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Hell revisited... in MS-DOS

By Marck Rimorin

HEXEN: BEYOND HERETIC
id Software, 1996

Yes, this game was released in the 1990’s, when everyone was still using MS-DOS because Windows 3.11 just plain sucked. This game was the definition of fear. Not just any fear: bone-chilling, stomach-churning, bladder-squeezing fear. This was Hexen.

Today, other games pale in comparison to Hexen: you got the likes of nonsensical shoot-them-and-watch-them-die games like the unfortunately-named Painkiller, Serious Sam, and that pathetic excuse for a shoot-em-up, Enter the Matrix. Anyone with an eye and a hand can play these games. Hexen, on the other hand, was a thinking person’s game with all its puzzles, and along with the random, gratuitous violence involving a crucifix which spews out ghosts and an entire horde of Ettins, it made for one really, really scary game.

You play as one of three characters: a Fighter, a Cleric or a Mage. Each of the characters have their own unique abilities and skills which suits anyone’s taste. You want to kill your opponents with your brute strength? Choose the Fighter with his raw, awesome power and cheap mana usage. You want to kill them critters with magic from a far distance? Choose the Mage, whose weapons cover a long range even with the basic mana-free elven wand. Or maybe you want a little bit of both while looking good doing your killing? Choose the Cleric, who has great range and cool-looking weapons. I personally use the Cleric in my game: that way I can suck the life out of those scary Brown Serpents with a Serpent Staff. Even the superweapons’ names sound cool: the Fighter’s Quietus (a badass-looking black sword which throws out five green fireballs), the Mage’s Bloodscourge (a mean wand which chucks three powerful homing fireballs which mow down your opponents), and the Cleric’s Wraithverge (this big cross spews out six ghosts which home in on any enemy and decapitates them). Man, and everyone’s still ooohing and aaahing over Doom III’s Soulcube… whatever.

The game takes place in a Gothic-inspired world, complete with caves, gardens, castles, churches and even graveyards. This game has 30 levels: and unlike most games where you battle through different levels a’la Die Hard and move on to the next floor, you have to complete a puzzle through a “hub” level, where you can solve the puzzle through the different levels in that hub. Each hub has its own “boss” character, the hardest being the Heresiarch in the “Gibbet” hub, who spews out these purple-colored streams of energy at you and if you don’t move around you die. As if this wasn’t enough, the final level (the “Dark Crucible”) pits you with the final boss character, Korax, and entire regiments of Ettins, Centaurs, Brown and Green Serpents, Arfits (flying stone birds on fire… scary), while throwing all these balls of energy and the room literally throwing fireballs at you with stone stakes rising from the ground below… that’s just sick punishment trying to purge the world out of the very spawn of Hell.

The controls are intuitive, but this was a time when mouse technology was inferior to Track-Ball and everyone played games with keyboards. I myself played the game (without cheating, of course) for over 5 hours and was still stuck trying to beat the Death Wyvern (a small little dragon with the killing ability of a machine gun) in the Hypostyle: my wrists ached red, which I never experienced even during my Counterstrike days. My eyes were bloodshot, and I couldn’t lie down on my back for fear that I may dislocate a vertebral disc. The game is just that damn addictive from that point, with another 15 hours to go before beating the game. Fifteen hours and five life points left to my name, the game was over. And yes, no videos yet: the finale was a series of text that left one wondering, “Like… huh?”

This game doesn’t offer the radical “true curved surfaces” of other games nowadays (it was MS-DOS, what do you expect?), but it did the trick for a dark, scary Gothic feel to it. And it was just damn hard: one moment you walk around doing nothing but breaking jars and cutting mushrooms, the next second you’re face to face with six Brown Serpents clawing at you and spitting out green loogie. Then when all that’s done you fall into an endless pit and yes, you haven’t saved your game just yet.

Heretic and Blood were scarier games (ah, those disembodied Choking Hands in Blood… scary) than Hexen, but Hexen wasn’t all about the blood and gore and the perverse happiness you can get by trampling down on your enemies’ disemboweled intestines. It was about the sheer scratching of scalp and frustration of not being able to get to that last switch in the puzzle. It was about your mom twisting your ears off your head hearing that satanic music all over the place. It was about the wet spot in your pants after you finish off the hordes of Swimming Serpents in the “Effluvium.” It was about that sheer satisfaction of being a good guy in a bad world.

And that’s a good thing. #

THE VERDICT:
All games are rated as: 10-perfect; 9-outstanding; 8-excellent; 7-very satisfactory; 6-satisfactory; 5-moderately satisfactory; 4-needs improvement; 3 and below-just plain stupid.

Graphics: 5/10 Sound: 7/10
Gameplay: 8/10 Longevity: 7/10
Score: 6.75/10
VERDICT: Old game, still scary.

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