A Look at HeXenWorld (the program, not the website, silly) by loonyboi.

Back in my original review of HeXen II, I said that. "a [HeXen II] fragfest, with upwards of 8 people [is where] HeXen II really shines". And I believed it. The day after HeXen II was released, I went to a LAN party, where we had some major-style HeXen II deathmatch...and it rocked. I was psyched for this to catch on...I pictured my social life disappearing as I spent every waking moment playing HeXen II multiplayer...I saw myself actually getting good at HeXen II...I saw myself as reigning champion of HeXen II world-wide!

Of course none of this happened.

Oh sure, I'd load up GameSpy and look for a server every now and then...but let's face it. HeXen II never caught on as a multiplayer game. A true crime, since I believed then, and I believe still that it simply kicks ass multiplayer.

You see, I'm a one-on-one kind of Quake guy. I love the tension, the thrill of the hunt...the exhilaration of getting that final frag in at the last moment. When it comes to Quake and Quake II, I find large-scale multiplayer boring. But with HeXen II...something really clicked with me. I'm not sure why, but the mayhem that is a giant HeXen II deathmatch totally rules. It's absolute chaos. All the items and weapons in HeXen II make deathmatch a wild ride. An odd side effect of this is that I find HeXen II one-on-one boring as all hell. Not to mention extremely unbalanced. But hey...like I said. I play HeXen II for the chaos factor.

But finding HeXen II games online is pretty tough. Every now and then I'd find a server...but it'd always be empty. Hell, I tried running one myself, but nobody ever showed up. Things weren't looking good for me and HeXen II multiplayer.

So when my buddy Phoebus asked me if I wanted to join the HeXenWorld beta team, I practically soiled myself. I mean come on! Here I was being handed a chance to play multiplayer HeXen II...en masse. Who was I to say no?

Now that HeXenWorld's been released to the public, you no doubt know what a revelation it is...but in case you've had your head in the sand, I'll explain. HeXenWorld at its core adds QuakeWorld functionality to HeXen II.

What's that mean? It means master server support (read: easier to find games in progress!), skins support (although currently not used...they're supported), client prediction (to help out all you modem users out there) and lots more. But that's just skimming the surface of HeXenWorld.

HeXenWorld could easily have been just a QuakeWorld port, and if so it probably would have been released a long time ago. The fine folks at Raven took their time with it, and while it's far from perfect, it sure is worth the wait.

The new deathmatch levels (HWDM1 and HWDM2 respectiviely) are spectacular. They're sized perfectly for 8+ multiplayer games, and have been tweaked to near perfection. The gameplay tweaks are welcome additions...the "disc of repulsion"-jump in particular is a hoot, and once you get the hang of it, quite useful, to boot. :)

Before HeXenWorld, I rarely ever used those discs...now I have them quick-bound to a key for easy access.

And hey! Have you checked out some of the neeto deathmatch variables you can set now? Dig this. HeXen II has some really nifty things you can set as a server. A quick rundown:

Hoard the Icon (dmmode 1): HeXen II meets Kill the Carrier. Um. Kinda. Only reversed. Picture this: the idea is to snag the Icon of the Defender, and kick ass with it (it doubles your damage rate). Here's the fun part: you can't pick up anything when you're carrying it (no weapons, items, hell...no health) but (and this is a big but) only the person carrying the Icon actually gets a frag point for a kill. It's weird...but a ton of fun. And I imagine a future LAN-party hit.

Hunter (dmmode 2): Each player is given a specific target to kill. You get a negative frag for killing anyone else (except someone who's targeting you, in which case nothing happens) and killing your target passes that person's target on to you. This is great with 6 people. :)

Respawn options: there are a ton of different things you can set to happen on respawn. You can have each person start with their second weapon armed and selected (w2respawn), each person start with a tome of power (tomerespawn) and the weirdest (but still kinda cool) has got to be altrespawn. Altrespawn brings you back with half your mana, inventory and weapons, plus you loose whatever weapon you had selected at the time...but you keep everything else. It's really a hoot when you're just playing around.

But really, when all's said and done, the thing I like most about HeXenWorld is that it exists at all. Finally, I can start a server, and know that people will actually show up. I can load up the program at any time, and just hop into a game in progress. I may still suck at multiplayer (something I'm afraid no program can cure) but I have a hell of a lot of fun doing it.

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