Hexen: Beyond Heretic

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Description

Hexen is the sequel to Heretic. While the Heretic was destroying D'Sparil, the other two Serpent Riders have come to your dimension and slaughtered everyone. Or so they thought. Three humans have managed to escape with their lives and now seek vengeance against the Serpent Rider Korax who remains in their world.

Like Heretic, Hexen is a fantasy game based on an enhanced DOOM engine. All of Heretic's innovations like vertical looking, flying, and the inventory system have been carried over. The new major changes this time around are three characters for the player to choose from and the level hub system. The characters are the Fighter, the Cleric, and the Mage. Each one has four unique weapons and different levels of speed and armor.

The hub system steps away from the traditional "single levels stringed along into episodes" system which had been carried over into the FPS genre from sidescrollers and made popular by Wolfenstein 3D. In Hexen's hub system each episode is still made up of interconnected levels, but most of the levels are connected to a single "hub" level through portals. There are also portals between some of the "spoke" levels. Many of the puzzles in Hexen require travel back and forth between different levels.

Other innovations in Hexen included weather effects, jumping, earth-quakes, and destructible objects such as trees and vases.

Screenshots

Alternate Titles

• "Hexen 95" -- Windows re-release title
• "Hexen" -- Console title
• "Heretic 2" -- Working title

Part of the Following Groups

• 3D Engine: id Tech 1
• Gameplay feature: Auto-mapping
• Gameplay feature: Recordable replays
• Heretic and Hexen series

User Reviews

(Review from 1995) Hexen is more than just a "Doom Clone" and is worth trying.	DOS	Kadath Bird (619)
Hexen is an excellent shooter that's just not for everyone.	DOS	WJAndrews (32)
True to its name in many ways... frustrating, somewhat fun.	DOS	ShadowShrike (311)
Enormous switch hunt in scary castles.	DOS	Sir Gofermajster (481)
Pushing the limits of id Tech 1, one sector at a time.	DOS	Chris Charabaruk (143)
A descent Medieval shooter that just tries to be too many games at once	DOS	Medicine Man (367)
An RPG-Style First-Person Shooter	DOS	Aenn Seidhe Priest (10)

The Press Says

High Score	DOS	Apr, 1996	5 out of 5	100
SEGA-Mag (Objectif-SEGA)	SEGA Saturn	Dec 05, 2012	9 out of 10	90
Joystick (French)	Windows	Nov, 1995	90 out of 100	90
Joystick (French)	DOS	Nov, 1995	90 out of 100	90
Nintendo Land	Nintendo 64	2003	88 out of 100	88
Computer Games Magazine	DOS	1996		80
X64	Nintendo 64	Oct, 1997	69 out of 100	69
Total! (Germany)	Nintendo 64	Aug, 1997	2.75 out of 6	65
Electric Playground	SEGA Saturn	May 23, 1997	4.5 out of 10	45
The Video Game Critic	SEGA Saturn	Nov 20, 2009	D+	33

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Trivia

In German, "hexen" means "witches", or "casting a spell" when used as a verb. Moreover, the game has a Warlock skill level - a warlock (or "hexenmeister") is the male version of a witch.

Related Web Sites

• Doomsday HQ -- Home of jDoom, jHeretic, and jHexen. These are hardware accelerated ports of those games ( require original DOS versions to work). Useful to make the games prettier, extended multiplayer support, and to work perfectly on Windows Xp!
• Raven-Games -- This site is dedicated to older Raven Software games. Here you can get maps and mods for Heretic, including JHexen and Koka's GLHexen, the two best hardware accelerated Hexen upgrades in existence!
• Wikipedia: Hexen: Beyond Heretic -- Information about Hexen: Beyond Heretic at Wikipedia