Hellgate London - E3 Preview @ IGN

Dhruin

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IGN joins most of the other majors with a preview of Hellgate: London -
One of these missions really was crazy. In fact, it was about diving into the neural synapses of a crazy engineer named 314. The Mind of 314 charges players to dive in and bring the wayward engineer out of his doldrums and into his pool of happiness. Yes, very loony, but it definitely adds character in a world overtaken by demons. The mission takes players into the mind where they'll have to battle their way through a bunch of enemies, including some invisible ones, to fight the boss of the area, the Ego of 314.
More information.
 
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I'm sure I worked for this guy though his name wasn't 314--he definitely had the ego thing going. ;)

Well, after following this game since Flagship became Flagship, I have to say it is shaping up to have all the hallmarks of success that Roper & Co. brought to Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft.

It isn't really looking like my kind of game, but I intend to try to get into the guns, bots, and shooter/techie aspects if I can because I just have a feeling this is going to be solid gameplay spiced with actual innovation and new takes on old systems. I don't think it's going to be just another actionrpg diablo clone.

It's good to hear they aren't rushing into Beta but I'd really like to see some of these demos that the previewers are looking at--or any demo.

This quote in particular is a tease:

He even mentioned an RTS type of quest later in the game.
 
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Well, after following this game since Flagship became Flagship, I have to say it is shaping up to have all the hallmarks of success that Roper & Co. brought to Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft.

Hmmm I don't know... I have to sort of disagree with the quoted statement since it always seemed to me like one of the -if not the- major hallmark of success that made Blizzard's titles as great and as successful as they are/were is/was unlimited free multiplayer via Battle.net. Which is a feature that HGL is simply not going to have. Coupled with a generally rather underwhelming appearance (basically the very common and usual "nothing new to see here" problem that -granted- HGL is sharing with 99.7% of other unreleased games and I'm getting this impression from the somewhat lukewarm E3 coverage), I can't see HGL coming even close to Blizzard's titles as far as the game's success is concerned.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that it will be a complete failure or a failure at all. Not at all. In fact, I do believe that it will be successful in a way but I'm not expecting it to become a success in the same way as a Blizzard success. Maybe more like a Guild Wars success... if they're lucky.

Just my 2c on HGL...
 
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Much of Blizzards success lies in being thorough. They hardly ever innovate anything, but they pick out top notch features here and there, and smack it together in a game where things seem refined and polished.

Battle.net never meant anything to me, since I generally don't play multiplayer, but I do realize that Blizzards games reach legendary status because they keep getting played many years after release.

I still think their games would've been successful even without Battle.net though, but they would certainly not have reached the same status. I'm a huge fan of most Blizzard games, and as previously mentioned, I never play on Battle.net.
 
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I agree with Maylander. People need to want to play a game first, before the question of free multi-player or not becomes important.
Diablo 2 and Starcraft are still very popular today, and that is because of solid and highly polished game-play, not just because battle.net is free.

The name Blizzard stands for high quality, and if Flagship's Hellgate London is as solid and as polished as what we have come to expect from these people, the game is going to be a huge succes.

Having said that, I'm not sure if the game will be for me, I get spooked out easily and with graphics getting more and more realistic I find myself not able to stomach certain games like I could before (I loved DOOM, I can't play DOOM3 for example).
 
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I've never played any of Blizzard's games multiplayer(unless you count a little LAN) so that's not a factor for me. But I can see that it would be for a lot of players. Unfortunately, free dedicated servers is not something we see much anymore(you MMO people please correct me if I'm wrong...which I frequently am on things I know nothing about ;) )I know that the lack of them was a problem for Titan Quest anway, and did a lot to keep the game down.

As far as the "underwhelming" looks, Mo...I don't know. I think it looks pretty up to date, considering it's been in production for several years. As far as the graphics needing to be cutting edge, I just point you to Diablo2 where graphics are definitely nothing but an afterthought.

I'm not saying it will be a hit on par with Blizzard's though. You don't have the same machine(marketing and servers) or the same reputation to build on. (I doubt Mr. Average Gamer knows Bill Roper from Bill Clinton.)

I'm just hoping it will be a new game I can enjoy, instead of a sorry, flat, canned clone of every other game that's been perceived as succesful( read: $$$$$) and therefore a blueprint for imitators of varying levels of dullnesss/incompetence.
 
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