Hellgate: London - First Look Preview

Now some people may describe the London Underground as hell on Earth with its delays and steep charges, but about a week before E3, TVG received an underground ticket and map that invited us to a preview of Flagshipâ??s Hellgate: London. Best described as a semi-Massively Multiplayer Online with first-person views, Hellgate is currently 18 months into development, but itâ??s already looking very nice indeed â?“ even though the game could have a further 18 months plus to go until itâ??s finally released. Made up from ex-Blizzard staff, Flagship certainly seem to be creating a game that already stimulates the imagination, in fact the team is introducing several ideas in Hellgate: London that have the aim of keeping the interest of gamers â?“ more on that a little bit later.

Set in London after a demonic invasion that has left the capital in a state of near collapse and rubble, the future of mankind rests on the shoulders of the Knights Templar who re-emerge from hiding to save humanity from certain extinction, despite the common belief that the religious order was vanquished during the medieval period. Along with the Freemasons, the Knights Templar were apparently responsible for protecting the world from demonic invasion (along with ransacking Jerusalem) but after mankind started to focus on science rather than religion their numbers fell, leaving humans increasingly vulnerable to attack.

The game plays through in either a first-person or third-person perspective, depending on the weapon being used by the player at that point. Players using a melee weapon will view the game in a third-person view whilst gamers using a ranged weapon will have the choice to either view the action in first or third-person. Essentially it means that for a lot of players the game is an FPS/RPG hybrid, although in terms of practical gameplay it is heavily skewed in favour of the RPG side. This is due to the developers decision to create a first person shooter that didnâ??t rely on the gamerâ??s speed and accuracy with the mouse â?“ in fact, aiming is quite loose in the game, which may put off FPS gamers.

During the demonstration at E3, Flagship played through the various sections of the game as one of the Templar who makes up one of the character types available in the game (although they were quite secretive as to the others in the game.) All of the standard RPG details are included in the game with each character breakdown including a list of attributes, items of clothing, and weapons carried by the player and it was at this point that we were told one of the key details of Hellgate that might get the action aficionados drooling â?“ the final version will include close to 100 base weapons. Thatâ??s right, over one hundred, and that doesnâ??t include upgraded and modified weapons, which can be achieved as the player progresses through the game and increases the characterâ??s experience.

With close to a hundred weapons the pressure to deliver enough variety between them must surely have warranted a lot of thought in the pre-production stage â?“ even the E3 demo included 21 weapons, including the Firestarter that fires a focused beam of fire on enemies, and the Plague Blaster that moves from enemy to enemy killing everything within close range.

At itâ??s heart, Hellgate: London is still an RPG, and despite the fact that the game has a single-player mode, the main emphasis certainly seems to be on the semi-MMORPG aspects â?“ at this stage of development at least. Before the hordes of e-mails and comments on a forum thread starts, hereâ??s an explanation as to how a game can only be a â??semiâ?? Massively Multiplayer. In an attempt to increase the longevity of the game and also free Hellgate: London from one of the key negative points of other MMORPGs, the developers are creating the game with a strong level of randomisation built into it.

The main chunk of this randomisation deals with the level layouts of the in-game London. Throughout the city, as in the real world, are underground stations that are used by the last vestiges of humanity as safe points. Itâ??s in the stations that gamers can meet up and upgrade weapons and other tradable objects, and itâ??s also where they can form up into parties and battle against the demons on the surface. Hereâ??s the interesting bit â?“ when players form a party and subsequently leave the station, the game randomises the street layout so that itâ??s unique to that party. When asked how that would effect the game in real gameplay terms, Flagship replied that the technique not only created a new experience for gamers regardless of their time spent on the game, but it also meant that parties wouldnâ??t have to queue for objective objects and enemies to re-spawn, which would therefore bypass the age old problem intrinsically linked to the genre. Itâ??s a very similar concept to the one used in NCSoftâ??s Guild Wars, which was executed to a high standard and so far seems to work well. Perhaps itâ??s a concept that will become the standard in MMORPGs as time goes on, especially as it also seems to provide a more structured way of forming parties that the more flexible strategy used in games like World of Warcraft.

It means that gamers will encounter a â??newâ?? London every time they play the game, which raised another question - if the game is supposed to take place in London, how could the randomisation keep a coherent link between with the real world capital? It turns out that the randomisation of the environments goes as far as the streets surrounding landmarks and areas such as Covent Garden market and the Houses of Parliament, thus removing any advantage that people familiar with the streets of London town may have. The fact is that because of the randomisation of buildings, Flagship has had to develop its own proprietary engine to allows for this kind of scenario to take place. The level of randomisation doesnâ??t stop at the buildings or environments however, and the technique has also percolated through to the actual enemies who have randomly generated features as well as access to the same sort of weapons as the playerâ??s character. Once again this is hoped to extend the replayability of the game so that long-term veterans wonâ??t find themselves bored in a stagnant game.

Graphically it isnâ??t a Half-Life 2 by any means, but it is a nice looking game that captures the correct atmosphere and certainly so far seems to successfully meld two genres into a product that might be grater than the sum of its parts. It certainly creates a hellish nightmare future for the UK capital and the additional little details such as the inclusion of ruined real world shop fronts like Oddbins and Reed adds a extra bit of realism to the situation.