Hexen

Raven & ID Software

1st-Person Action

Quintin Stone

I've not played a lot of Hexen, Raven's sequel to Heretic, but I kinda got bored of it rather quick. Oh, sure, it does introduce several new options, such as picking one of three character classes. Doors swing back when they open. You can shatter the stain-glass windows. But... it's still a first-person shooter. And the Hexen engine is slow, even on relatively fast machines. There's not much more to say. Basically this is a game with little in the way of useful innovations. Which is not to say that it's a bad game, nor that it lacks in good graphics, but I just couldn't get into it. So it's another Heretic. So what? I'm past that stage now.

Bad Mojo

Hexen is the sequel to the Doom spawn Heretic and it's not that bad for its genre. I'm not a big Doom fan but Hexen does manage to warrant some attention due to its feel and look. Doom was fairly outrageous in plot and thus not really `scary', but Heretic managed to convey a spooky effect that Doom failed to deliver. Hexen does one better than Heretic. The sounds, the rustling of leaves and the dark atmosphere do wonders for the feel of the game. I liked the weapons in Hexen ten times better than the ones in Doom or Doom II and really enjoyed being able to play different character classes. Like Rise Of The Triad, this game is a network game at heart and team games of multiple classes playing cooperatively is immensely enjoyable. Not bad for a Doom clone.