Hellgate London Alpha

[Falconeer]

And Gamespy/Fileplanet

[Falconeer]

My first comments after 30 minutes of non-NDA'ed demo: "oh this is fun. Wowza, a green sword. Oh look, a rare blue relic...".

[LK]

I don't care if it sucks to have it, I want a gun that unloads thousands and thousands of rounds into an enemy.  If I get that in Hellgate then I'm happy.

[Falconeer]

Ok 60 minutes impressions, but it's just me or this game is great when gunning while sucks donkeys if you melee?

[MrHat]

Ok 60 minutes impressions, but it's just me or this game is great when gunning while sucks donkeys if you melee?

/correct

See Schild's comments on combat animations blowing.

[Tige]

Once you get the hang of how the melee attack work, specifically that little obnoxious hop if you are moving forward when you attack it's good.  Animations are a bit awkward but it's still fun wading into a crowd.

Lorekeep, you'll be happy.

[lesion]

yeah, after getting used to the melee it's awesome to blast some angry music and go all Blendtec on some suckas. in addition, low-level skills are invading my motherfucking

[Falconeer]

I have nothing against the melee animations, I am low mainteinance. But the little delaying-hop is murdering my whack-tastic fun, which is completely healthy in ranged mode.

[LK]

Lorekeep, you'll be happy.

[Trippy]

Ok 60 minutes impressions, but it's just me or this game is great when gunning while sucks donkeys if you melee?

Running backwards constantly while shooting is not my idea of gunning fun.

[schild]

I don't remember much running backwards. But then, I played my necro in Diablo the same way. Bone Shield + Amplify Damage + Iron Maiden means a lot of running backwards.

[Trippy]

You don't run backwards in Diablo, you run away.

[schild]

You don't run backwards in Hellgate, you strafe south.

[Yegolev]

Oh for the love of Jesus.

So... I'm thinking these days that demos just suck.  I haven't enjoyed a demo of anything for many moons.  That said, this was the least unenjoyable demo I have played during those said moons.

Wart: that was pretty funny.

Loot: needs more.  Better than Mythos, though.

[angry.bob]

I got Shaun's Trusty Cricket Bat off some named zombie. Too bad it was my engineer.

[Ragnoros]

GamersHell Seems an appropriate site do DL the demo from.

Also can I pretend I downloaded the demo and make general statements regarding a game I may or may not have been/currently am beta testing?

[schild]

Sure, why not.

[schild]

Loot: needs more.  Better than Mythos, though.

Mythos just got a huge push. But it won't compare to Flagship. Which apparently has a loot team working around the clock. As they should.

Gaming companies should be based in Arizona. And coders should be provided with meth. Sure, we might end up with spaghetti, but development time will be cut in half.

[AngryGumball]

Oh for the love of Jesus.

So... I'm thinking these days that demos just suck.  I haven't enjoyed a demo of anything for many moons.  That said, this was the least unenjoyable demo I have played during those said moons.

Wart: that was pretty funny.

Loot: needs more.  Better than Mythos, though.

Didn't enjoy the Call of Duty 4 single player demo?

[Falconeer]

Running backwards constantly while shooting is not my idea of gunning fun.

That's "twitchy" SWG. That is unfun. Here you just mow. Or pick them from afar.

I have to say, I am liking it so far, but somehow I expected more :(

[Trippy]

Running backwards constantly while shooting is not my idea of gunning fun.

That's "twitchy" SWG. That is unfun. Here you just mow. Or pick them from afar.

I have to say, I am liking it so far, but somehow I expected more :(

No that's not what you do but the NDA is still up so I can't comment anymore.

[Tige]

I got Shaun's Trusty Cricket Bat off some named zombie. Too bad it was my engineer.

I have been so wanting to duel wield cricket bats.  Being as I could not find two I had a great time combining the bat with a grappling gun.  Grapple, Whack, Grapple, Whack.  Teh fun.

[Righ]

I don't remember much running backwards. But then, I played my necro in Diablo the same way. Bone Shield + Amplify Damage + Iron Maiden means a lot of running backwards.

Iron Maiden = running free (to the hills).

[Mrbloodworth]

Ok, so i got the demo last night, granted i only played for about an hours..but this should also indicate the "Stickyness" of this title for me, it was also very late and i needed sleep, take it for what its worth.

The graphics were superb! i really like how the big red guys looked really wet and sticky (you know the ones that look like the skin has been peeled), I loved how the fire swords would set aflame any BITS that the demons/zombies would blast into. The world is nicely detailed, and i was very convinced by the random layouts (They did not suffer from well, repetition).. I couldn't find a seam anywhere and repeatable "Parts" were not easy to spot..  I will be looking at it more closely later. The graphics all in all really impressed me.

The game play... At the risk of being flamed...Sucked. I know i only played for about an hour, but.. Even in the preview videos..i wasn't impressed. The actions are repetitive.. I had gained a few skills before i quit, but they were really more of the same..I am hoping that once i get to a more open area , that the game play improves...But currently i found it really uninspired, repetitive...and while i like the twitchy...not very fun.

The UI also looked, well...Blocky, Clunky, bloated...and..well..huge and not very streamlined.

2c

I will definitely spend more time with the demo...so, this is just a kind of First impressions.

Graphics: 9 (out of 10)

Game play: 4

User interface: 4

[Kaa]

More random impressions from about two hours worth of playing the demo.

I am somewhat underwhelmed. Second coming of JesDiablo it ain't, at least so far. Several things make me worry.

First, there's the lack of Blizzard-level polish. The UI feels clunky, I've seen (plenty of) unkillable mobs stuck on a corner or just in the middle of the pavement, the avatar faces are fugly...

Second, in Diablo the fun was in having to be mobile and tactical while laying waste to large packs of mobs trying to swarm you. Here, in the 3D world, large packs of mobs are problematic because of things like polygon counts. Nothing -- absolutely nothing -- in the demo tried to swarm me. No packs, no linked mobs, if you cared you could single-pull everything.

Third, balance. At the moment (yeah, yeah, I know, level 4, what do I want) the grenades are ridiculously overpowered -- I can lob them at mobs from outside of the aggro range forever and the mobs just continue wandering around till blown into chunky bits. Unless I want to play Leeroy style, by the time I enter a room or a street section, everything there is already dead or has a sliver of health left. Obviously grenades don't work that well on bosses who *will* aggro, but if I want to hunt bosses other games do it better.

So -- I don't know. The game looks good for spending an hour in mindless mayhem, but I am not sure it will have the staying power.

Kaa

[HaemishM]

I'm going to try the demo a bit more tonight, but so far it's a mixed bag. It's a beautiful game, that really degrades very well. I had to turn down a number of options to their lowest setting to get a decent framerate, but it still looked fantastic. Not so sure about the gameplay though. The quest box is really annoying. Super super annoying. Too big and blocky and it needs that WoW mod that makes the text appear all at once.

[LK]

Oh for the love of Jesus.

So... I'm thinking these days that demos just suck.  I haven't enjoyed a demo of anything for many moons.  That said, this was the least unenjoyable demo I have played during those said moons.

Wart: that was pretty funny.

Loot: needs more.  Better than Mythos, though.

Didn't enjoy the Call of Duty 4 single player demo?

Or Stranglehold? Crackdown?

[nurtsi]

All the hype in this thread from the beta testers got me interested in the game. I got the demo, played it 'through' with the both characters (I guess it ends near after you get the door open, at least I couldn't figure out anything to do/go after that).

Well, graphics are okay, but the animations suck. First thing people are going to see is the damn walking/running cycle so it wouldn't hurt to make it not suck. Somehow my character feels like he's gliding on the ground all the time. The melee attack animation you do while running forward is really annoying with the pause and flying in mid air. Sounds are lame too. The guns/rifles sound like air-pellet guns, there's no kick to the effects.

Technical aspects aside, the gameplay doesn't convince either. It's boring as hell for sure. You just run around and kill the same stuff which is repetitive as hell. There's no challenge what so ever since everything seems to die from practically one hit. Some bigger mobs take more hits, but you just run backwards and keep shooting until they die. The only interesting thing I found would be to see the different equipment (collecting stuff is always cool if it has a visual impact on your toon), but when the gameplay feels like a brain rotting grind already after an hour it doesn't look good.

[Morfiend]

All the hype in this thread from the beta testers got me interested in the game.

What is this source crap? It's an MMORPG. This thread is in the MMORPG forum. It's made of fucking angel wings and loot.

but I'm starting to doubt my co-workers game reviewing skills because what he's saying does not match what everyone else is saying.

Remember the people playing are under NDA. I have a lot to say when it drops. I dont think Angel Wings will factor in. In fact, remove Angel Wings from schilds post, and its much more accurate.

As far as I know the NDA is still up. But I sure didnt hype anything.

[Jamiko]

Reading the demo impressions makes me think they made a shitty demo.

[Mrbloodworth]

Reading the demo impressions makes me think they made a shitty demo.

The demo seems to play just like the Videos they host on the site. The videos being the first thing that made me go "Meh", and its now confirmed.

[Yegolev]

Or Stranglehold? Crackdown?

I didn't play those.  Crackdown is a Platinum title now so I'd just buy it, since demos are crappy these days.  Full games, those are awesome, but the demos for them are generally terrible.  The Bioshock demo, for example, used lower-res textures on enemies than the real game did.  Bioshock was awesome (I mean that in the Pre-Portal sense) but the demo was very meh.

[murdoc]

The Stranglehold demo convinced me I didn't need to buy Stranglehold.

[Jamiko]

Reading the demo impressions makes me think they made a shitty demo.

The demo seems to play just like the Videos they host on the site. The videos being the first thing that made me go "Meh", and its now confirmed.

Which confirms they made a shitty demo.

[Samwise]

Or a good demo of a shitty game.  One of those.   :-D

From nurtsi's description above it sounds about like what I played at E3 way back when.  So I guess that answers that question.  I thought they'd at least have made the animations not suck by now.