Hellgate: London

The Royal Wedding is just two posh people you don't know getting married and has nothing at all to do with video games. Incredibly, that statement is only 50% correct. Of course it's implausible that any real people reading this could ever legally be acquainted with Prince William and Kate Middleton. That is an absurd notion. But their Royal Wedding does have many genuinely tenuous associations with video games.

Before the year 2007, Bill Roper was beloved by PC gamers, due to his work on Warcraft, Diablo and StarCraft. Then in 2003 Roper left Blizzard to co-found Flagship Studios, and began working on Hellgate: London. When Hellgate was released, the high hopes of many PC gamers were crushed, and Roper went from beloved to reviled.

Until recently Roper was the Executive Producer of Cryptic Studios’ MMO Champions Online. He took a break from fielding job offers to answer a few questions...

Shit breaks. That’s just the way it is. After prolonged use you must expect an item, no matter how expensive, to wear down and ultimately fail. And while we’re fine with Father Time claiming the souls of our dead electronics, it’s nowhere near acceptable when something brand new starts crapping out, locking up or engaging in what we like to call “shitting the bed.”

As part of the gloriously negative Week of Hate, we thought it time to remember some of the biggest, most hated instances of our expensive hobby and lifestyle going tits up.

Sept 27, 2007 To be honest, we couldnt care less about Hellgate: Londons post-apocalyptic tale of demons terrorizing London, or your epic task of saving mankind from extinction. Its Diablo with guns for Christs sake and thats more than enough for us. During our brief time in the beta, weve been having a blast blowing demons to bits in this FPS/RPG hybrid. Who knew that hell on earth could be so much fun? We decided to share the pleasure of pain in Hellgate: London by giving you the lowdown on

A lot's happened in the world of PC gaming already this year. Most notable was the introduction of Microsoft's Games for Windows - Live initiative, but there have already been several high profile releases on the platform. So much so that when we went back to our 2007 PC Game feature we almost had to halve it, as many games were already on sale. But that's okay because there are plenty more waiting for their chance to conquer the charts. Here's what you should be spending your money on in the

Hellgate: London Ooh, this'd better be good, or else. We're hoping for Diablo- beating crazed action, as London becomes infected with unclean horrors. To go with the previously announced Cabalist and Templar factions, Flagship have announced another: the Hunter. He's a clever addition, ramping up the action by not using the auto-aiming or target-locking that aid other classes, creating something the developers say will "appeal directly to FPS