Hexen: Beyond Heretic

In my (trivial to many) pursuit and quest in completing classic first person shooters I have completed many of the more popular and widely known titles as of now. I will do some browsing here and there and come across shooters I have never heard of or ones that may not even be worth playing at that. Well even so, if some of these old ratty shooters were shunned away for minimal fame or just plain suck in general, I will make my dues and enjoy them as much as I could muster, even if the game could be potentially broken in many ways.

Anyways, I wanted to bring my completion of “Hexen” out of the shadows, well besides my brother who watched me take it down. So down below is a little snippit of a screenshot from the beautiful world of “Hexen”, just to give you a rough idea on what I am talking about.

Now before I even continue I must state that “Hexen” was originally for the PC, then later placed onto the Nintendo 64, considering the N64 had the power at the time to run these kind of 3D games. I completed the copy for N64 from an N64 emulator I use on my laptop and wired it up to the TV. So in essence I gave myself the most realistic N64 playing experience I could handle at my current circumstances, even though I DO have a copy of “Hexen” and I DO have an N64, I just thought it would be nice to not use the N64’s triple penetration dildo controller… So why didn’t I just get the original PC version? Well actually just one main reason, the emulator offers support for external controllers to be used, considering most of the older old school shooters were just the arrow keys to move. I wired up an Xbox 360 wired controller to my laptop and had at it. And yes, if you were oblivious to the fact, you can just plug a wired 360 controller right up to your computer, then… Bam! Installed in seconds, no troubles, no bullshit.

Now there are some subtle differences in the N64 and PC version, first off the controls and controller, and secondly the graphics. Heres what I mean…

     <===Here is the PC Version

^===Here is the N64 version

Now if you don’t look closely you don’t really notice any difference besides one picture being slightly smaller than the other, but if you look close you can see that the PC version ultimately looks cleaners and supports a HUD. The picture to the right (N64) offers no such HUD and the graphics are more or less shittier, well it was on an N64 so you can’t blame em.

Regardless of beauty the game itself was ultimately satisfying. I enjoyed this game from beginning to end, well most of it anyway. It offered many of the same functions that “Doom” offered, well with the fact that it was conceived with Id’s “Doom” engine. Considering it was created by Id software I just had to play it, well I mean I loved the shit out of “Doom”, wouldn’t all there other games walk in the steps of their big brother? Though in the end “Doom” wins I still appreciated everything this game had to offer.

So what does “Hexen” have to offer? Well besides the old pistol, shotgun, bazooka basis that most shooters of the time were feeding off of, “Hexen” offered a plethora of completely different variations on these basic weapons. To start you can choose from three different classes:

There is Parias the Cleric, Baratus the Fighters, and the character I chose Daedoolon the Mage.

Cleric

Fighter

Mage

I should think that these characters were designed to be balanced, one being stronger but slower, one being faster but weaker, you know how character classes are. In the end I played through the game with the Mage, who seemed to stand out from the other two initially. I tried playing the first few levels with both the Cleric and the Fighter but me being the layperson to the game thought that they were going to be both primarily melee fighters. I although was wrong, besides their strong melee attacks they obtain certain spells later on your journey that allow them to fire various plasmas and beams from funky looking staffs and hammers. Though from the beginning the Mage had an entry-level staff, which allowed me to fire upon enemies instead of risking my life to give them a face full of fist or mace (Not spray). This though proved to be difficult in some cases, yes I could shoot blue beams and safely stay away from being surrounded by enemies, but the Mage, having the initial power of range is stricken with very low armor. So one hit from the stupid two-headed dog beast would leave me limping with -20 er something health each hit. Also the beams that the Mage shot were very weak, so every time another god damn two-headed fuck appeared I would waste at least 10 seconds of my life launching these pussy little beams through their faces. Regardless of the pussy staff, the Mage obtains a few spells that allow for his “magic” to be utilized. So in any other shooter you collect ammo, well in “Hexen” ammo is cleverly replaced with mana, which powers the spells you later pick up. There is blue mana… and… green mana… well not very diverse huh? Well even so there is a diverse amount of weapons to have but you would have to play through the game with all of the classes to see them (which I have not, maybe some day…). Anyways the Mage towards the end of the game acquires in total 4 different weapons, so in actuality the game boasts 12 different weapons which is nice, I like variety.

The mage gets the following 4 weapons throughout the game…

The Sapphire Wand

Frost Shards

Arc of Death (Well actually… Lightning)

Bloodscourge

The Sapphire Wand is the Mage’s starting weapon, so in commonality it is the weakest.It fires a linear blue stream of stars that penetrate your enemies flesh (DRAMATIZATION). I seriously used this weapon the most, usually due to the fact that I wanted to save most of my mana for harder areas, so now that the game is done my Sapphire Wand can rest peacefully and cool down. The sound that the wand makes when you fire sounds like a queefing vagina shot through space, and this sound resonated through my ears for hours on end. I can’t even imagine how my family felt about the sound, maybe they thought the same thing considering it repeated thousands upon thousands of times.

About an hour into the game the Mage acquires the Frost Shards which uses the blue mana. The Frost shards freeze your enemies after a few hits or so, and they sort of spread out into a shotgun like blast, similar to “Doom’s” “Super Shotgun”. This spell works alright in certain situations, and can come in handy when you need to take down certain enemies. About three hits or so with a full contacts blast can freeze up most enemies, just two for the flaming gargoyle like enemies. One of the only problems pertaining to this weapon is that if you are taking on multiple groups of enemies and you freeze the first few monsters then your are unable to freeze anymore due to the fact that they have created a frozen flesh wall of beast. Although you can quickly switch to your dinky wand to blast the iced beasties to bits. This weapon I used the least actually, considering I never needed to really pick up blue mana, I usually just used my base wand to take out most of the simple enemies.

The Arc of Death is easily the best spell that the mage finds. This spell fire a stream of lightning that attaches to an enemies in close proximity to its line of fire. It then electrocutes the monster and follows them for about three seconds. This spell used the green mana, being the most prized in my eyes. I was always searching for green mana and never really having a full bar of it. This weapon worked great against every monster type, and usually ended their life after just one successfully done shot. It was also wonderful in the fact that it could reach enemies in tight areas, considering that the other weapons needed to shot past “Hexen’s” strange collision proximity to walls and objects. I was always wary to make sure I only used this spell when absolutely necessary, mostly areas that required mad firepower.

The Bloodscourge is the last weapon, yes weapon (not spell) you find in the game. It resembles that of a red orb grasped by a skulls face and looks pretty pleasing upon obtaining its power. This weapon uses both the blue and the green mana at even intervals, telling you the it will be clearly be powerful. If anyone may be and probably is familiar with the “BFG” from”Doom”, then you will be just at home with the Bloodscourge. This weapon fire spiraling red spheres that rip enemies to shreds. Well it gives you the chance to see the only other deathly gibbing graphic that each enemy possesses, which is pretty violent actually. This weapon works well against large groups of enemies and usually takes out most of a usually tedious segment in seconds. Towards the end of the game I found myself saving up and balancing both of my manas to be able to get full power from this triumphant weapon of destruction.

With the weaponry to the side I wanted to cover some ground on some of the enemies that barred my path. The monsters, like “Hexen’s” cousin “Doom” all possess some sort of unique characteristic to each of them. Some shoot shit at you, some are speedy, some are really fucking weak, but some just straight up test your patience. Literally, when I say “patience” I really mean these foes were probably the most disappointing part of my game play experience. They roughly serve as an inconvenience on my part, I found my self huffing and signing at every encounter these bastards presented to me. My only complaint is quite simple actually, they take no skill to decimate, just time, unnecessary time… Let me demonstrate exactly what I mean…

Centaur / Slaughtaur

Here we have the indigenous Centaur, or latter in the Quest of “Hexen” the “Slaughtaur, which is cute, clever and straight to the point. Besides the clever variation to the base name, these sons of bitches never seized to have me bitch at my screen. So in being a Mage I had been forced to save my mana or have none at all and use my queef beam. Well the staff being my least damaging weapon made destroying one of these foes a terrible test of time. Here is a demonstration…

Fire Beam…

HIT!

BLOCK

Fire Beam…

HIT!

Fire Beam…

HIT!

Fire Beam…

HIT!

Fire Beam…

HIT!

Fire Beam…

HIT!

Fire Beam…

HIT!

Fire Beam…

HIT!

Fire Beam…

HIT!

Yeah and that’s basically it! Shoot, block, wait, and repeat! And yes I could use some other type of more damaging weapon, but I really didn’t want to waste good items on these stupid horse like men. For this reason, I felt like that’s what 50% of my game play experience consisted of. This is why I will save my green mana, exploding bottle potion things (Flechette), or the Porkulator to take them out in one fall swoop.

I have no other words at the moment for “Hexen”, I want to cover more upsetting monsters in due time, but as for the mean while we will just leave it at that…

Fuck you Centaur.

My Life in Hell: Hell Prevails

I know I have been covering a whole lot about the game “Doom”. I should say that all of the coverage is for the right reasons, being as I’ve said before and I shall say it again, probably one my favorite gaming series. So in trying to be a loyal and consistent fan I attempt to tread all of the ground there is on the landscapes of any hobby I see worth wasting my time on, may that be “Doom” or anything else of that matter.

So what else can “Doom” be besides a PC game, video game, and unfortunately a bad movie? Well, before there were even video games, there were board games.

“Doom” the board game, which I have mentioned in previous posts, takes the themes from the classic “Doom” installments and focuses them into a strategic turn based board game. When I first came across this game at a “Gamer’s Paradise” (which I and many others miss dearly) I was completely blown away. “How did I not know of this wonder?” I recall thinking to myself. I also remember going into that store time and time again and I would just admire the box art and marvel at the obscene 10 pounds of cardboard and plastic that were contained inside. Years later, I went online and pushed out, say, 50 bucks for the base set, and I believe that just a few days later I purchased the expansion which sucked about another 40 dollars from my wallet. “Well, I just spent about 100 dollars with all of the shipping costs, this better be fucking worth it.” I should not have been so harsh, even if this game was a horrible failure I should admire the fact that I am being a loyal fan to the I.d. family by having another one of their babies in my hands.

It finally came in the mail, being 3 or more weeks of waiting. I recall spending about an hour punching out all of the little item tokens and map pieces from their cardboard holsters, then probably 3 initial hours reading the rules over and over again to finally learn to play. So finally I got a group of my friends together and we got the biggest table we could get, which happened to be located at my dwellings. At the start it was really hard to get people to understand how to play this game. It was an interesting and complex set of rules that closely followed how the actually PC games mechanics would function. Running out of ammo, punching enemies to death, marines falling to their death an unspeakable amount of times. Things like this really caught my attention, the way this game functioned was nearly parallel with the REAL game! I’m not sure if anyone else bought that, my friends were more frustrated than delighted with the close correlation. This being the reason this game sat on my game shelf and collected dust, not because I didn’t want to play it, because I could not get a soul interested in ruining their day with frustration from countless misses on dice rolls or not having an ounce of ammunition. Months and months later, probably years later I got one of my close friends to enter the colorful plastic pits of hell with me. We made an agreement to play this game till the end, which is what I have been striving for since the beginning when I initially got the game. So, we picked up a bottle of “Jewel’s” finest wine and got together at my house. I was the kid in town with the big table, so this is where serious gaming got done, especially “Robo Rally“, god damn it especially “Robo Rally“. Besides the few nights that my brother wasn’t home we played on the king’s table, otherwise we were banished to the basement, which contained many Scutigera coleoptrata.

So we set forth on what had come to be my only “Doom” failure…

Yes you die in the “Doom” PC game, you die more times than flies in one single day, but LOSING is a whole other realm.

Mhm… I failed to achieve what I believed to be my sure fired victory. Though a victory fell short… actually very short considering I could have achieved victory through one move that may have changed the fate of my conquest.

Hell has certainly shown itself to be victorious in the battle of good vs. evil this time around in that case…

I lost yes, but shouldn’t I extract the positives from the situation? I initially remember saying, “I just want to play through the game, its kind of personally necessary.” But the hope I obtained from the back and forth wins sequencing throughout each level got me cocky.

I wanted to win at this point of course.

Regardless, let me just say I am greatly satisfied to have put many hours of stratagems into what is another notch on my belt. So now, besides the PC and other video games “Doom” had to offer, I have now also completed their board game. Though a loss I don’t like to look back on… it was worth it all, I and my good friend vanquished the game.

But all is not quite over, considering a program that can be downloaded and utilized to generate scenarios and maps to play. You can completely customize everything from the layout of the maps, to the story that goes along with it. It makes it quick, easy, and simply enjoyable to push out a new full on series of maps to place good and evil versus each other. I am currently on the works to kind of  / sort of base my marines failure to close the last portal to hell; my good friend shall pick up where he had unsuccessfully closed the final portal. My variation will although be completely different, and possibly contain silly antics, dialogue, and secrets within the scenario descriptions and missions.

Besides that, a job well done on both of our parts in completing the few main installment of the board game.

Check.

My Life in Hell: Initial “DOOM” Synopsis

So I believe that I have revealed in my last post that one of my all time favorite games of all time is the “Doom” series. These installments of games have held me captive in deep, dark polygon like mazes for hours. It was probably only up until about 4 or 5 years ago that I started to get really into the series of games. I also have to clarify that I primarily am speaking in regards towards the classic “Doom” games, considering that I like to indulge in older retro classics. That being said, I can never really figure out why I became so connected with these retro shooters, maybe it was just the nostalgia and memories that hit the right chords of my interest.

I very descriptively recall making an attempt to play these games as a child, or well like 12 or something years old actually. When I say “attempt”, I mean I had sort of fear of these games to a certain degree, I used to jump and curse when I saw a pink demon sprinting out of a corner, though I was always kind of pussy as a younger lad. I do also believe that the music may have got to me as well, the minimal yet terrifying old school sounding drones and guitars playing alongside the slow and subdued drums. Actually now that I think about it there is a certain something or maybe even a vibe that emits from old games that still to this day gives me some quivers. With my flowery vagina to the side, “Doom” was one of the games that I always tried to get an illegal download for on my gorgeous Gateway 98. As a younger boy I used to spend hours upon hours just searching for any kind of game. I would take and download anything I could get my hands on, software, shareware, and the best finds were always FREEWARE. Hence “free” means I can get the whole game! FOR FREE! Though “Doom” certainly was not freeware… I always knew about “Doom” when I was younger, considering I used to watch my dad play “Wolfenstien”. And who didn’t know about “Doom”? It was the biggest thing since sliced bread considering it set the bar for basically every other shooter to this day. So I searched and searched for this “free” download for “Doom”, always to be greatly disappointed with demos and trial versions of the games. I just remember playing even the demos and falling head over heels for these classic shooters. Giving up was not an option… I set out for more countless hours of searching and basically giving my computer type two diabetes from all the viruses that these “freeware” and “shareware” files were boasting. My computer was falling apart, I could barely even run the demos of the games anymore. I then actually became better at fixing and maintaining computers in this sense, regardless, downloads can lead to disaster. And I must also point out, I was like 10 or 11 years old, I had no conscious notion of torrents or any related programs, I mean come on I was using “Kazaa” and “Limewire” to download music, the leading causes of cancer in the cyber world. Well, besides all the beating my computer did take I finally came across some random website that hosted a FULL VERSION download of “Doom II”. God damn it was I happy, and I could finally play past the first episode! There was so much for me to see and explore now!

Considering my admittance into the “Doom” craze, I wasn’t very good at it. I don’t even recall beating the game entirely when I was 12 years old, I just remember skipping to certain levels just to see everything the game had to offer, I mean it was still great and I didn’t feel like I was wasting my time, and this was how it was for most games I played in that era. I learned of the notorious “God Mode”, cowered in fear from the endless fleet of pixellated enemies, and viewed and desecrated John Romeo’s (one of Id’s head programmers) head perched upon a stick. I love the aesthetics as well, from the high level of detail punched into each monster. I always loved to ponder the fact that these artists had to make each individual view of each monster. As seen in the following picture each individual view is produced to replicate a sense of 3D (considering the monsters were 2D sprites).

These were reasons I fell in love with the game, and from then till now I have become well versed and immersed in the “Doom” culture.

Now a days I seem to pick this game up all the time, it is consistently being played throughout my life span. Some times I won’t even have certain reason to play it, I just have at it I guess, just “being in the game” is enough to please my palette.

Though besides relaxing and having a cup of tea alongside a few hours of “Doom”, I do get serious about it. I have completed all three of the classic installments of “Doom”:

Doom I

Doom II

and Final Doom

And there are many newer installments to the series, which actually I have only completed “Doom 3” for the original Xbox and PC (though not the expansion). I just wanted to cover ground on the originals, the ones who set the table.

Now, when I mean I get serious about the games all I mean is that I plunge into the in and outs of the entire game. This of course includes completing these titles, on top of that I will be wary to be sure and get all of everything the game has to offer. Now if you are good friends with “Doom” you should know that at the end of each completed level you are prompted with percentages. These percentages calculate total Kills, items found, and secrets. It gives you the time it took you to beat the level, along with a set par time you can shoot for. I have nearly got 100% on all Kills, Items, and well maybe not secrets, but those are of the highest difficulty to achieve in my eyes. I have also kept track of my progress in a notebook, with all of the percentages, times, deaths, and saves for each level. I won’t post my stats just yet for they need to be organized accordingly for my next post, so I’ll soon have those up if anyone cares to see my progress. So until then happy gaming folks.