Heretic vs. Hexen

[DraQ]

One annoying design mistake in Heretic is that chaingun and pistol don't share ammo. You're plinking away with that pea shooter even in late game. Easy way to differentiate from Doom at least a bit, but wrong decision nonetheless.

Why would you ever use the wand otherwise?
Also case in point regarding weapons being mostly Doom gun resprites.

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

Why would you ever use the wand otherwise?

It's bad that you're expected to use it so much. Circle-strafing around a yet another pack of melee monsters while shooting them with that weak wand is not very amusing or interesting combat encounter. And Raven's level designers decided to have way too many of them.

Other weapons are good though, and that crossbow is great and it even gets plenty of ammo. Overall, the weapons get the thumbs up from me.

 

[DraQ]

Why would you ever use the wand otherwise?

It's bad that you're expected to use it so much. Circle-strafing around a yet another pack of melee monsters while shooting them with that weak wand is not very amusing or interesting combat encounter. And Raven's level designers decided to have way too many of them.

Other weapons are good though, and that crossbow is great and it even gets plenty of ammo. Overall, the weapons get the thumbs up from me.

Crossbow is effectively Doom's shotgun.
It differs in that it isn't hitscan but otherwise it's more or less the same and universal for the same reasons.
Other weapons are also more or less Doom resprites.
Raven's fantasy FPS weapons truly inclined once they stopped mindlessly copying Doom.

The only really good thing about Heretic weapons is their varied effects with ToP.
Oh, and gauntlets, they might be a chainsaw resprite but they are so sweet to use even without ToP.

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

Doom had good weapons. There's no shame in copying and reskinning them.

 

[Hobo Elf]

There's no shame but the weapons and "spells" in Hexen felt so much better.

 

[Boleskine]

Fixed.

SoF was already a pretty meh dudebro game, with only the gore going for it.

Jedi Knight II and Jedi Academy are great, though. The X-Men Legends games are also fun. Quake 4 wasn't really groundbreaking but it's one of the better FPS from the mid 2000s. Peak Raven is pre-2000 but they still had some good years left until Activison demoted them to Call of Duty DLC and multiplayer.

 

[octavius]

Must be sad going from designing original (well, kind of) games like Black Crypt to being reduced to production units churning out consumerware year after year.

Anyway, just completed the first part of Hexen II, and I found it very enjoyable. Nice puzzles, but overall the game is rather easy. Guess I should have played on the second highest difficulty, but I've noticed my FPS skills have declined in later years, so I usually go for the default difficulty in FPSes these days.

 

[DraQ]

Must be sad going from designing original (well, kind of) games like Black Crypt to being reduced to production units churning out consumerware year after year.

Anyway, just completed the first part of Hexen II, and I found it very enjoyable. Nice puzzles, but overall the game is rather easy. Guess I should have played on the second highest difficulty, but I've noticed my FPS skills have declined in later years, so I usually go for the default difficulty in FPSes these days.

Hexen's difficulty relies to a large extent on a mechanical puzzle of sorts - you need to figure out what works against what, otherwise you'll face prohibitive resource costs or die. Probably still needs a higher difficulty setting, though - what's your class?

 

[Lyric Suite]

I'm an old man and i always go for the hardest setting possible in any game i play.

Of course, single player FPSes are not hard. When i was in my 20s, i could hold my own some what consistently at the top level in games like Unreal Tournament and Quake Arena. When i tried Quake live around six years ago, i could barely pop out of tier 2 and when i did i would get kicked back out of tier 3 after a few matches. Now i'm wondering if i could even go that far.

With all that said, i can play any FPS at any difficult level with my hands tied behind my back. Shit just isn't hard.

 

[octavius]

prohibitive resource costs or die. Probably still needs a higher difficulty setting, though - what's your class?

Assassin.

With all that said, i can play any FPS at any difficult level with my hands tied behind my back. Shit just isn't hard.

You are the Lilura of FPSes.

Oh well, there are three other classes to play. I may try one or some of them on higher difficulty some time.

 

[octavius]

Ha, the Werejaguar, the Skaarj before there was a Skaarj.

Yeah, fighting those Werejaguars and Werepanthers felt unreal.
I had a full batch of Repulsors which I found a use for now. Repulsors + Lava = burnt pussy.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Perfectly legit tactic, since you are using the tools of the game they way they were meant to be used. I played this thing as a teen and i loved dueling those things with my Paladin. I'd reload the game a million times if necessary but it had to be a one on one, mano a mano kinda thing. Today i probably wouldn't have the patience for that and i'd use the dirtiest of tricks to get rid of them.

 

[Siveon]

I'd say you can start to feel the decline around 2002, the gunplay for Jedi Knight II and Academy is pretty damn bad to make up for the fact you can basically just hack and slash with a lightsaber. Noticably smaller and dumbed down levels when compared to Dark Forces II. Still, they're good for what it is. Especially since it has the most fundamentally good lightsaber combat.

I know nothing about Soldier of Fortune, but I liked the Marvel Action RPGs. Very fun co-op games.

 

[Lyric Suite]

First SoF is decent enough. I couldn't finish the second one, though at this point i can't say whether it was bad or not, since i remember absolutely nothing about it.

First Hexen remains their masterpiece.

 

[octavius]

Heh, I flew after Death and backstabbed him to death.
Now I've gone Beyond the Realm of Death, to what looks more like Powerslave.

 

[octavius]

I'm disappointed with the backstabbing in Hexen II. Very few opportunities, and so far (having reached the fourth realm) I've only managed to chunk 2-3 enemies.

 

[Lyric Suite]

It is an FPS, not an RPG. Take it for what it is.

 

[octavius]

Interesting sound when you grab healing and mana; sounds like "juice!". Could be traumatic for especially sensitive young men like Irenaeus to listen to.

 

[Irenaeus]

I played some Heretic and Hexen at the time, cool games. Don't remember much except you used crossbow to kill enemies or something.

 

[octavius]

Finally beat Hexen II. Eidolon himself was easier than the last of the Horsemen, and I beat him on second try.
One thing really pissed me off: you can only make 99 screenshots, so I didn't get any pics of that overgrown lizard dying.

All in all a solid, competent game, but not outstanding, IOW a typical Raven game.
Parts reminded me strongly of Unreal, especially the "Atzek" part, which indidentally was also the hardest one combatwise for my Assassin. Other parts reminded me of Thief. I found myself wishing for Water and Rope arrows several times.

Great monsters in this game - most scary spiders (more how they move than how much damage they do) in any game I've played, they made me shudder some times even though I don't suffer from arachnophobia.
The werecats were great too.
And the Dark Mages and Fallen Angels were annoying. I turned most of them into sheep, unless I managed to surprise them with a full dose from the Staff of Set.

 

[Whisper]

Heretic plays like shooter in fantasy setting. You just collect item and kill monsters.

Hexen (1,2) plays like quest. You kill 2 monsters in 10 seconds, press 1 button near them and spend 10 minutes looking for distant wall being removed in another corner of vast level.

 

[baturinsky]

Doom had good weapons. There's no shame in copying and reskinning them.

Doom had good monsters. Weapons are so so. After Brutal Doom, I find playing with vanilla Doom guns very bland.

 

[baturinsky]

OK, let's talk Doom weapons. It's vanilla as fuck. It has usual triad machinegun+shotgun+rocket. It has BFG which is really awesome. Pistol is useless. Melee is nearly useless. Plasma Gun is just a slightly less practical machinegun. It does not even has a sniper rifle.
If you want really interesting weaponset - see Blood. Firethrower, Dynamite, Flare Gun, Woodoo Doll - all great and fun. Even melee with pitchfork is cool.

 

[Lyric Suite]

It is not the "usual" triad machinegun+shotgun+rocket. It is the foundation of that setup.

If you want really interesting weaponset

Nobody gives a shit about interesting except pretentiontards who believe different = good in and of itself.

Firethrower, Dynamite, Flare Gun, Woodoo Doll - all great and fun.

But the basic weapons are more fun.

Even melee with pitchfork is cool.

And the chain saw isn't?

 

[baturinsky]

Throwing dynamite in the middle of the crowd and see gibs flying around is fun. Chainsaw would be fun if it were practical in Doom. But it's too weaksauce, and there is too much hitscan enemies, so you'll keep getting damage while you close in and saw some demon for several seconds.

I don't deny that Doom weapons were great for it's time. But every other aspect of Doom has aged very well, and weaponset did not. And "like in Doom" is not a sign of quality if it comes to weapons.