I took a break from Zelda for some scary games, in keeping with my October is for horror theme. Over this past weekend I took a break from scary games for a LAN party. While I was there, I decided to give the Hellgate demo a spin. You see, the LAN party I go to is a family affair, so they like to cooperate more than compete. I thought maybe Hellgate could be a good addition to the FPS, RTS; racing merry-go-round. It turns out Hellgate isn't planning LAN support, so it'll probably never fly at the LAN parties, but is it even fun to begin with?
For those of you unfamiliar, Hellgate is from the makers of Diablo and Diablo II. Much like Diablo, it can be played single player or online and you have multiple classes to choose from. I didn't play much Diablo and zero Diablo II. Point and click as a gameplay mechanic just didn't appeal. But Hellgate is third person action or first person shooting (depending on which class you play). The demo lets you try the Blademaster (hand to hand damage dealer) and Marksman (ranged damage dealer) classes to level five.
Unfortunately, the limited choice of classes and limited content makes it a bit difficult to tell if you're getting the real flavor of the game. Most of the monsters take zero effort to dispatch. The few that do take effort can usually be defeated through the use of a single healing potion while you continue to hack (or blast) away. It's still mindless fun, but I'm guessing the game gets meatier later on when you actually have to start thinking tactically and using the environment more. Of course just the fact that you can use the environment is a big improvement, in my eyes.
When I was a Marksman, running away from the giant frozen turkey monster (That's what it looks like!), I found an opening I could fit into that the monster couldn't and happily blazed away.) When I was a Blademaster facing ranged opponents I could duck behind cover and then use my sprint ability to leapfrog my way up to my foes. It was lovely, and something sorely missed in games like WoW where every projectile auto tracks. I guess the difference is that WoW is trying to make sure you can never have it too easy to prevent farming of mobs well above the player's level. Hellgate (like the Diablo games) doesn't seem to care if the players can thoroughly outsmart the AI. It makes me wonder about Hellgate's economy. To my knowledge there's no auction house and only 40 players in a hub area at any one time. It almost makes me wonder if selling drops or crafted items is a waste of time in the game.
The demo also had a lot of bugs. Some were forgivable, like floors you weren't supposed to be able to get to not being solid. But some didn't bode well for the game's overall quality, like the little leaping monsters that frequently disappeared or my weapons disappearing when I upgraded them with only the upgrade cannisters floating in space. Even their icons in my inventory disappeared. Luckily the box showing how much space they took up remained so I could still figure out what was going on. It a lot of ways it feels like a launch MMO. Sure the daily quests from The Burning Crusade are still bugged. We'll patch it eventually. :P
The worst part is, I'm sorely tempted to drop a ridiculous amount of money on a Founders account. For only ten months of WoW, I can play Hellgate Premium forever. It's #$*^ing sad when WoW has screwed up the value proposition that badly.
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