If you thought the Doom craze was over, guess again. Or maybe not. Hexen is based upon the Doom engine and plays essentially the same as the venerable classic. Yet there are some striking differences which could either enhance or hinder your game playing enjoyment. Fanatics of Doom maybe disappointed with the lack of death (though there is plenty of that) but some may enjoy the added complexity.
Installation
Don’t skip this part!! This is installation done like no other installation. You are given the choice of which game to install based upon the processor chip you have. You heard me right. From the custom button on the installer, there are four different versions of the game: a 040, 601, 603, and 604. Pretty cool, eh? If you are not sure of what your processor is, Hexen will install a basic package (both PPC and 68K) including extensions.
The Interface
Hexen looks a lot like Doom and it should because they are based upon the same engine. But the graphics for Hexen seem a little clearer with 640X480 and 256 colors. The added effects such as bobing items, roaming mist, waving bridges and moving clouds do add to the enjoyment of the game. The frame rate is okay. While the demo was condemned for being ungodly slow, the full version seems to have corrected most of these problems. Most of the time if you want to get violently ill, you can, just like Doom.
Even better are the stereo sound effects such as falling rocks, rolling thunder, and cackling birds, though not quite up to Marathon 2 quality. The stereo panning is also very good. The music is standard music, nothing special. For both the special effects and music, you are able to choose the quality, number of sound channels, and loudness from a Mac friendly menu bar which disappears after the cursor leaves it.
Movement is done by either keyboard, joystick, or mouse. I immensely enjoyed being able to customize my own keyboard, unlike Doom. Nothing like playing a game where somebody thinks your fingers can be customized, not the keyboard. While not all of the commands are able to be personalized, the important ones such as movement and firing are. I don’t understand why games such as Marathon can be fully customizable but PC game companies cannot make theirs the same way? Hmmmmm.
What Doom lacks is Hexen’s strong point. The ability to jump, look up and down, and fly contribute mightily to the gameplay, especially flying. Whizzing around the skies, attacking and taunting your enemies, is incredible fun. It is too bad that you don’t get to do it more often.
Like Doom...sort of
Like Doom, Hexen is a 3D, first person perspective shoot’em up. Unlike Doom, this game is complex. There are five worlds (called hubs) with various numbers of levels. Each hub has a series of puzzles which need to be completed before moving onto the next hub. The puzzles are long and drawn out. At times, they are completely frustrating. The jumping back in forth between levels becomes confusing and tiresome, especially at the later levels. The puzzles are as simple as throw switch, find key, open door, pull chain and as complex as all that plus placing a skull on top of a beheaded statue. While that may not sound difficult, you have no idea that, while traversing through four levels, this is what you need to accomplish to move on. More importantly, there are no instructions informing you of what you must do to complete the hub. You are not even given iota of an idea of what to do in each level. I confess that I had to go on the Internet to find a walkthrough to help me finish.
Yet, I found this refreshing from Doom which was a mindless bloodletting. Don’t get me wrong. I like thrashing a couple of Dark Bishops just as much as the next person. In fact, one of my complaints is that there isn’t enough hack and slash (at least in the first three hubs). But the sense of needing to accomplish or solve something, besides clearing the board of baddies, is one I welcome. The problem is that Hexen believes you can figure out where to go and what to do without any help. I may be clairvoyant at times, but for the first time, I had to get a walkthrough off the Internet to help me get to the end.
Weapons, Potions, and Baddies
The weapons in Hexen are pretty ordinary, except in a couple of ways. First, you need to assume the identity of one of three characters: Fighter, Cleric, and Mage. All three have distinct abilities, fight differently from each other, and have different weapons (I completed the game playing the Fighter which is considered the easiest.) The replayability factor of the game is extensively enhanced by this feature as well as the games ability to use WAD’s made for Hexen. There are four weapons for each character to use. Depending on your character, each weapon has distinct abilities and uses blue, green, or both colors of mana. Blue and green mana are what power some of your weapons. One common factor amongst all of the characters is that each must assemble a weapon of immense power and strength throughout their journey. Once again, depending on your character, your final will weapon will have different qualities depending on your character yet all are powerful weapons.
Though I haven’t played two of the characters, I thought the number of weapons was too few. I liked Doom where I had several different weapons to choose. What made up for the lack of weapons were the different abilities of the weapons for the different characters.
 
The potions seemed to be the highlight of this game. There are fourteen different potions, icons, and items to use. Some banish, some speed you up, some give full mana, and some even turn some of your enemies into pigs!!!! This part of the game was extremely overdone. I rarely used any of the potions except health, flechettes (bombs of varying magnitude according to character), mana booster, and the Dark Servant, a Minotaur—looking beast (remember Doom) which fights on your side for a small amount of time. The biggest problem I had was that I could not find the potion I wanted quick enough. The way to access them was too complicated and unless you are an expert typer, hitting the right number at the right time was a rarity.
The baddies are interesting yet pretty weak. My favorites were the Dark Bishops and Death Wyvern. The Dark Bishops because of their colorful corkscrew projectiles and Death Wyvern because I had to fly to kill him. Beyond that, nothing exciting. What I found even more incredible was that I hardly died because of a beast. I got squashed, fried by lava, and plunged into unnoticed canyons much more than being zapped by a Chaos Serpent, and those are supposed to be one of the tougher beasts. What happens is that the health potions you collect are automatically used when your health deteriorates to dangerous levels. Therefore, dying by beast is pretty tough to do. No Minotaurs in this game to watch out for.
Network
This game is networkable but I didn’t get to play it. The features are deathmatches, cooperative play, timed games, and the ability to smash our PC foes.
Summary
I admit that I love and hate this game. I love this game because of the progress made from Doom. The flying feature is unique and outstanding. I hate this game because it totally and completely frustrated me at times. What ticked me off the most was that I couldn’t figure out the fourth hub for my life. I would recommend getting a walkthrough to help you. The cheat codes help but don’t allow you to figure out how to do things.
Who don’t I recommend this game to? People who want to kill and be killed. People who don’t enjoy solving elaborate puzzles. Who do I recommend this game to? People who can’t wait for Quake (the supposed blockbuster on the PC side) to come out on the Mac and would like to see the improvements over Doom.
As Mikey used to say, “Try it, you might like it.” On the other hand, you also might punch your $400 monitor in frustration.
Pros
• Different characters, different weapons, different strengths and weaknesses
• Networkable for fun deathmatches
• Complexity is fun at times
• Flying — it’s the cool way to kill
Cons
• Way too complex and elaborate
• Some bugs in networking PC to Mac
• Occasional bugs (nothing crashes)
• Baddies can be boring and easy
Publisher Info
GT Interactive
16 E. 40th St.
New York, NY 10016
Internet Sites
Newsgroups
comp.sys.mac.games.action
comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
alt.games.heretic
Web
id Software — www.idsoftware.com
Raven Software — www.ravensoft.com
GT Interactive — www.gtinteractive.com
GT Interactive HEXEN Forum — www.gtinteractive.com/bb/000014.htm
