I uninstalled HGL<\/a> without reaching the end, but a reader sent in this end-game spoiler:<\/p>\n Wow. Glad I didn’t stick with it. That is unbelievably inept. Imagine if The Fellowship of the Ring finally defeated Sauron, and then Barliman Butterbur the innkeeper showed up and revealed himself to be a demon, and then assumed control of Barad-dà\u00bbr. The writer treated the whole story like a childish joke, but then turned serious at the end and aimed for some half-assed tragedy, thwarting all of the player’s efforts in the process. Shameful. <\/p>\n My opinion of the game continues to decline, even now when I no longer have any direct contact with it. Part of this is my exposure to World of Warcraft. The games have a common lineage, although playing WoW creates a brutal contrast that makes Hellgate cower and slink away in shame. This game – this spurting geyser of suck<\/em> – is the product of the Diablo II team? I can only assume that in their hasty exodus from Blizzard one of them must have dropped the Magic Talisman of Making Awesome Games. Because that thing is still there, and its potent magics have evidently been put to use<\/a>.<\/p>\n The exiles have executed the John Romero maneuver: They left their former employer full of bluster, and then failed to live up to their perceived potential, much less their own hype. Hellgate London is to Diablo II what Daikatana is to Quake. Which is an awful thing to have to say.<\/p>\n Dear Flagship: Assuming your paymasters at EA are up for it, you guys still have a chance to put out one more game before people give up on you. Show us you’re not a team of Romeros. Make me eat these words. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I uninstalled HGL without reaching the end, but a reader sent in this end-game spoiler: […]After smashing the final boss and covering London in a thigh-deep layer of demonic corpses, Murmur (from the game’s beginning) shows up, reveals himself as a demon, laughs at you for clearing his path to the top, and then effortlessly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[92],"class_list":["post-1729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-hellgate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}