Everybody wants Diablo III... but they're not going to get it. Fortunately, Hellgate: London continues to shape up to be an appealing alternative. Though the game plunks you down into London's grim future, the mixture of knight-like Templars and other updated fantasy warriors gives the game an instantly understandable hack and slash style. That, and London's sewers don't look a million miles away from Oblivion's.
At any rate, we got a more nuts-and-bolts look at the game, and it's clear that this is, in fact, a hack and slasher you can spend some time with. The dungeons we saw were completely overrun with enemies - and very deep and long. As you travel between different locations on your map, different dungeons will be generated - which is cool from the adventure standpoint (since it gives you plenty to do). We're not convinced it's the best move, but one thing's certain: you'll have plenty of ground to tread and slay through.
In fact, the whole thing looks very tough: our demo ended up getting caught in a loop of deaths and resurrections (the character's corpse was near some really tough enemies). The solution was to backtrack a bit. Of course, it won't be so dire with a party of five, either. Still, hiccups aside, it looks like Hellgate is going to be totally playable as a single-player game... but we expect a challenge.
