Loonyboi reviews HeXen II.

I must say that with the overwhelming hype surrounding all the new Quake engine games, I found myself forgetting about HeXen II. It's a fairly easy mistake really. HeXen II is the only one of the new games to use the Quake 1 engine, and as a result there are a number of embellishments that will be featured in Quake II that are nowhere to be found here. Honestly though, don't let that keep you from HeXen II. HeXen II isn't perfect, far from it in fact, but it is highly enjoyable.

As a single player game, HeXen II truly shines, far surpassing Quake (well golly, my pet snail could make a game that does that), and producing a fairly cohesive (if somewhat cheezy) storyline. However, as interesting and varied as the levels are, they aren't especially action packed, and I found myself wandering around aimlessly for quite some time after I had killed off all the monsters. This is really one of the fundamental problems I had with HeXen II: the monsters really weren't very difficult.

The monsters are nicely designed (the Mummy in particular is a hoot) and beautifully animated, but not especially difficult. Once you figure out how to kill them, a somewhat irritating pattern shows up until you've wiped the level clean. Even more irritating, is the fact that HeXen II, like a number of games in recent years, has a tendency to repeat its monsters with subtle variations (worst of these were the spiders...three kinds of spiders? Come on...). The differences are almost miniscule, and they certainly didn't get any harder with each variation.

Fortunately, the level designers at Raven seem to have anticipated this and stuck puzzles in place of difficulty. The puzzles range from mindlessly easy, to wonderfully challenging, but a large portion of them are reduced to "find the hot-spot" puzzles, like most adventure games have become. Chances are that if you simply run around the level hitting every brush in sight, you'll finish the game in no time. Personally I would have preferred more logic puzzles, and less "look for the hidden button" ones. If you've mastered the art of finding the secrets in Quake levels, HeXen II should be a walk in the park for you.

The best thing about the level design however, is the sheer beauty of the textures and models. There are some really nicely designed areas, including a number of especially beautiful outdoor areas. The fact that just about everything in your sight can be destroyed is certainly a novelty, and oftentimes I found myself just having a dandy time smashing every model to pieces for the heck of it.

One of the major draws for a number of people (myself included) to the Heretic series, was the fact that cooperative play was not only superior to Doom (or in this case Quake, natch) but was also pretty darn fun. I played coop HeXen II a number of times, and I am quite happy to report that the same is true here, with some minor flaws. My biggest problem with HeXen II coop was the fact that there was still only one of most items around. While this wasn't a major problem when playing with one or two people, when you get six or more in there, this can be a major crutch. Also of course was the fact that again, the monsters weren't especially difficult (certainly not once you reach the higher levels of your character) so all coop really added to the gameplay in some levels was the ability to have multiple people smashing everything in sight, and trying to find the hidden buttons.

Whatever problems that exist in coop however, are cancelled out by the deathmatch experience, in which case the rule is "the more the better". Actually, it has to be that way. With only two people, HeXen II deathmatch can be a seriously irritating experience. With two people, it is almost certain that one person is going to dominate the game. Once you get on a roll in HeXen II, you really get on a roll, gaining experience right and left, acquiring the best weapons you can, and snatching up all the really cool items, until you're an unstoppable killing machine. Weapon balance is fairly equal (especially once you throw in all the items) but once someone gets all the weapons and all the items it's extremely difficult to stop them.

Of course Raven saw this, and added the "king of the hill" feature. Basically what this does is give you more experience for killing the current "king of the hill". However, the only problem is that when there's only two people, the odds of you knocking the king off are especially slim.

Once you get a serious frag-fest going with upwards of 8 people though, HeXen II really shines. The sheer exhilaration that comes from turning your friends into sheep and watching them run around trying to get away is a terrific experience, and one definitely worthy of an official loonyboi cackle. I should take a minute to point out just how well made the deathmatch levels are, by the way. These are really nicely designed, and hold up surprisingly well as more people join in the 'fest.

Also deserving of a mention are all the spectacular GL effects. HeXen II makes for a terrific technology showcase, rivaling GLQuake, if not surpassing it entirely. HeXen II has transparency everywhere, and uses it to some genuinely original means. Yes, the water is transparent, but check out the image that fades in and out in ravdm1. Now that's class. The downside to all of this, is that frankly in software mode, HeXen II just isn't the same game. It's not bad, granted, and if you've got a 2D card capable of high-res video modes, you're not going to suffer too much or anything, but you really are going to miss out on the real game. Do yourself a favor and buy a GL capable card before getting HeXen II. It's worth it.

HeXen II does have some hefty system requirements, certainly more so than Quake did. The minimum requirements are a Pentium 90 with 16 meg of ram, which most people should meet (I just barely inched my way in). However, if you're planning on using GLHeXen II, they recommend at least 24 meg of ram. Truth be told, I ran it just fine with 16 meg of ram, although the slowdowns were irritating when they occurred. Most suprising, was the 120 meg (!!!) required for installation. There is the option to have levels copied from the CD as you play (requiring all of 5 meg of HD space) but the GL version won't work this way (and as I pointed out above...software Hexen just ain't the same game). A small reminder to the would be GLHII player: if you're running low on HD space, make room. You want at the absolute minimum 120 extra meg free for GLHeXen II so you can have a nice beefy scratch disk for it to hit (especially if you're low in the ram dept. like I am). All in all, HeXen II is a nicely made game, and one you shouldn't pass up. Perfect it ain't, but it's definitely worth the cash, and it'll tide you over nicely until Quake 2 arrives.

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