Some more juicy tidbits for the geeks in our class.
The reviews have been allowed to spill a few more secrets about the upcoming game Hellgate: London. The biggest news? The gameplay is decided by which character type you play.
The Templar class is supposed to play like your typical third-person hand-an-slash. The Blademaster has lower defense but handles multiple blades while the Guardian wears the heaviest armor and carries a sword and shield. The shield is not just for defense as it can be used to stun entire groups of enemies, leaving them ripe for slaughter.
Now I know just about every action game ever has made this claim but this is something different. Just to recap, Hellgate offers six different player types, each with two sub-categories. Up until now all of the gameplay trailers have shown the Templar Class whose sub-categories are the Guardian and the Blademaster. Both are melee characters; one a bit more offensive and the other a bit more of a tank. The other two classes, the Cabalist and the Hunter have had little info released, until now.
The Hunter class. Now this was something I didn't see coming. Again, two sub-classes. The marksman relies on all sorts of distance weapons and has the ability to expose weaknesses in the enemy. The engineer plays like it sounds, gadgets gadgets and more gadgets.
Evidently if you play a Hunter class (Marksman or Engineer) the entire game is played in first-person. That's right, I said it. Templars are third-person a-la Devil May Cry while Hunters are first-person a-la Half Life. So far the reviewers are salivating, saying both play suprisingly well. I can't wait to see the differences in the Cabalist class, but we'll probably have to wait for Halloween for that.
Now I'm going to have to either buy a PC or an XBox360. It's safe to say doing either will allow me to find out what it's like to sleep on the couch for several weeks until my girlfriend forgives me. But with games like this, I might be ok with that.