Hellgate: London

"I sincerely hope you were not so stupid as to obey me, as this intelligently written article demonstrates to you that there is still hope: Diablo lives. Its spirit hovers above us, inspiring our miserable lives with a glimpse of immortality. OK, enough with the BS. Here's the skinny. The honorable authors of Diablo are back and ready to make our lives worth living once again. Flagship Studios, founded in 2003 by the ex-Blizzard VP Bill Roper, is currently working on its first title which bears a somewhat poetic title, Hellgate: London. Bearing in mind the level of experience that the ex Blizzard North guys bring to the table, we can expect for new deformities to develop and wounds to open on our mouse-clicking palms. "

Our reservations are balanced out against the obvious talent and effort that has been ploughed into the game - and the simple fact that every time we put Hellgate down, either during its extended beta period or while reviewing it, we were itching to get back to it within hours. It's compulsive, it's good fun and it's certainly addictive; perhaps as the online service evolves, it'll even be worth coming back to for a further evaluation. For now, though, this is a game too deeply flawed to deserve the masterpiece status we'd all hoped for.

"That game was Hellgate London - a first-person, near-future RPG with more demons than a Heironymous Bosch retrospective and more replay potential than the Beatles' Abbey Road album."

Hellgate: London has plenty of neat ideas, but many of them aren't executed as well as you'd like.

So overall, Hellgate: London is a worthwhile play that, in either the single player or free multiplayer modes gives you a satisfying RPG that, especially in the SP mode, avoids the feeling that you’re just level grinding for the sake of it. The different classes allow for even the most ardent sword-slashing or spell casting RPG fans to fight alongside FPS fans playing ranged classes. The online instanced missions with a balanced party are a blast but feel less worthwhile than the SP mode where the story is a much stronger… and you can spend more time looking around rather than being told to hurry the hell up. So, if you’re looking for something with less traipsing about than S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and the immediacy of action that was Diablo, then Hellgate: London could be for you.