1; Halp! We are surrounded by the evil on all sides! I, great warrior trainer >insert stupid name here< will help you young peasant boy, overcome the evil! Only you can save us!

: I’m a great warrior. I’m staying in the village… To… Uh… Defend it. Right. WOW was full of this shit, but its been a staple of RPGs since the beginning of time; only you can save mankind; the rest of us, with the awesome skills will sit around doing fuck all. Go get em, tiger.

2. We’re surrounded by zombies! You’ll need a weapon!

: don’t worry bobby. For some reason as well as rising from the grave, the dark for we of nasty also gave a box of Buckshot to one out of 6 zombies. The undead bog-monsters, which your handy glossary tells you are made from naught but mud, animated by eldritch magic, will also carry about fifty bucks and medical supplies, too.

3. Help! We’re surrounded by zombies! #2

We’re alone, surrounded by evil. Or gun toting Islam-a-bad madmen. We’re fucked! Give you the glock? No buddy, that’s 1000gold coins. plus you need to level up its too…uh… Heavy. Yeah. Oh, and another thing. I can’t sell you the rocket launcher, sniper rifle, or any of that stuff you see on the shelves behind me. The magical sword with the fire coming off it? Nah buddy, I’ve only got a broken chairleg and a sock puppet to sell you.

The thing the half-life games get right, and that nobody else in the industry seems to have picked up yet, is plausibility. Where do I get ammo, health? How do I get bigger weapons, more resources, or advance the plot?

These most basic of game principals always seem to be the ones that get neglected. But this one is the kicker;

4. : story.

Everything needs a story. Gears has one, and its nice; it does t try and explain surplus shit to you; the in-game reality meshes well with the back story, you do t feel like a retarded grunt who is Inexplicably carrying a stack of history books around; valve are currently the undisputed champions of story-as-you-go. You can make awesome models, well balanced tech trees or weapons or resourcing, but if your story sucks, so does your game. Which brings me to hellgate London; possibly the biggest, lamest piece of shit its ever been my misfortune to play: you could say its writing is tongue in cheek, but by the time you’re hunting through ‘chocolate park’ to delve into poor old tech>serialnumber here<'s brain, you've already sat through some awful dialogue; "math is hard, let's shop!!" from female shopkeeper types, for one.

Its why I like NW as much as I do; loot is logical, experience gives skill, not mundane ability. And the story is good. GJ, all the way around.