"Long is the way, and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light."

The classification of "role-playing game" in videogame nomenclature has changed a great deal from its earliest pen-and-paper roots. There was a time when videogame RPGs would fit snugly in a small box involving swords, magic, classes and leveling. Over time, the RPG genre expanded and evolved into the multi-tentacled monster that it is now encompassing everything from Final Fantasy to Oblivion.

Describing a game as an RPG just won't do it anymore. It has become more of a "genus" than a "species" classification. These days there are Japanese RPGs, action RPGs, massively-multiplayer online RPGs, and open-ended RPGs, as well as party and solo-based titles, all of which technically fall under this category. The list goes on and on.

Hellgate: London - the first game from developer Flagship Studios - is an action RPG through and through. It takes what's popular about RPGs and distills it down into so simple a formula that the game suffers because of it. Lack of variety plagues this game like the demons of its story plague the remaining citizens of London. Variety is a necessity for a game that boasts a roughly 30-hour playtime for the main story, never mind one that also incorporates escalating levels of difficulty after you beat it and a massively-multiplayer component. If the gameplay is good enough, boring levels and creature sameness can be forgiven but Hellgate further taxes the player with enough bugs and instability to turn even the most patient gamers into raving lunatics. However, Flagship's maiden voyage isn't a complete loss; there is some fun to be had if you can get past its numerous shortcomings. The question remains, though: can you bear the strain and is it worth it in the end?

Hellgate: London can be played from the first-person as well as the third-person perspective.

Before you consider delving into Hellgate: London, it's important to know what the game is and what it is not. It isn't Oblivion, Fallout or World of Warcraft. At a fundamental level it is Diablo II. This shouldn't surprise anyone since Flagship Studios was founded by Bill Roper, David Brevik, Max Schaefer and Erich Schaefer who were all executives at Blizzard North and instrumental in the development of Diablo and Diablo II before they broke off to start their own company. You can hardly fault these guys for taking inspiration from one of the most popular PC games of all time especially when they created it, but a lot has happened since Diablo II was released in 2000. We've come to expect more from RPGs, even action-oriented ones.

One of the biggest problems in Hellgate: London is it never approaches the ambition of the setting. The problem starts with the title. Why just London? Why not Hellgate: Earth? The story as described in the manual says "the unspeakable cataclysm that befell London eventually engulfed all humanity." The stage is set for battles to be waged against demons in the deserts of Africa, the jungles of South America and the suburbs of middle-America but the entire game is set in London resulting in painfully repetitive level design and short-sighted storytelling.

Here's an example of where the game fails on a storytelling level. Nearly two thirds of the way through the game one of the NPCs decides to lead an attack on the Hellgate - albeit prematurely - with a huge army. I was thinking, "All right now we're talking. Enough of this running through the streets crap; let's lay siege to the very gate of Hell itself!"

Unfortunately, you don't get to go with the army because it's considered a lost cause and a fool's errand. Despite being the hero of the game, you don't take part in one of the biggest battles of the story. Instead, you're tasked with fixing a train. Here's me, the up-and-coming savior of mankind - and non-union, I might add - ferrying heavy pieces of machinery to get a train to work. This is not the kind of epic conflict I expect from my action RPGs.

This isn't an isolated incident. When the final battle is about to take place it's preceded by a damn good cinematic that shows what's happening. Armies are massed and the warriors are throwing themselves into the fight on the "battleplain" reckless abandon. Where am I when the level loads? I'm by myself on a deserted, bombed-out section of street that is nearly identical to the one I was on when I was level three. I guess I missed the bus that took everyone to the big fight; or perhaps mine broke down and I'll have to repair it. Either way, the setting demands epic conflict but the game never delivers on it. Rather it serves up isolated skirmishes with pockets of demon activity and the occasional boss fight.

The combat areas are generated randomly in an attempt to keep them fresh but they are generated from the same drab tile sets. A demon-infested, abandoned subway tunnel is always going to look the same no matter how it is randomly generated. The same can be said for the bombed-out, anonymous city street and the non-descript building interior. This kind of art design and level construction is only mildly interesting the first couple times you see it. It becomes absolutely maddening after 25 hours into the game. I'll take one well-designed level that's the same every time I see it over 1,000 randomly generated crap ones.

The Hell areas are by far the biggest missed opportunity. Frequently, you'll find glowing red portals throughout your travels that lead you to small sections of Hell. Rather than being interesting depictions of the fiery netherworld, they are all identical platforms lost in a sea of featureless red. Designing levels of Hell should be a priority if your game is called "Hellgate" but these feel like little more than an afterthought. If the demons are still pouring into our plane of existence I want to see them clamoring over each other to get to the door when I go to the other side. Instead, what you get is a small group of demons standing around guarding a box with a gun in it.

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