I'm really looking forward to Hellgate.
Generated levels.
Tons of monsters.
Character building.
FPS view.
The idea of an FPS game that doesn't require you to aim is kinda weird though. I hope they know what they're doing. Can you imagine playing say, Call of Duty, and just looking in the general direction of the enemy you want killed... clicking.. and that's it? It'd be weird.
I think they should reward players who can aim well, while just offering the "Auto Aim" feature as a crutch for those who want it. The Auto Aim should be inferior but not drastically so.
I'm still desperately waiting for the first true action RPG. Was hoping Dungeon Lords would be it, but nope. While I was playing Serious Sam 2 a few months ago, I kept thinking "Wouldn't this be cool if it had a Diablo 2-like system underneath it all?" HellGate seems to be the same idea. But I think it sucks that I wont' have to aim. That's just weird.
I hope they do the smart thing and let players script new quests, goals, and battles. While the random monster and level generation will be fun for a great deal of time, players *do* want some purpose behind the killing, with plot, drama, story, etc... they don't just want power gaming.
Furthermore, players like to see scripted battles like that of Half-life 2. Flagship should try to put these elements into the game's mod tools. It doesn't have to be a NWN Aurora Toolset endeavor, just something simple and straightforward. Modders should be able to create at least one or two non-randomly generated areas. These areas would be quest-specific and they would have NPCs with custom designed dialogue/stories. Also, these areas would have a custom designed battle. The battle would still scale to the player group size/level, but its behavior could be scripted by the modder. So instead of "yet another monster mob that runs at me like idiots", the modder could make the monsters arrive and attack in a cool way.
Look at all the most popular FPS games of the past few years. Call of Duty, Half Life 2, and Chronicles of Riddick were the biggest names. All of these games either included a great deal of scripted fighting or some form of deeper gameplay. Meanwhile, all the popular RPG games have NOT been hack-n-slash Diablo-type games. So it's like Hellgate is trying to make a hybrid game with types of games that aren't really all that popular anymore...
But if they could throw in some more complicated elements, I'm sure this could be a huge hit. But it DOES need to be more than Serious Sam meets Diablo.
Adventures of a video game mercenary
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