By: Prolix
Over the past couple of years since the
release of Tombraider, the game market has been
crowded with 3rd person trash. Due to the
overwhelming popularity of Tombraider, the 3rd
person camera angle has been blatantly exploited
by developers with no talent who are all well
known for skimping out on gameplay and going for
beautiful babes in tank tops. Deviating from the
normal first person clone, Raven Software opted to
use a 3rd person camera angle that suits the game
perfectly. Heretic 2 is by far is one of the best 3rd
Person games I have played this year. The Gamplay is far superior to Tombraider and also has a deeper atmosphere where you actually find yourself engulfed in the story.
You assume the role of Corvus, slayer of
the Serpent Riders. After a long post-heretic vacation you are back once again to save the
citizens who are up against a magical force. Upon
beginning the game in your home town of
Silverspring, you notice something is wrong with
your people. They seem to be dying rather quickly
and even turning into bloodthirsty monsters. To
get a solution you head towards Andoria to receive
a cure from a healer. After three hours of gameplay
just to reach Andoria you learn the story only
begins here...
Graphically this game is so intense it is
almost hard to believe. When I first adapted to the
controls and I looked around a village I thought,
"My god this is beautiful". I have never felt so
completely absorbed in a game before. As I peered
around I noticed glowing lanterns, intricate
stained-glass windows, and realistic wooden
pillars. The general feel of the game is somewhat dreary, none the less it's mystical. To drive this
beast I used my 3dfx-voodoo1 board with 4 megs
of ram and noticed absolutely no slowdown.
Having just a P2 233mhz system I am usually
confined to run games in low or medium resolution
modes, however I was able to run Heretic 2 in all of
its glory creating quite the visual experience. After
all this praise I do have one complaint and that is
the character animation. They are somewhat of a
let down considering Corvus's ear is nothing more
than a single polygon with a skin tone texture on
it. The monster animation could use some work as
well; rats with jagged polygons for skin is just
unacceptable.
In most cases the control of Heretic 2 is well done, however there are a few problems. One problem constantly
plagued me, mostly in multi-player. For no reason I
seemed to be doing back flips before I could run
forward. As I tinkered with the options I could find
no explanation to this and became quite frustrated
to say the least. All of the standard keys are
present like strafe left and right along with flipping
and rolling maneuvers. Being an avid Quake 2
player, I was a bit skeptical of how well I could
adapt to Heretic 2's style of gameplay. Controlling
Corvus is quite easy actually and completely
deviates from the typical Tombraider style of
control. The word perfection basically describes
the sound effects in Heretic2. As I ran around the
village killing zombies, cries of women and babies
echoed in the background, church bells clanged,
and wind-chimes clanged together in the wind.
Moreover, spell and weapon sound effects are
superb. The actual sound of your staff ripping
through flesh is so realistic it's scary.
The basic concept of the game is to use
your spells and weapons to destroy everything in
your path. Luckily there are also puzzles that require the use of your brain. As you follow the story you are given certain goals, such as reaching Andoria
via the Darkmire swamp, which proves to be a
perilous adventure. Another example would be the
retrieval of a crystal and earthblood to concoct a
cure for the deadly plague sweeping across your
world. Weapons are divided into three categories:
offensive mana consuming, defensive mana
consuming, and conventional weapons such as
bows. As an added boost, one can consume
defensive mana in exchange for a temporary power
boost, much like the quad damage in Quake 2.
Offensive spells range from a typical fireball to a
devastating wall of fire. My personal favorite
magical weapon is a spell called iron flail which
shoots deadly iron balls in all directions.
Power-ups mainly consist of small and large sizes
or combined health vials, much like the ones in the
original Heretic. The 3rd person camera view
proves as a valuable asset in Heretic 2 because
much of the environment cannot be appreciated
without it. One of the most noticeable features I
found in Heretic 2 is the intricate level design. I
really felt as though I was in a medieval fantasy
town overrun by a dark magical force. The AI is
your average AI: after being wounded the
monsters will run away and find help. The fun factor relates directly to your style of
gaming. Heretic 2 is not a mindless kill fiesta like
Quake 2. Rather than just kill everything you must
use your mind and open doors via hidden switches
or navigate your way through mazes. At several
points I became completely stuck as to where to
go or what to do and required some kind of
outside assistance to find what I should be doing.
Multiplayer supports TCP/IP and LAN connections and does a decent job with both. For the most part lag was minimal, except
when I would use deadly spells as flamewall with a
tome of power, creating unbearable lag. Although I
did experience some lag, the fun and excitement of
Heretic 2 DM cannot compete with the non-stop
"real life" action of Half Life. One of the coolest
features of Heretic 2 DM is the power of your initial
weapon, the staff. Instead of running around just
using projectile weapons, I opted to use my staff
most of the time, brutally destroying my opponents
in one hit. Another added twist to DM is the use of
shrines which range from staff power-ups to
complete mana refills.
After being completely let down by
Hexen 2 I wasn't expecting that much out of
Heretic 2. Thank god I was wrong because Heretic
2 is one of the most amazing games that I have
ever played. Every aspect of the game has been
attended to and nothing has been left out. Another
good feature I noticed was the lack of bugs, which
such releases like Sin have been plagued with. It's
good to see that Raven actually took the time to
put out a fairly bug free product. I recommend
Heretic 2 to anyone who enjoys Quake or even
Tombraider, you will not regret picking this title up.
Graphics: 19/20
Sound: 12/15
Gameplay: 28/30
Fun Factor: 18/20
Multiplayer Play: 4/5
Overall Impression: 9/10
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By: m0tion
I remember my first time playing Heretic. It
combined the AWESOME Doom engine with a
dark, medieval, and gothic feel that made it one of
my favorite first person shooters. This was not the
sequel that I expected to come out from Raven.
The games I've played by them have usually been
first person shooters and usually used the latest
and greatest ID Software game engine. Heretic 2
was a shocker for me when I heard it would be 3rd
person and in fact I wasn't sure they would be able
to pull it off. The first thing I though of when I
heard "3rd person" was Tomb Raider and I've
never really liked that series. I must say Raven has
done a superior job of mixing the 3rd person
aspect with the graphics and gothic feel I've come
to expect from them. After all they do say, "ID
Software writes the engines, Raven makes the
games".
Graphics: Heretic 2 supports D3D, OpenGL, and
3DFXGL. I played this game in 800x600 with my
12MB Voodoo 2 and the graphics were amazing.
They had a crisp feel that was missing from other
games using the Quake 2 engine. The effects used
in this game showed really nicely and they did an
excellent job of making the 3rd person view work.
Even in software mode the game was decent
looking, but of course a 3D accelerator yields a
much more distinguished look.
Sound: Heretic 2's sound effects are quite nice.
Lots of the weapons provide very unique sound,
which is always helpful in multi-player. Useful
environment effects are provided such as
footsteps and breathing, helping you tell who or
what may be around the next corner. Heretic 2
provides 'High' and 'Low' quality sound settings,
however, when I set it to 'High' I experienced a lot
of sound clipping so I was forced to use 'Low'
quality.
Gameplay: As I previously stated the 3rd person
gameplay was extremely well put together. The
camera angles were almost always on key and
clipping problems seemed to be non-existent.
There were also in-game cut-scenes that added to
the story line. You play as Corvus (the hero from
the last Heretic) and you have to save your town
from an evil disease. As Corvus you go through
many different environments from inside dungeons
to the bottom of sewers to out in the middle of
desert canyons. I had a lot of fun with this game
even though it wasn't all that challenging.
Fun Factor: It's another hit title from Raven so of
course it's going to be fun. Who couldn't have fun
running around blasting zombies with mystical
weapons and magical spells? This game lasted
pretty long and kept my attention. I'm not sure if I
completely agree with their move to 3rd person,
but I enjoyed it nevertheless.
Multiplayer: Multi-player for a shoot 'um game is an
obvious plus and I loved playing this game over
both the internet and LAN. Even on my 56K
modem the lag wasn't that bad and the shrine
power-ups in the game make it very interesting. A
lot of the weapons are very original which adds to
multi-player fun.
Overall Impression: Overall I think this game was a
valiant effort on Raven's part. They took a big leap
by moving to a 3rd person/1st person shooter
hybrid and they pulled it off better than anyone
else could. Basically, if you like Quake, Quake II,
Heretic, or Hexen you'll love this game and its
definitely worth the money.
Graphics: 19/20
Sound: 13/15
Gameplay: 26/30
Fun Factor: 18/20
Multiplay: 5/5
Overall Impression: 9/10
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