I’ve finally managed to put the boiling hell that is Temple Station behind me…  At least for now.  I got my marksman through Monument Station last night, hit level 20, went off to save some templars.  And while I’m having an awful lot of fun right now, those boils continue to haunt me.

I’ve got a number of other characters that I’d just love to play around with…  I’d really like to see how an evoker or guardian does at higher levels.  I’ve rolled up the characters, done some questing, gotten them up to around level 4 or 5…  But the prospect of eventually getting to Temple Station really puts a damper on the whole thing.  I mean…  Really puts a damper on it.  I absolutely hate that whole section.  And knowing that I’ll be back there in a few levels makes me not want to actually play other characters.

I find it interesting that I dread that section so much…  I’m perfectly happy mowing down piles of enemies in every other section of the game.  Wading through mobs of zombies and swarms of imps.  I actually enjoy gunning down packs of fellboars and fellborn when they appear.  Sure…there are other creatures that I find annoying…  Those orbille guys are a pain, as are the leapers…  But none of them that I absolutely dread like the boils.

Honestly, I’m not quite sure what the difference is…  When you get right down to it you’re killing things, over and over again, regardless of whether they’re boils or imps.  The gameplay doesn’t change a whole lot from one critter to the next.  Maybe you have to dodge some projectiles, or run away, or get closer, or whatever…but it’s always basically just kill, kill, kill! So what makes killing boils, as opposed to zombies, so much worse?

About the only thing I can come up with is that they’re a passive obstacle, rather than an active threat.  It’s kind of like having to knock down a wall before you can proceed, rather than killing the monsters before they can kill you.  There’s a certain thrill to out-gunning and out-maneuvering the enemy…  Dodging and weaving, avoiding their attacks, blowing them to bits.  It’s fun to feel like you’re overcoming the bad guys and saving the day.  That thrill just isn’t there when dealing with the boils…  You aren’t dodging or weaving or anything…just blowing up stationary boils.

Also of interest is my attitude towards Jons in Monument Station.  He’s got a number of quests where you basically help him prepare for a date with a girl.  Although…  Her idea of a “date” is a little different than mine…  She wants to go out and kill demons.  He doesn’t want to get killed.  So you have to soften up the opposition in one zone…put up some bait…an early warning system…  And I just do not enjoy those quests.  They don’t bother me like the boils do, but after three or four quests from him I just want to tell Jons to shut up and do it himself.

But why?  The whole game is a series of quests, one after another.  I don’t mind doing dozens of quests…  And if I wasn’t killing random critters for Jons I’d be doing it for one of the many other NPCs who hands out quests.  His quests really aren’t any different from any of the other quests in the game - kill 10 of these, collect 4 of those, locate 8 of these, fully explore that place…  It’s the same stuff you’d do for anyone else in the game.  So why do I dislike his quests so much?

I suspect it’s a combination of things…

There’s a feeling of progress when you finish up the last quest for a specific NPC.  They’ve got a list of things for you to do and you’ve done them all.  It’s time to move on…  Maybe not to the next station, but to a new NPC at least.  And since Jons just keeps coming up with new things for you to do, even after you thought you were done with him, there isn’t that feeling of progress.  It feels like you’re just kind of bogged down in one place.

The other problem is that his goal, ultimately, is to get laid.  And while there’s nothing wrong with that it does seem a little trivial in the grand scheme of things.  The entire planet has been over-run by demons…  London is in ruin…  People are struggling, fighting, dying to hold back the unstoppable tide of destruction.  You’ve got quests to destroy giant monsters, guide people to safety, rescue captured troops…  And then Jons wants you to help him get laid.  It just seems like there’s probably more important things you could be doing - like saving the world or something.

I find it interesting how such simple differences can make such a huge impact on how I feel about a game, or a specific character, or a certain level.

I mentioned before that we’ve been playing Hellgate: London for the last month or so…  Played the single-player on a pirated copy for a while and we liked it enough to buy two CDs so that we could play the multi-player.  Now my son is playing it and it’s starting to look like we’ll be buying a third disc.

I’m really enjoying the game…  It’s like some kind of bizarre cross between Quake and Diablo.  The gameplay is about what you’d expect from a modern action RPG.  You get some quests in town, go slaughter tons of monsters, get levels and gear that lets you kill bigger monster, and do it all over again.  But, unlike most action RPGs, the setting isn’t your typical dark fantasy - it’s post-apocalyptic London.  Some of the levels, set on the ruined streets of London with lots of zombies roaming around, feel like I’m playing through a Romero movie.

It probably isn’t the deepest thing I’ve every played…  But the gameplay is a lot of fun, and the story is engaging enough to keep me coming back for more.

The only part I genuinely dislike is the section around Temple Station.  There’s a nasty monster around Temple Station that’s creating these disgusting boils all over the place.  They create clouds of toxic gas when you get too close, and produce annoying little monsters when you destroy them.  Every instance around Temple Station is filled with these boils and you are constantly destroying them and then killing the creatures created.  Over, and over, and over again.  The enjoyably fast-paced gameplay just slows to a crawl.  I find myself dreading the Temple Station section every time I approach it with a new character.

I sincerely hope there aren’t any more boil-full sections of the game…

I think I mentioned a little while back that our WoW guild had basically gone to hell and that I had little desire to play anymore.  This meant that I had to find a new game to play…  Preferably something with plenty of replayability, some kind of multi-player, but less need to play with other people.  Something, more or less, like Diablo II.

I immediately thought of Hellgate: London.  Terri and I got into the beta last year, but at the time we weren’t really looking for a new game - we were very happy with WoW.  So, by the time I actually got the beta client installed and logged myself in, the beta was pretty much done.  I only got to play for about an hour before they shut down the servers.  It was interesting and fun, and I could see some real possibilities there, but an hour of gameplay really isn’t much to base a decision on.

I downloaded the HGL demo and gave that a try…  Again, interesting and fun, but the demo basically consisted of the same hour or so of gameplay that I experienced during the beta.  And it still wasn’t enough to base a decision on.

So I downloaded the whole game from a BitTorrent site.

Yes, I know, piracy is horrible…  I installed Hellgate on both my computer and Terri’s, and we both played it for the better part of a month - thoroughly enjoying ourselves.  I created several different characters and stumbled through the first few levels over and over again, trying to get a hang for the game mechanics.  Slowly coming to understand how things work and having a great time doing it.  Obviously the developers turned out a quality product, so why on Earth wouldn’t I give them my money?

Actually, I did.  Yesterday we ran over to our local GameStop and bought two Hellgate discs - one for me and one for Terri.  And if history is any indication, we’ll probably wind up buying a third disc for our son before too long (he absolutely loved Diablo II).  And if we stay hooked enough after playing through the entire storyline a few times (the furthest I’ve made it so far is Act 3) it is entirely possible that we’ll start paying $10 a month for their ongoing content.

And that, I think, is one of the key things that game publishers fail to realize - piracy can be a terrific marketing tool.

I don’t have a ton of money to spend on entertainment, so I’ve got to choose my indulgences fairly carefully.  There’s no way in hell I can run out and spend $50 on every game that catches my eye - especially since most games these days only give you 10 hours of gameplay.  Demos are, theoretically, a good way to help you decide…  But they’re usually either too short or too crippled to be a good indication of what the game will actually be like.

In the case of Hellgate the demo only gives you two characters in the very first town - a quick tutorial, a half-dozen quests, two dungeons, and very little idea how the levels/skills/equipment work.  Definitely not enough for me to decide whether I want to shell out the money for a disc.

I routinely pirate games.  I’m constantly downloading stuff that I haven’t paid for.  Generally speaking I’ll play with it for a day or two and then lose interest.  I’m fairly particular when it comes to my leisure time and I won’t waste it on something that’s only vaguely entertaining.

Sins of a Solar Empire, for example - decent enough game, but really didn’t catch my attention.  I played it for a day or two, blogged about it, and forgot about it.  After it’d been sitting, unused, on my HDD for about a week I deleted it.

The same thing goes for Soulstorm.  I downloaded it, played for a couple days, and decided that it really wasn’t terribly different from Dark Crusade.  So I wound up un-installing it and going back to Dark Crusade.

However, with games that actually pass the test, I have no problem paying for them.  I don’t know how many copies of Diablo II we bought over the years…  One for each of us, and then one expansion disc for each of us, and then we had to replace discs periodically as they became lost or scratched.  StarCraft was also purchased repeatedly.  We bought a couple copies of Dark Age of Camelot and paid the monthly subscription on that for a few years…  Then bought three copies of City of Heroes and paid for that for a while…  Then it was World of Warcraft…  The Orange Box, Overlord, the Homeworld games, the Warhammer 40,000 games…

Honestly, if publishers would cut back on the copy protection crap…  If they’d release full-featured, long demos that really let people experience the gameplay…  I’d probably wind up buying more games - even though it’d be easier to get away without paying at all.