Developer: Raven Software
Platform: PC
Release Year: 1995
Stephen's Rating: 5/10
Heretic is a first person shooter/fantasy game based on a modified version of the DOOM engine.
Basic Plot
I'll open by saying that when I played the game, I didn't even know there was a plot. Maybe I was too young.
The game is set in a fantasy world where three evil brothers called the Serpent Riders have turned the seven kings of the realm into puppets to do their bidding. The Sidhe elves are immune to the Serpent Riders magic so they declare them heretics and seek to wipe them out. They kill the Sidhe elves and they are forced into hiding.
The player takes on the role of one of the Sidhe elves, Corvus, as he seeks to destroy one of the Serpent Riders (the weakest of the three) called D'Sparil.
Gameplay
Visually the game looks similar to DOOM in terms of technology, but the world is ancient and magical with a lot more colour than the metals and dull walls found in DOOM. Heretic was the first first person shooter to allow you to look up and down.
At its heart the game is a first person shooter, with some elements of role playing. The game is broken up into levels, and keys are required to move to the next level. The player obtains weapons which are aesthetically different but functionally identical with the same key bindings as those found in DOOM.
One unique feature was the addition of items. The player can pick up items which serve a large variety of purposes from healing or damaging enemies, to enhancing your existing weapons.
I remember that crossbow.
Positives
It was refreshing to have a first person shooter that didnt' focus on big guns in a modern or futuristic setting. Although similar to DOOM this game had a "cool" factor which made me like it more. Aesthetically it was nice to look at (for the time).
Negatives
From my perspective the DOOM engine didn't serve the game. It was too gun/action orientated with just a layer of role playing added on as an afterthought. It would have been interesting to see what the game would have ended up like if they'd built the engine from scratch. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind comes to mind as an example of a first person RPG which worked well because the engine was built for the task.
In saying that, Hexen was pretty similar but had something about it which made it more... magical even though it was just a first person shooter at heart too.
Memorable Moments
None. Although I played this more, Hexen had a bigger impact on me. This game was too transparently like DOOM.
Did you ever play it as a multiplayer game, though? I remember working in the mail room of a company in Toronto (doing very little, basically) and discovering that I could play this over the corporate network with people on other floors who were similarly under-utilised - but the joy of it was that there was an egg weapon you could use to turn your opponent into a chicken. Seriously. Their weapons would disappear, and they'd just suddenly have a beak instead. Fun for the whole family. Best feature of the game, but multiplayer only...
ReplyDelete