This might be one reason the item system really comes into play in Hexen. You just have to be able to remember where you explored and the doorways that hadn’t opened before.Īlso, you only get four weapons throughout the game but each character class gets their own four. People grew to hate key card hunting in Doom, and on top of that Hexen adds puzzles where hitting a switch in one area opens a door in a completely different area without always directly telling you. Each area is basically a puzzle, and puzzles can be frustrating. It makes the game world feel bigger and more connected, but it might have also exacerbated the flaws in older FPSs that eventually led people to embrace more linear games. I think that design choice completes a sort of “dungeon crawler” feel Hexen goes for without it actually being an RPG. If you’ve played the Turok games on N64 (or the recent remasters), each “episode” is sort of like a mini Turok game - you get to the next hub by finding a bunch of keys and occasionally solving a puzzle. Instead of progressing linearly through small individual levels, you explore back and forth through them, connected by a series of hubs, each one representing what would be an “episode” in a Doom game. Hexen: Beyond Heretic, is the first game out of these old FPSs I’ve played that really plays around with the conventions of the genre in that time period. That’s pretty much the one hint at the turn the sequel would take. The one major difference in Heretic overall is it incorporates an item system very much like the one Duke Nukem 3D more famously uses. One important difference with the crossbow compared to Doom’s shotgun is it’s middle “bullet” always shoots straight forward and maintains its damage at range, becoming something of a weak rocket launcher. In just about all other aspects Heretic is another collection of good Doom levels with a different (and maybe more colorful) visual style. At that point I immediately realized the crossbow was this game’s shotgun, and from there I just slid back into my Doom mindset. Eventually I got some gauntlets that just shoot out close-range electric shocks that stun enemies until they die, which I realized was equivalent to Doom’s chainsaw. Eventually I got some kind of magic crossbow and struggled to figure out how to properly use it - it shoots a spread of three (I think) medium-powered magic blasts. At first I approached it like an action-adventure game or an RPG because I was playing as an elf using a magic staff to shoot at bats and golems. Heretic is mostly just Doom with a fantasy coat of paint. Raven’s Serpent games back in the 90’s however tried to take this to another level, standing on the boundary between FPS and action-adventure game. The only modern attempt to revive the old FPS style that understands this is the 2016 DOOM game. Having played enough of these games though I think a more important difference is the focus on exploration the oldest FPSs had. When people talk about ancient FPSs they usually talk about being able to carry 12 weapons and having to strafe all the time, and those are clearly big differences from only carrying two weapons and constantly taking cover in more recent games. In my journey through old first person shooters, these two feel like an interesting milestone in FPS design. Last but not least, those interested can download the Texture Pack from here.I’ve been on these games for the last few months but I recently finished the first two parts of Raven Software’s “Serpent Riders” series, Heretic and Hexen: Beyond Heretic. In order to showcase the visual improvements, the modder has also shared some comparison screenshots between the vanilla and the new AI-enhanced textures that you can find below. Run gzdoom.exe and select “Hexen: Beyond Heretic (HEXEN)”.Add file HEXEN.WAD into root directory gzDOOM.Unzipped mod and add file hexen_esrgan.pk3 into root directory gzDOOM.Open file gzdoom-%username%.ini with text editor.Below you can find an installation guide for gzDOOM. In order to install this texture pack, you will need gzDOOM, zDOOM, Zandorum or other extended Doom engine. The modder has improved around 1000 textures and the end results are amazing. And today, I’m happy to report that this AI-enhanced ESRGAN HD texture pack is available for download.Ĭreated by modder ‘gmh4589’, this Texture Pack takes advantage of AI Neural Networks in order to improve the resolution of textures by up to 4 times. Last month, we informed you about a HD Texture Pack that was under development for Hexen.
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