Sometimes Usually Digital Life's reviews are retarded. Like the most recent one on Hellgate London. "Beautiful 3d graphics" indeed they say - totally untrue. 3d graphics are technically complex, but just like how 3d art doesn't mean it's better than 2d art applies here as well.
Hellgate is a ugly game. When I say ugly, I don't just mean visually. Visually H:L is drab and bland. Post-apocalyptic landscapes are bleak, but being bleak has a certain atmosphere of hopeless and doom, which really isn't the same as painting everything in greys and muted colours and hoping for the best.
Twice I went into a dilapidated ruin of a building. Apparently Londeners in H:L have extremely common taste in wallpaper and carpeting and even personal effects (or lack thereof). Yes I'm sure there are two identical buildings in London.
Where are the personal effects? The little remnants of the lives that once inhabited there? Where's the little details like a small photo of a family, different broken furnitures, beds, books, diaries, paintings, bags, clothes, etc? Huge things like computers, the tv, or even antiques? A lack of human life on the topside doesn't mean every single thing that pointed to an existence of personal, unique lives goes missing at the same time. What ever sense of hopelessness/bleakness you are trying to convey immediately disappears simply because there isn't anything there for the player to care about.
Look at Bioshock for the an example of what carefully planned details can really do to a game's atmosphere. Even look at Diablo's charmingly despondent dungeons and lairs to see how a game can achieve this with randomly generated maps.
Hellgate London, as far as the demo goes, is a disappointment in terms of practically everything else except gameplay. And if I were to buy a game based on gameplay, I'll stick to Titan Quest or buy Unreal 3, thanks.
Now listening to: "Lonely Souls" unkle
