Witchaven

The Good
Released by Capstone, Witchaven achieved a small amount of fame within a certain niche of gamers (notice I say "small", it's not as if the game was a full-blown cult classic or anything) for being one of the first medieval themed FPS games, along with Heretic and Hexen.

In Witchaven you play as...er...some guy who has to do....something. OK, I neither know nor care what the game's about, and since you spend most of the time fighting endless armies of warty goblins I have a feeling it doesn't matter much anyway. The game is standard FPS fare similar to Doom or Heretic, although there are some RPG touches like experience points and an inventory. This doesn't add anything significant to the game (and Hexen took it much further by allowing you to pick a class, Gauntlet style) but it's still a point for creativity.

I'll have to end there.

The Bad
I hesitate to use the word "turd parade" to describe a game, but here I am left no choice. Witchaven is terrible. It is botched and ruined in almost every way. I won't call this the worst FPS ever made ("worst FPS" is like "worst haircut", i.e. something that's apparently made impossible by karma) but surely it must be near the bottom of the barrel.

So where do we begin our autopsy?

Witchaven isn't really a first person shooter but a first person slasher. Most of the game you'll have to use melee weapons like flails, swords, or your fists. Hit detection is horribly skewed and you have to get extremely close to attack an enemy, and there's no feedback as to whether you're causing any damage. You just hammer away at enemies until they fall over dead. The entire game consists of this. That's right, other than looking for keys and getting lost in mazes, you spend the whole time whacking away at goblins.

Heck, even controlling your character is a massive annoyance. Your character doesn't walk, he slides. It feels like you're on roller skates. And since you can clip through any enemy or object in the game (I think this is a bug) you'll often walk through the enemy you were trying to attack in a bizarre sort of osmosis. I've never really enjoyed first-person slashers since they're too damned hard to play because of the perspective. Some games compensate with a "Z-button" feature (I'm thinking Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) that automatically locks you on to nearby enemies, but there's nothing so sophisticated in Witchaven.

These problems torpedo the game on their own, but there's lots of other stuff to point at. Perhaps to enhance the paper-thin RPG angle, they included the "realistic" feature of deteriorating weapons, which is a nightmare unto itself..

Basically, if you use a weapon for too long it will break and you'll need to find a replacement. It's lots of fun when your sword breaks in the middle of a fight, but what's even worse is that weapons sustain damage even if you aren't hitting anything with them. That's right, you can wreck any weapon in the game by swinging it at empty air. As you can see, they've implemented a feature that makes the game less fun, slows down the action, and makes no sense.

Even the experience system is broken. You gain points every time an enemy dies. That's it. If a monster falls into a pool of lava on the other side of the room you gain experience. Even better: if you exploit infighting among the game's many enemies (goblins of different colors will fight each other) you can rake in massive points without lifting a finger.

Other than the pseudo-RPG features, there's nothing even remotely creative behind Witchaven's design or content, and the game comes across as just a really crappy Doom knockoff with swords rather than guns. Level design is cut-rate, the weapons are almost stupendously boring, and the enemies all feel like stronger/weaker clones of one another.

The game's graphics are competent, but the art is simply terrible. Seriously, the goblins look like they were drawn by children, and while the other enemy sprites are somewhat better they're still the sorriest bunch of claymation rejects you're ever likely to come across. Just look at the screenshots. Additionally, the sprites have almost no depth shading, and this makes them look like cardboard cutouts.

...You get the idea. Witchaven isn't a game where you have to look hard to find what's wrong. You have to look hard to find what isn't wrong. This is a game with almost no redeeming aspects at all.

The Bottom Line
Avoid. If you really want a medieval-themed classic FPS, play Heretic or Hexen. They're problematic games in their own right, but it's like the pearly gates of heaven opening up next to this.

(Although I should note that Witchaven uses an early incarnation of the famous Build engine, and therefore may be of technical interest to Ken Silverman fans)

The Good
This game presented 1st person medieval excitement. The levels were large (for the time), and the engine was quite advanced. The obvious detail in the warring goblin and ogre factions and the variety of monsters, weapons, potions, magic and power-ups made it the best twitch & kill fantasy game of the time. The variety in environments, including rooms that actually serve purposes (torture rooms, libraries, gardens, etc.) make it that much more realistic.

The Bad
The controls were relatively sloppy compared to other games coming out at the time. The game as a whole wasn't always stable, and some of traps were downright too difficult in the darker areas. The lack of an ending cutscene really killed any sense of closure to me.

The Bottom Line
Ultima Underworld with better graphics, absolutely no role-playing, and nonstop slaughter and adventure in a dark and twisted fantasy world, involving "vast" (for the time) outdoor environments and indoor dungeons as well. Definitely a shining example of a great game, but could have been something that could have been so much more with a few added story elements and some tighter controls.

The Good
Graphics in the game are rich in variety, colour, shadows and lighting, not least the amount of gore, which captures a horror atmosphere and exceeds Doom a level higher for its time. The intro cinematic is thrilling to watch from beginning to end. When you plunge into the game, you're greeted by close range weapons and trap-ridden labyrinthine levels with quite a selection of monsters and demons from the smallest poisonous spider to the great witch Illwhyrin herself.

The RPG elements fit nicely as progressive experience earns you new abilities, new spellcasting capabilities and increased vitality. Potions, spells and magic items make the combat more interesting and guarantee you'll get through the level successfully. The weapons, though mainly consisting of melee type, have their different reaches and damage power. Replacing the weapons as they get damaged is a small chore, that is compensated with bonus EXP. What few ranged weapons there are have a generous amount of ammunition around the levels. It's neat that you can use the magic arrows to make a ladder, so you don't have to waste a fly spell.

The Bad
Somehow going through a level doesn't feel as satisfying as it does in other FPSes because there's no kill count, item count or secret count to tell if you fully beat the level. Some of the levels are just plain mean because you'll find an overwhelming number of instant-killing spike traps and closing mechanisms which trap you forever. The difficulty levels in the game are hard to tell apart and the Nightmare difficulty makes the game next to impossible to beat, more so than Doom. Even dying a level restarts you with 0 EXP, making saving the game frequently an absolute must.

In the midst of the gameplay there is sadly an abundance of bugs in the game, such as the broken jumping mechanic, clipping through walls, which kills you without warning, and the inability to pick up daggers, not to mention the infamous level 5 bug that stops you getting the brass key to the exit (saved only by an Unlock Door spell).

Finally, the only area in which the game lacks variety is the soundtrack, having only six music tracks (the last one being removed from the Adlib/SB16 sound card for no reason) where more would have completed the scary atmosphere from level to level.

The Bottom Line
Doom and Heretic brought you the finest first person action in the early 90s. Witchaven tried hard to reach the level of those games, but failed by a mile. If shooting was always your kind if action, then it takes a lot of getting used to with a melee arsenal. Sadly there is quite a lot missing that would have made it top of the FPS list. Recommend that you sharpen your FPS skills before you play this title. Witchaven is memorable, but not everyone's favourite, so give this title the benefit of the doubt and make the most of it.

The Good
Witchaven is among the first of the medieval fantasy-themed "first-person slashers," and is noteworthy in that regard, though it paled in comparison to its superior counterpart, id Software's Heretic, published a year earlier.

Using 3D Realms' "Build Engine," it had a feel somewhat similar to that of Doom, although far more over-the-top and grotesque and with less suspense. Indeed, the general tenor of the game goes so far as to be simply sophomoric, though it may have a gritty appeal for some.

The game has a good variety of weapons, from the measly dagger (which looks more like a kitchen knife) to the fearsome halberd. In between, there are no less than three types of swords (the short sword, broad sword, and great sword), a morning star, a battle axe, throwing axes, and, best of all, a "magic" bow. If the weapons aren't enough for you, you get to collect scrolls with which you can cast eight different spells. Too dark? Cast Night Vision. Can't seem to get up to that ledge above you? Cast Fly. Don't want to bother with finding the key to get into the next area? Cast Open Door. Combat spells include Magic Arrow, Fireball, and the dreaded Nuke (which, really, is just a spell that disintegrates your enemies; expect no fancy fireworks).

The level design, though not the best I've seen, is decent, and includes lots of lava, arrow traps, pressure plates and spontaneously-appearing mazes (as in, walk into a large open area, see the item you need at the other end, confidently stroll in to grab it, and watch a maze of walls rise up to block and trap you).

Witchaven includes such role-playing game elements as experience points and experience levels, random items in treasure chests (including "Treasure Chests" which simply give you up to 500 more experience points), and the fact that your weapons eventually wear down and break. While not much to bark at for even a casual RPG gamer, these factors add a little spice to the game.

The Bad
However, even its novelty, variety and sheer extremeness cannot overcome the fact that Witchaven sports rather dull and repetitive gameplay.

The intangibles are by no means compelling. The plot, of course, is pretext, as is customary for games of its type, so one has no right to complain there. The enemies are reminiscent of naked, demonic and sometimes-smiling figures in a sick, twisted Claymation film. The first sight of the goblins (the very first enemies you face) is itself likely to induce a bout of eye-rolling -- but at least it gives you one more motivation to kill the damned things. From there, you progress through further hordes of fire-hurling devils, tall fist-pounding man-beasts reminiscent of the Goons from Popeye, and strange, obese gray woman-demons who pull their own entrails out (ouch) to throw at you and who look like nothing more than Paleolithic fertility idols given life.

After a while, the weapons don't even feel very different from each other (except for the bow, of course), and I just forgot about spells until the odd time I needed an Open Door or Fly spell. Nuke is the only really useful combat spell, and even it comes off as a fantasy BFG 9000 (the ultimate weapon from Doom that inflicted high damage on everything in view at the time it was activated).

In fact, the whole game basically comes off as if the designers were trying too hard to make the game as raw, gross and creepy as possible, in the end merely making all the horror fixtures -- such as horrifically-tortured and mutilated body parts -- into ignored banalities by virtue of injudicious over-placement. What seems designed for shock value becomes ho-hum.

The Bottom Line
Witchaven was a passable attempt at a hand-to-hand first-person shooter that just didn't come together right. It is unpolished and seems more designed for novelty and "grodiness" value than actual gameplay value. The attempt to integrate role-playing elements into the game certainly makes it more interesting, but cannot make up for the game's other shortcomings.

Indeed, Witchaven failed to meet even the standard set my Heretic a year earlier in 1994, which really, truth be told, was not that exciting itself. (In my opinion, a truly-excellent 3D fantasy slasher that focused almost entirely on melee weapons wouldn't come until Interplay's Die by the Sword.)

Overall, Witchaven doesn't have much going for it. The gameplay is uninspiring, and the art and atmosphere are unimpressive at best. It it is truly not a game for children or even moderately-squeamish adults (ESPECIALLY conservative religious ones, who are likely to freak out at the demonic/satanic regalia found in the game.). And it's not really even a game for adults, as it comes off as just plain sophomoric. That leaves the teenage and young adult crowd, who are far more likely to be playing modern console shooters than this. All in all, I simply cannot recommend playing this game.

Instead, if you want period first-person-hack-and-slashers, check out Hexen, Heretic, Die by the Sword, or any of the glut of similar-type games that have become fashionable today. But the old genre has not aged well, as the similarly-themed games of today are far superior to any of the older first-person slasher games (except perhaps Die by the Sword).