Heretic II
Raven has created an exciting and immersive third-person perspective action game set in a medieval fantasy world. The fourth game in the popular Heretic/Hexen series, Heretic II is set before the events of Hexen and Hexen II and begins with the return of Corvus (a sensitive, muscular, pointy-eared elf guy) from the Outer Worlds to his home of Silverspring. Upon his return home, Corvus finds his people afflicted with a terrible plague (and is contaminated himself) and sets off on a quest to find the cure.
Corvus
is capable of a wide variety of acrobatic moves, including rolls and flips forward and
backward and to either side; jumping, ducking; running; pulling himself up onto ledges;
climbing and swinging on ropes; and even pole vaulting with his staff. The third-person
perspective provides a great view of the smooth animations and players can have a lot of
fun simply jumping and flipping around the place. These moves are essential for exploring
Corvus’s environment and also very handy for avoiding enemies. Some great attacks can
be made by using the third-person viewpoint to spot enemies waiting around corners,
somersaulting into their view and smoking them with some insanely powerful weapon before
they can react. Great stuff!Initially armed with a staff and a fairly
weak projectile spell, Corvus can increase his arsenal by finding magical items (such as
the Hellstaff and the Phoenix Bow), and by learning spells (such as Force Blast –
kind of a like a shotgun except that it fires green stuff). A number of defensive items
are also available; as in Heretic two types of magical energy (mana) are used to power up
offensive and defensive items (and yes, it’s still possible to turn your enemies into
chickens using the Morph Ovum spell!). Items are automatically picked up by walking over
them, and there are many hidden inside barrels, boxes, rocks and other objects, making
wanton destruction of your surroundings a worthwhile exercise.
Heretic II is based on the Quake II engine, giving it an impressive array of features – rotating and breakable brushes, transparent water, environmental effects and true 3D level design. Coloured lighting is also available but only with a 3D acceleration card. Raven has also made a number of refinements to the player model animations to make them smoother and more realistic, and the result is a game which looks very impressive. Even large outdoor areas appear convincing, and underwater regions are particularly beautiful. Simply wandering around and looking at the environment is a real pleasure, and once Corvus starts leaping, sprinting, hacking and blasting, it’s gamer heaven!
The enemies in Heretic II are many and varied, and move as well as Corvus does. Varying levels and types of AI mean that some will fight you to the death while others will run away looking for help after you lop off a limb or two (chase ‘em down – that’s what the run key is for!). They are also capable of hunting you down if you try to hide.
Like Quake II, Heretic II offers excellent control to players; a combination of mouse and keyboard is the most popular option. Key bindings can be changed using the in-game console (accessed by pressing the tilde key) or by execution of a simple script. Raven has thoughtfully added support for double-tap and Shift key bindings as well.
Another advantage of using the Quake II engine is its
excellent multiplayer connectivity. Multiplayer Heretic II can be played over a network or
the Internet using TCP/IP and Raven claims that a 28.8K modem connection to the Internet
will be fast enough for a good game.
3D hardware acceleration is provided (for cards which support OpenGL) and greatly enhances the Heretic II experience, boosting the frame rate and making special effects look better. A software renderer is also available.
There is a large Internet community centred around Heretic II and the other games in the Heretic/Hexen series, and some good sites to check out are http://www.ravensoft.com, http://www.activision.com, and http://www.hexenworld.com.
by Richard Lovett
