Thanks to Neko, I was able to give HellGate: London beta a tryout. Last night after a bit of problems here and there, we manage to go through a few simple quests before calling a night. Since the beta is actually a build that is 2-4 weeks old compared to what the developers are tweaking right now, we can expect some bugs that are still present (glitches, stuck etc). Nevertheless, playing the beta gave me some experience of what to expect from the full game, and I have to say its shaping up pretty well.

If you haven’t heard of this game before, it’s basically a Diablo-type game in full 3D. This game is created by Flagship Studios, a company that is formed by former high executives of Blizzard North (creators of the original Diablo series). It’s not a surprise to have a “Diablo” feeling when playing this game, cause that was what I felt. More information can be found at the official website

Character creation – Click for full size picture

HellGate: London Beta Hands-on

For the beta test, I chose a BladeMaster as my character. It’s typically a swordman where you can equip shields and blades. Neko chose Marksman, who uses guns as a primary weapon. There are a lot of other characters available but sadly I didn’t manage to go through all of them (It was pretty laggy during the character creation so I just skim through it).

After the character creation, I was brought to a city map where they will give you a brief tutorial on the basic controls. From here you can run around a bit, slash some demons and complete a very simple quest. Upon completion, a portal will open which brings me to a place called Holborn Station.

Holborn Station – Click for full size picture

Holborn Station is the place where everyone meets. I can see other characters running around and here you can get your quests from NPCs (Non Playing Characters). The first few were pretty easy, such as finding a “leg” for a poor kid called Joey or slay 10 specific demons. Completion of quests will gain you experience points, money and sometimes new equipments.

Overview of London – Click for full size picture

The interface of HellGate: London strongly resembles Diablo. You have your life meter on the left while on your right is your mana meter. The small blue-ish icons next to them shows what is equipped on your character hands. Items and skills are shown in the middle and you can activate them by pressing the number keys on the keyboard. Attack actions are triggered by the mouse buttons. For the BladeMaster, left and right click shows two types of slash animation, but I’m not sure if there is any difference between the two.

Equipment screen looks similar to Diablo too. You can switch equipments or weapons by dragging them onto the highlighted box. One thing I like about the equipment screen is that you are able to compare the items you highlighted with the items you equipped easily, as the information between the two items are shown side by side.

HellGate: London uses the skill tree system, where more powerful skills will be unlocked as you fulfill the pre-requisites. You character will gain a skill point each time they level up.

Dead Demons – Click for full size picture

In terms of game performance, HellGate: London runs pretty well on my laptop. In most areas the framerate is smooth and the only problem I had is the long load time and bad disk cache. Seeing that this is the beta I’m sure the game isn’t fully optimized yet. I ran the game at 1024 x 768 with high graphic settings and anti-aliasing on. Below are my comp specs;

• Intel Core Duo 1.66Ghz
• 1.5GB DDR2 ram
• ATI Mobility x1600

The beta only allow us to have a taste on how the multiplayer is like and I have to say I enjoyed it, especially if you have a friend to play along. The graphic looks pretty good on Directx9 and the sound does a good job giving London an eerie atmosphere.

My Upgraded Character – Click for full size picture

Base on the beta, HellGate: London is turning out to be a great game and like what Neko said, it’s a “spiritual” successor to Diablo. The full game will be shipping around end of this month and I have serious thoughts of picking it up. HellGate: London will feature both single-player and multi-player modes. The multi-player is free of charge and you have the option to pay USD$10 per month for additional stuff such as extra slots, special characters etc. No official list was given but that’s roughly about it.

That’s about it on my first hands-on experience on the beta. I’m going to London!

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