Hexen: Beyond Heretic

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Feel free to rate and discuss this game.

[ThreeHeadedMonkey]

I like how this game added some new features (like jumping, level hubs etc) to an old engine that was pretty much past its due date by 1995. Still, Hexen was a good - perhaps even great - Doom-type shooter which, much like its predecessor Heretic, incorporated RPG elements like multiple character classes and a variety of inventory items. The main difference being that Hexen is not as linear. We're now dealing with level hubs, rather than individual maps. Puzzles are more complicated and sometimes the solutions are spread over several different places, all accessible through portals. In each hub, there is a sequence of events that must take place before you can go on to the next part of the game. While this was considered an interesting new approach to FPS's at the time, it does get somewhat tiresome and frustrating by the time the player is nearing the end of the game. Most of the time, you're hunting for switches which reveal clues about what you're supposed to do - or where you should go next.

The visuals are superb for a Doom engine title, much like Heretic, although they are somewhat darker - more gritty - than in the aforementioned. Some textures/monsters can be identified as redrawn/edited versions of textures from Heretic. Level design is very gothic styled, this works well most of the time. But be sure to remember everything you see or draw maps, because you'll be going back and forth between areas a few times and getting lost is easy. The music / sound effects suit the visuals quite well and set an eerie atmosphere. Gameplay feels much like Heretic's, so if you've played that one for extended periods of time you should feel right at home with Hexen.

[MrFlibble]

When I first saw this game (circa 1995 I guess), I was very impressed by the visuals in the first level, with all the monsters, medieval weapons and characters, the hall with stained glass windows and gargoyles, the castle wall and the cave and all that. Everything was in the right place for a dark fantasy setting. However, back then I did not complete even the first level and did not play again until recently. Yet the design of the first hub, the Seven Portals, after the intro level, turned out to be rather not to my liking, with those pretty abstract "guardian" levels and boring geometry of the hub itself. The game gets better in the second hub, Shadow Wood, where there's the forest, the swamp and the ancient ruins, although one of the levels, the Wasteland, is really enormous, and it is easy to get lost. The third hub gets back to the medieval castle theme, which is nice too. Kevin Schilder did an excellent soundtrack for this game, with a somewhat darker theme than in Heretic, and many memorable tracks. The ambient sounds like the rattling of chains, wails, bird sounds etc. (depending on the situation) that play randomly also add to the game atmosphere.

Also noteworthy are the upgrades done to the Doom engine in Hexen (breakable glass, trees and other objects, horizontally moving sectors, the ability to jump among other things), and the hub system itself. The monsters this time are more into a "bestiary" type of theme, as opposed to Heretic where there were more undead creatures (the undead only appear in the final hub). The enemies did not escape the palette swapping procedure, and each of the regular monsters seems to have a palette-swapped counterpart with a certain difference (e.g. an added ranged attack). Another nice feature is that each of the playable characters has a different style of play, as well as a unique set of weapons (including unique use of certain items like the flechette that works differently for each character).

It's a pity that the demo is Unwinnable By Design, as the Guardian of Steel level is cut and thus the hub puzzle cannot be completed. I wonder why they did not put the entire first hub in the demo (or at least rewired the switches so that it could be completed without the Guardian of Steel level), seeing as there are five hubs in the full game. Cheats can still be used to get through the hub though.

[MrFlibble]

Here's an archived copy of the game's page at the GT Interactive website:
http://www.gtinteractive.com/1eftKro1/hexen/index.html
http://www.gtinteractive.com/1eftKro1/hexen/world.html

It includes some interesting lore stuff, no idea if it is found elsewhere (except probably the full game's manual).