Witzbold's LAN Report: Part Two (with special emphasis on weapons & items) by Witzbold.

And you thought you had heard the last of me. Anyways, first off, this is the second part of a two series article. If you haven't read my first report, please be a good little hexen2er (um, I guess that's a word) and go read it here. That way I won't have to repeat myself, which should make everyone happy. :-)

A few more notes. I played HeXen II with the same people again (Jaegle, King, and myself - Witzbold) - we were hoping for a fourth, but he wasn't able to make it. Also, the problem of characters dominating a game of HeXen II I described in the first report has been covered by both Fargo and Loony, so I won't go into it here.

The New Classes

When I had first heard about the Crusader class, I had my reserves about it. To me, it just sounded like a rehash of the Paladin, with slightly different weapons - there was not the same contrast between those two classes as there was, say, between the assassin and necromancer.

However, I have found my fears are unjustified, for the Crusader truly is a unique class, with not as much focus on obeying "the gods", like the Paladin, but rather a devotion to nature and the elements. The weapons of the Crusader (except for his melee weapon, the hammer) reflect this. And, frankly, the Crusader's weapons out do those of all the other classes. Excuse me while I gush.

Chill out.

The crusader's second weapon is an ice mace, which shoots out small, white bolts of ice (duh). If you hit your opponent with the mace enough, though, they'll freeze up all nice, allowing the Crusader to go and bash them at his ease. Apparently, the Raven guys have a generic texture that makes the frozen character (whatever they may be) retain their shape, but turn white and semi-translucent. It's a very cool effect. I've heard that the Crusader doesn't get the kill for the freezing - rather, the person who shatters the character does. But, I also believe I heard that this was going to be fixed with the patch (which I'm eagerly awaiting), so we won't have to deal with that long.

King rocket jumps!

The crusader's third weapon is a meteor staff, which I love. You know why? This is the only weapon in the whole game that allows you to rocket jump! Yup, that favorite pastime of many Quake players is not dead. So, as you can guess, the meteor staff resembles the Quake rl, except with a slower rate of fire and/or doing less damage. That way, it can't dominate a game.

SPF 3000?

The crusader's last weapon is the sun staff, which makes me think of a cross between the lightning gun and the laser cannon (from Scourge of Armagon). The staff fires out a straight beam of light, like the lg, except it also richochetes off the walls, like light reflecting off a mirror. These combine for a spectacular effect, which can best be shown with a picture.

Feeling dizzy?

Perhaps the best part of the Crusader's arsenal are his weapons when powered up with the Tome. The hammer becomes a super-damaging throwing hammer, which returns like a boomerang. The ice mace creates multiple columns of ice, that freeze all in their path. The meteor staff creates a small dervish (think of the Tasmanian devil ;-) that sucks people into it - this is my favorite power up. And, lastly, the sun staff turns into one bad mother, identical to its normal power, except instead of one beam firing, three beams usher forth from it.

The necromancer has a style all of his own, though it's hard to follow an act like the crusader's. I didn't play the necromancer much, but Jaegle seemed to love the class. Frankly, the necromancer just kind of freaked me out. Hehe.

Magic Missiles

The necro's melee weapon is a sycthe, which is still boring, compared with necro's other weapons, though it is probably the coolest melee weapon of the four classes. The necro's next two weapons, which are actually spells, are my favorite part of the class. The animations of the necro holding the spellbook are superb, and freaky. When you switch between the two weapons, it is with a flip of a page in the book. The actual weapons are decent; the magic missiles are rapid fire energy spheres and the bone shard spell reminds me more of Quake's super nail gun than anything else. And those nails hurt. Powered up with the tome, both weapons aren't that spectacular. The magic missiles home, and the bone shards turning into a big exploding "thing", that reminds me of a sea urchin. :)

Caw! Caw!

The necro's fourth weapon, the raven staff, fires off three rotating blades, like the screws of a ship. The effect isn't that great, I must say. However, the raven staff, when powered up, is just ... cool - there's no other word for it. Three small balls are fired out, from which hatch three sleek ravens, that nail the necro's opponent till they die. Seeing the ravens swarm an opponent is a great visual effect.

More on Items

I think I covered the items enough in the previous article - there's no need for me to cover them again here. Besides, describing all of the separate items would make this report entirely too long. However, I have two ideas regarding items that I wished to share.

Witz's fav level: ravdm5

First, as I was playing deathmatch, and cycling through my items, it occured to me that what I was doing was like a sort of real-time resource management - a feature that's only really highlighted in real-time strategy games (like War2). I've always found games like War2 & C&C too slow for me (what can I say? - I'm an action freak), but the fast pace of Hexen2 deathmatch made the handling of the items more fun, really. It adds a sort of suspense to the game, kind of like the suspense you get when you stop to type in Quake, when you have a killer pack. I think Raven actually crossed genres somewhat, and no one even noticed. :-) Bravo, Raven, because when you accomplish that, that means you're defining parts of a new genre.

The next item is more of an idea for a mod than an insight of the game as it is. I would love to see a mod that mimiced the deathmatch 3.0 rules in Quake, except, instead of weapons staying and only allowed to be picked up once, it would be items upon which this rule would exist. Just think about it. Handling your items effectively would become much more important for, once you used your item, you're not going to get it back till you die. This would make the possibility of a single player dominating the game much harder, while still maintaining the spirit of managing your items. If anyone reads this and thinks they could do that, and they want to do it, email me and I'll talk to you more about it.

HeXen II: The Potential

Speaking of mods, I think HeXen II has the potential to make the best team-based mod ever. Think of all of the people that play Team Fortress. Why do they play it? Because of the classes - and those classes aren't even balanced, like the HeXen II classes are. I see the potential for a mod like Siege to really take off.

With teamplay, the challenge would be to find a way for all of the classes to interact to make the team the best possible unit - which would be even more of a challenge than in TF. In TF, you have obviously offensive and defensive classes, but this is not true in HeXen II. Each is equally suited to any position. The possibilities are endless. I can't wait for Siege, and any other team mods that may come. HeXen II has a strong future ahead of it - and it's gonna be one wild trip. Let the fun begin.

Misc Tips & Strategy:

• If you have a three button mouse, use the middle and right button to sort through your inventory items - it becomes very easy to manage them, then. Jaegle first came up with this idea.
  
  
• If you're a crusader, use rocket jumping to your advantage. You can reach places that you're not supposed to, and can take short cuts not availible to other classes. Go get that Tome before your enemies do!
  
  
• Never neglect your inventory, but don't concentrate on it too much, either. No matter how powerful your pack is, nothing can make up for plain old deathmatch skills. First be good at manuvering, shooting, strafing, etc., and then work on strategies for managing your inventory.

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