So, as I’m sitting here at work staring out my window at the smoke pouring down out of Malibu, I figured that I’d do a little writeup of my experiences with Hellgate so far instead of actually working.

I got into the beta last week (without pre-ordering!), and have played it pretty much all weekend with the exception of Sat. afternoon when I was at E4All.

Here is what I’ve thought of it so far (I’m not real far into the game yet, but I think I at least have a pretty good sense of what’s going on.)

The Good:

Even though my computer doesn’t meet the recommended requirements (it just misses them), the game looks damn good and I can play it without a problem at pretty high settings.

The character classes seem unique, and the first person FPS mode you can play in as 4 of the classes is pretty awesome, and definitely adds something to the game. My main character is a marksman right now, and the FPS style of play is keeping me engaged. I had started with a blademaster, which was still fun, but I’m liking the shooting more (which is funny, because even though I play shooters they’re not my favorite genre.)

While partying is an option, the game seems to be equally designed to be able to be played solo, which I think is nice. Even though I like MMORPGs and such, I tend to be more of a loner when I play them. I think a lot of that stems from the Diablo days actually, when they introduced the patch that basically made the game impossible to solo. I had so many negative experiences trying to find parties, having people randomly PK, and stealing all the loot that I think it soured me to the multiplayer experience. So far, I haven’t had to group at all yet, and it’s been kind of nice (Although if any Dtoid people want to, feel free to seek me out. My current character name is Klathin.)

While it’s not a totally new innovation, I really like the concept of breaking down items for parts to use as upgrades. When you run out of inventory space (which I seem to do a lot), it provides a way to manage it without having to portal back to town constantly.

The Bad:

The servers seem to be fairly unstable. There have been numerous times when I find myself all of a sudden teleported 25 feet ahead of where I was and then desynced from the server. The servers also seem to crash fairly frequently and without warning. Hopefully this is just beta stuff, and will be fixed by the time the retail copies arrive.

On a similar subject, I occasionally get some fairly bad lag. I particularly noticed this with my blademaster character, where he would swing his sword, there would be a second long pause, and then the monster would die. Again, I hope that they can get the servers a bit more stabilized.

There are still some fairly significant graphical bugs in the game, especially with creatures that fly or jump. I consistently see creatures just die in midair and hang there, see monsters jump or fly straight through walls, and see random shadows plastered all over the place that are apparently being cast by creatures one or two floors directly above me. It’s also incredibly easy to get stuck in the environment, and if this happens you have no choice but to log out, which boots you back to town. This can be really frustrating if you’re real close to finishing a quest or an area, and suddenly find yourself stuck in a shelf or table or something.

So far, the game seems excessively easy. I’m only level 8, so maybe the difficulty really ramps up later, but I almost NEVER use any of the special skills I have so far. My upgraded rare rocket launcher is enough to kill almost every monster I’ve run across in one or two hits. The only even moderately difficult fights I’ve had so far were the two boss fights I had in hell, and even then it just required me running around in a circle and shooting my grenade launcher a lot. My marksman character has yet to die, and I haven’t been particularly careful while playing him.

By the same token, a lot of the special abilities I have so far seem relatively useless. The marksman grenade throw is super buggy, the grenade is so tiny that after you throw it you can’t really see where it goes, and it just seems to bounce all over the place and never ends up where you actually want it to go. Other abilities seem okay, but are generally unnecessary since my standard weapon can easily take out almost anything that comes at me in a couple hits. Plus, I can launch stuff so far across the room that a lot of enemies will just stand there as I burn them to death, because apparently I’m so far away the enemies can’t find me as I light them on fire.

The Good and Bad:

Basically, from what I’ve seen, this game is basically the same as Diablo II except with nicer graphics, guns, and set in the future. Town portals and identify scrolls are all here with new names, runes are here except as “upgrades”, a lot of the critters are strikingly similar (the jumping guys in Hellgate behave almost the same as the ones in the desert of Act II in Diablo). For big Diablo fans this will be great; people who were hoping for big improvements on the genre may be a little disappointed.

I’ve certainly had a ton of fun playing the beta so far, and will keep playing it until the beta runs out. What’s preventing this from being a “must buy” for me is the subscription fee. I know that it’s optional, but a lot of the more intense content like elite mode and hardcore will require a subscription, as do extra character slots. I’m not sure if I’m prepared to shell out $10 a month for an updated version of Diablo II, especially one that’s mostly instanced. I’m still going back and forth about it; I probably won’t know for sure until the beta is over.

Anyway, that’s what I think about it. Anyone agree or disagree? Have you had a different experience? Are you way further than I am and have insights from the end game to share? If so, please do!