolah for the extra services.
If you find that you’re more of an anti-social gamer though then it probably isn’t worth the cash because what you’re paying for won’t significantly alter the multiplayer game and is more aimed at improving the multiplayer experience by unlocking extras and removing some hassles from your way.
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Then again, I suppose if you were an anti-social gamer then you wouldn’t want to be playing online in the first place and the added functions of being able to form groups and chat to other players will probably put you off the game more than turn you on to it.
However, you have to bear in mind that the multiplayer side of things, which lets players join together to complete the single-player campaign, is still growing. EA and Flagship have come out and said that they’ll be adding more content into the game at a later date and that the new content will be accessible only to subscribers.
What that means exactly remains to be seen, but we’re betting it’ll be extra areas, new skills and the usual PvP combat. If that prediction holds true then the subscription cost is definitely going to be a lot more tempting as new features work into the game and the singleplayers get left behind.
I guess it's about time we had a look at the graphics...