2/2/2024 0 Comments Heretic game hoodsA series of games that were always flawed, started good, got better, then dropped fast, but produced one very memorable and one fairly decent game before falling apart. I can't even comment on what the endboss was like, because after a zillion save-reloads from dying from falling off things, dying from the aforementioned teleporting-lizard-assassin-horror, and dying from falling off things while fleeing from aforementioned teleporting-lizard-assasin-horror, I uninstalled the game, pawned the disc off on a friend, and never looked back. Add to that shitty annoying cutscenes that pop up in the middle of levels instead of between levels where they ought to be if they ought to be there at all. Add to that shitty jumping sequences to go with the shitty 3rd person view, which of course have you die instantly if you screw up. It always seemed to me like Raven felt some weird need to make the enemies more annoying (as opposed to more challenging, just more *annoying*) with each increasing installment of the series, and this guy just crowns the trend. Add to that incredibly annoying enemies, like that one piece of shit who teleports around like an interdimensional monkey on crack and can kill you in one hit. Add to that a shitty 3rd person over the shoulder POV. It doesn't even *try* to capture any of the dark and brooding atmosphere of the earlier games in general and Hexen in particular, instead we get this doofy generic fantasy world full of lame anthropomorphic races, instead of demons or undead or anything cool like that. Most of the monsters looked dumb and weren't fun to fight, and the environments were dull as dirt - instead of the mysterious, decrepit realms you had in Hexen, everything looks like the artist just copied it off an archaeology textbook, and they didn't even bother to change the names in the pantheons and stuff, it might as well not even have been set in a fantasy world. The new artifacts sucked, and even the returning ones didn't seem to be as good as their previous incarnations. It wasn't totally a bad game, but it wasn't a good game, either - it was like Hexen with all the best stuff gutted from it, and the mediocre to flawed stuff left in without any fixes except for the automatic use of puzzle items - you still had only four weapons per class, and those weapons were in general less interesting. With Hexen 2, things started to go downhill. The game did have its flaws though, the puzzles were sometimes aggravating, and I wish the weapon system was better, both in not having earlier weapons become useless later on, and having a couple more of them for each class. The environments themselves were well done too, and complemented by the moody music and ambient sounds. Korax, too, is the coolest looking of the Serpent Riders, which isn't necessarily saying much as IMHO D'sparil and Eidolon were both kind of stupid looking, but I do say Korax looks cool. The creatures were the best-designed in the series, and for that matter some of the best-designed game enemies I've ever seen, the interpretation of the centaur is awesome, and the afrit is just badass. The weapons all looked awesome, and a fair deal of them behaved awesomely, too. Hexen easily had the best atmosphere of the series. This game had its flaws, but was overall good. The weapons could've stood to break from Doom a bit more - having a sword or something along those lines instead of and better than the staff might have been nice for instance. It played well, albeit like Doom with added powerups, which the game tended to be a bit over-generous with. Heretic was overall a good game, but the atmosphere was lacking: The color scheme tended to be a bit too garish, and some of the enemies were a bit doofy looking, although some of them were pretty good, too. Short version: Hexen > Heretic > Hexen 2 > Heretic 2. See how smooth the disciple works against your crossbow, or the ophidian against your rod. But the reason I liked it more than Hexen is the weapon/monster balance, which in turn in Hexen is cumbersome - too much humping for first 2 classes too much centaur shield waiting too much stalker waiting annoying ineffective dark bish ops. The design is outstanding, but the game plays much like Doom. Heretic 2 didn't play enough but it failed me.įor awhile I liked Heretic more than Hexen but in the end it went bad (except for the final bosses), because it's still very much a Doom TC. Hexen 2's main flaw is general lack of custom levels :( I like how the regular archers are balanced. And the monsters (in general) are quite aggressive in Hexen 2. Really loved the music and game flow there. Hexen 2 has more character classes and an awesome hub: the second one. The Hexen mage really makes the game a different experience to Doom's. The frost is expensive and ineffective but it doesn't matter as long as the wand consumes no mana. Hexen 1 is awesome on the Archmage diff level.
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