Hellgate: London Preview

ComputerAndVideoGames.com has put together a preview of Hellgate: London, the upcoming post-apocalyptic action RPG from Flagship Studios. Here you go:
Like the Diablo games, Hellgate will have randomly generated levels. There are certain pre-designed 'safe areas' in the game, where you can rest up, visit the medic or do a bit of shopping, but the rest of the time you'll be duking it out with demons in randomly created parts of London. You might argue that this is an easy enough feature to stick in a 2D game, but getting it to work properly in three glorious dimensions is a staggeringly difficult task. Little wonder that Flagship has had to create its own engine to get the likes of lighting and shading right. The upshot is that no two gamers will experience the exact same Hellgate: London. The randomly generated monsters you kill drop randomly generated loot and items, and scripted events will be sown in at randomly generated times. Everyone will play a slightly different game.