Unlike Hexen 1, Hexen 2 does puts a lot of emphasis on using inventory items in combat. If you are trying to take everything down with just your weapons, you are going to waste a lot of mana and health. Using inventory items helps out a ton. For example the Aztec areas have lava pits all over the place. Don't bother trying to fight it out with the cat-men. Simply lure them over to a lava pit and hit them with a couple Disks of Repulsion, knocking them into the lava.
Overall not a bad review, however there are some things not mentioned or wrong: First the level up system, it becomes much more obvious when playing it on maximum difficulty as you kill a lot more enemys, making the very first level insanelyhard, but at somepoint the leveling system really kicks in. Also it does not only just give you mana: inteligence is blue mana , wisdom green, dexterity movementspeed, and strength how much damage you do and an overall hp increase, also each class has two features that you unlock when leveling up level 3 and 6 for example the paladin gets a bonus underwater at level3 and at level 6 he can revive if he dies, seemingly at random, however the more enemy you killed before the more likely it seems, the assassin gets invisible in shadows and the necromancer has some vampirism. also the granades are very different depending on the character, for example with the assassin when you throw a granade just right at the enemy it sometimes spawns chains from the walls at the enemy, pulling back and ripping the anemy apart, the effect is rare and not really reproducable tough. One unique thing about hexen you forgot to mention is the necronomicon, an item which makes your current weapon a lot different and more powerfull making it feel like there ar 8 weapons instead of 4 per class. my favourite is the necromancers raven staff: with the item instead of shooting simple projectiles it shoots ravens ripping weaker enemys apart with ultimate damage and gore. The combat gets a lot easier if you know some tricks, and there are a lot: for example try to throw an axe with paladin always to the feet of an enemy, there is a chance that it bounces between the enemy and the floor multiple times causing an insane amount of damage. Also you learn how to trick the ai and doge a lot especiallly with the paladin. Movement is key and you walk/run insanely fast though that is common in older games. I honestly don't think that hexenII combat is harder than half-life or rtcw, but just a lot different. puzzles are insanely hard... agreed. Some uniqe things about the engine: It's not simply the quake engine it's quite a LOT advanced, for example it features quake2s hub system: probably the reason why they went so cracy on the puzzle difficulty, it was something very new. there is transparent water and breakable stuff, animations look a lot smoother than quake, quite a lot of things that the quake-engine can't. One thing that I have to mention is that hexen II is an absolute mood piece, leveldesign is visually very pretty, and unintentionally or not it was fortunately one of the games before colored lightning... which really added to the dark mood hexenII has. Just compare it to other (later) games around that time like quake2 or hereticII daikatana where the colored light teinted the whole level, killing texture detail and atmosphere.
@Joe Banana: Never thought about the no colored lighting aspect. I think you are right, the game has an amazing mood thanks to the lighting and the textures. I think if they had colored lighting they would have overused it like most of the devs did back then. Since that would have been a new shiny tech, they would want to display it whenever they get the chance to promote the engine's capabilities. Hexen II's visuals are perfect in my eyes.
Gggmanlives I may want to let you know apparently a group of people decided to create what can be considered Hexen 3 and it runs on the doom 3 engine right now however its still in development but there is a playable demo.
@@karisasani7006 aah, Edge of Chaos. As the author of the 1st map of that project, I' had an inside look... I'd say it's currently dead. The best bet for Edge of Chaos imo would be to revive it in Quake Darkplaces, which is currently AHEAD of Doom 3 in terms of lighting and engine capabilities. But even better... the Shadows of Chaos mod for HeXen 2 is getting more content: ruclips.net/video/b1A7vcDxrlg/видео.html
Now and then I come back to this video just for the puzzle part, the music chosen and the way it's presented is just superb, it sums up perfectly the clusterfuck that were a lot of old adventure games.
I really LOVED this game back in the day. The relative difficulty of the combat and very different-looking zones (so it never became visually boring) gave it great replay value. But the first time playing I found no bugs, didn’t use a walkthrough (but I don’t think I had internet access at the time anyway) and didn’t notice the hard work (for the most part) because I was enjoying playing a RPG style FPS so much. The one section I do remember getting me scratching my head was figuring out the time-travel puzzle in the Egyptian sector, all the back and forth through time doing the right things in the right time zones. In case anybody’s put off the idea of this being just TOO DIFFICULT it’s worth mentioning that you can’t possibly do things in the wrong order in this game, or put things in the wrong place. If you can do something, then it’s right and you’re progressing and you’ll get there in the end. Thanks for covering this.
Chris G Don't blame developers. People at DICE, Gearbox or Bioware are really talented developers. Blame their greedy publishers who are trying take every game and turn it into some crappy P2W "games as a service".
Cristián Paris Raven Software is owned by Activison sooo I think Heretic and Hexen should stay dead until some other company picks up the rights (Like New Blood Interactive!).
Yes man, I've been wishing for that for way too long. thief, doom, Wolfenstein, even shadow warrior got a remake. its time for hexen and heretic. hope they don't fuck it up like they tend to do nowadays.
Hexen 1 is superior in almost everything. Weapons, enemies, level design, ambience... The only two things Hexen 2 has over 1 is the more modern Quake engine and soundtrack.
The ancient Egypt level puzzles on this game are ridiculously difficult to figure out. The expansion "Portal of Praevus" is well worth picking up, the set of levels set in the Tibet-like location are really pretty. This game is really atmospheric, very effective use of music (which is really good in its own right). One of my all-time favourites.
A word of advice to those seeking a challenging FPS from the "good old days": Skip this one. I take great pride in solving a game by myself (I play mostly adventure games) so when I heard about how difficult this game was and considering I was a fan of Hexen 1 I thought to give it a try. I was solving the first area puzzle just the way the narrator describes, but got stuck in a part where you're supposed to find a book in the stables or some place like that, but the book wasn't there. After trying many different things I decided I had found a bug, downloaded a guide to find out what went wrong, did everything right, EXCEPT, I was supposed to cross an area walking by one corridor instead of another. There was no explanation for why that was expected from the player, no reason or hint given whatsoever, you just were supposed to try any possible way of doing things to solve it. Is that how you turn a 10 hour game into "guaranteed 60 hours of epic exploration and adventure in X different worlds"? Yeah, some developers were THAT lazy, which is a shame, otherwise this might have turned into the fun medieval romp it was supposed to be. So unless you have nothing else to do and find it fun to make lists of anything you can do in a game, and do it in this order, then this other one, another ... a thousand times, you're better off playing almost any other FPS. Except Daikatana.
+Ometecuhtli are you sure about that? i played the first area and never found any kind of bug, since most of the items you get are not triggered by you walking through corridors but taking "x" item to certain place or opening a secret shortcut you never may have noticed otherwise. seriously dude. I was a kid and figured that out easily. If you want to talk about hardcore, just try the egypt episode without a walktrought. that puzzle is insane.
+Parias In case anyone's wondering: www.gamefaqs.com/boards/39790-hexen-ii/66235882 What he fails to say is that under certain circumstances you had to avoid being seen by the king's statue (or the other way around, why? because (reasons)). If you can't remember it I highly doubt you did figure it out by yourself, more likely you just got lucky.
+Ian McLean I meant it a little tongue in cheek, of course it wasn't the worse fps (chasm comes to mind) but I'd still recommend at least other 20 games before these.
What an odd bug to be honest. never knew about this and i played the game more times than this guy. it is not a reason to dismiss a game just because someone happen to find a bug that no one else may get ever. and even then you just need to reset your progress. Is not even that hard. It's foolish considering how much forgiveness most of the games nowaday are getting for being filled to the brim with bugs, like fallout 4. I understand your opinion but firmly choose to dismiss it at just a random nitpicking.
I never mentioned any of the new releases for a reason, and it is certainly not my fault games full of bugs get away with it nowadays. You're also forgetting this game was released during what has been called the golden age of FPS, competing for my time with games like quake, jedi knight, half-life, unreal, system shock 2, wheel of time, ... how's that for nitpicking?
A brilliant video which sums up the problem with Hexen 2. I have only completed it once and gave up trying a second time because there was no push to go through all that again.
Very insightful review - I recently did a playthrough of this after taking years to solve it when I was younger, and I feel entirely justified in having taken so long due to how needlessly obtuse the puzzles are! The explanation of the first hub is great and very accurate - although going backwards through the tree like that doesn't quite make it clear just how unhinted it all is at the start. For example, there's nothing ever telling you why you need to complete the potion of mithril transmutation - there's just a book on a stand telling you how, and you're supposed to know you're now meant to wander the world belting all the walls with a hammer until you eventually find the teleport that leads you there. The mother of them all was the puzzle with the bridge and the nine tiles in the Egyptian world, which was broken due to a bug and only worked occasionally even when you got the combination right! I think a lot of people just gave up there...
+DavidXNewton That thing of the bridge puzzle isn't a bug. There are 3 different "correct" paths and when you get there the game choose one of them randomly, and if you fail, the path changes again. Quite an horrible puzzle.
never thought i would see someone reviewing this game, mostly because youtube seems to be full of nintendo game reviews. Found this channel by coincidence but im loving every review so far! You should have talked about that fucking egypt puzzle that requires you to set up a fucking zodiac clock in two totally different time periods, that fucking shit was insanely difficult to figure out, it took me 10 years to beat that episode.
Gggmanlives I laughed soooo hard at you describing how to beat that icegolem in the first world! Been there, forgotten how to do that. Haha! Kinda good times! xD
I remember the puzzles in Hexen 1 being relatively easy to grasp. there was usually a single coherent objective in each world like get 3 of a certain item, etc. kind of like a legend of zelda dungeon. but when i played H2 I played the game for hours and couldnt figure out the long line of things i was supposed to do. Kinda killed it for me personally
Perfect review! This game was good, but it was tedious and made me a much angrier person. I had to walk away from this game many times for the sake of my sanity.
I thought it was a bit of a disappointment compared to how polished Hexen: Beyond Heretic was. Some of the artwork was cool and I did enjoy the mystery of piecing together the story to solve puzzles. I found the enemies were sparse and for long periods of time you'd be wandering around empty levels kinda bored. I think the more modern time period Hexen II was set in was less interesting as well with fewer magic items and more mechanical weapons. Eidolon certainly wasn't the badass that Korax was either - who could forget that voice or the eerie walkway into the Dark Crucible in the first game?
+Deimos lol, it kinda was, except for the fighting. Even for its time the Hexen/Hereteic games/expansions were cryptic though. I can play Quake again and have fun, but Hexen gets annoying, you do have to look at a guide, or print a map.
+ilyriandevil well, you are comparing those old-school and the elder scrolls series to fucking dark souls. the key difference being that dark souls requires you to gameplay in order to succeed, whereas the other examples determine your winning chances with the current stats you have and luck (which demanded you to always stack up on resources and make an strategy before you fight, and even then the game would give you the option to save before committing to a fight). I rather have a game easy but with enjoyable gameplay than becoming frustrated at the fact that i cannot stop missing the swings of my swords. But to be honest, i am more of an action-oriented person, so i am speaking out of my own preferences when it comes to games, there is a part of me that avoid those games due to the extreme difficult they impose, but the other part it just ask me to avoid it due to the boring gameplay.
***** the thing is that dark souls achieve to feels like a fully fledged world without needing to be a giant sandbox, every area is connected to eachother and interesting to look at. Im really sorry about having your elder scrolls and fallout franchise watered down beyond belief, tho. the exploration and roleplaying aspect is fantastic in those games, but the gameplay is a priority for me when it comes to videogames focused on combat and epic fantasy stuff. In Skyrim every dragon looks the same, alduin looks generic as fuck, meanwhile, every boss or important character in dark souls emanates badass and unique design. I dont know about morrowind or the other legendary elder scrolls, because i get frustrated on the combat and gameplay. BTW, the point where you suggested to fully invest in proficiency means that you have to sacrifice some other stats, like charisma. And damn it i cannot play a game where im not a handsome knight :j
im not. there were only a few places i found legitimately challenging. most, were in the final continent and the bosses. and some annoying puzzles just to emphesize, i finished the game as crusader with like 10 unused tomes of power and 5 unused urns and karaters of might. maybe because i was using the mouse and keyboard... but everyone should have been doing that by now..
I loved this game when I was a teen! The puzzles were made even harder because of the frequent bugs and crashes, but I had so much fun with it I just got back to it. I never did beat it.
Actually after that review I totally wanna try Hexen II. I know I had loads of fun with the nowadays almost unknown and pretty rare predecessor Heretic II.
Yes. I remember this game. I couldn't get past the first level. It's the first game I ever permanently rage-quit. I threw the broken install disc into the dumpster. I Never suffered getting lost in video games very well after I couldn't beat System Shock. It doesn't help that these old games were notorious for making me motion sick. I was more willing to power through it when I was younger. It was about the time the Gamecube came out that I decided there were enough 3D games that didn't make me sick. I would no longer power my way through a game that did. That was an unexpected tangent.
Ahh, we used to play Hexen II DM a lot at school. IMO it was a lot more fun than Quake. I never go tired of watching people pulled into pieces by the Scarab staff enhanced by the Tome of Power. About the single player: I'm not sure if I love or hate it because of the puzzles and level design. I completed this once in ~1998 without any walkthrough, at the hardest difficulty with the Necromancer, and it took few weeks (I was stuck in the Egypt for several days and almost gave up). After killing Eidolon I promised myself I'll _never_ touch this game again :D The promise didn't hold, Installed Hexen II + Portal of Praevus few years ago and gave it a second try with the Demonness - again with the hardest difficulty, again with serious frustration in the Egypt and also in Rome (which I found really hard this time). After finishing it, I made myself another promise never to touch this game again. Now, after watching this review I'd really like replay this. So, I guess Hexen II is a pretty good game regardless of its extreme frustration aspect.
IMO, the differences between Hexen 2 and its prequel can be summarized thus: the puzzle element is much better and the combat is a bit weaker. In the first game, due to the limitations of the Doom engine, the puzzle could pretty much only be advanced through the pulling of switches (with some placing of puzzle items). The giving of clues is a very delicate balance -- too much is hand-holding, and too little is unfair. Given the crude engine, I think Hexen 1 did the best it could, but fell on the unfair side. Hexen 2, on the other hand, got it exactly right. When playing this game blind, I never found myself without clues. Even when I was lost and wandering around for an hour, I never solved the puzzle by blindly shooting walls (or by looking up a guide), but I always managed to figure out what the game had been trying to tell me the whole time. As for the combat, the first game had the fast, flawless, and satisfying Doom engine at its back. Even so, the limited number of enemy types and overpowered weapons made the combat feel non-challenging, and therefore unimportant. This is somewhat understandable, since the focus of the game was probably intended to be the puzzles. Hexen 2 had a major disadvantage to its combat system -- 3D actors, better AI, and PC limitations meant that there would be no more Hypostyle-sized ettin hordes. Rather than improve on the Hexen 1 system, however, and make more interesting varieties of enemies (which would have balanced the new limitation beautifully), they went with more HP per enemy. This makes each encounter more annoying and unsatisfying. What's worse, the variety of enemies mostly consists of more or less powerful versions of the same enemies (e.g. imps, spiders, archers, golems). I don't mean to bash the game though. It is still on my top three games list, and I do recommend it for anyone who likes puzzle and/or shooter games.
Agreed. I like the classes more in Hexen 2 but I really miss having outlandish and badass weapons like the Wraithverge or serpent staff from the first game. I still think the first hub's puzzle is an amazing example of how much Raven learned from the first game and Portal of Praevus got rid of pretty much every little gripe I had with the main campaign.
The puzzles being so cryptic is what ultimately made say nay to this game. Ironic, since Hexen 1 was a very enjoyable experience for me. There was a part in the 2nd episode of the game that required you to stand on a switch on top of a ziggurat. Well, I did, and nothing in the room opened up. So, as I had been used to doing, I walked through the whole hub and back for a total of 2 damn days trying to figure out where that switch went to. I finally looked up a walkthrough and it said that I should simply walk through the door. What door? I only saw that obsidian archway, and that didn't open up when I hit the switch. I was really confused. It wasn't until I looked up a let's play that the switch on top of the ziggurat was supposed to open the path through the obsidian archway, and that I had spent 2+ days trying to progress past a softlock. It was impossible to progress past that point without no-clip and I had been trying to play as legit as possible up until that point. I really, REALLY, wanted to like this game, but that instance was the tipping point, especially after beating the 1st episode guideless and taking hours upon hours to figure out. I never needed a guide to figure out Hexen 1, and sure, that took maybe more hours than if I had a guide, but it was a overall fun ride I still go back to. I never want to go back to Hexen 2, and if I do, I'll be playing with a guide because I don't know what goes to what and, less still, what is going to break on me. If you made it this far in reading, Thank you
hexen 1 is actually really simple once you figure out its formula for each hub and are able to turn your brain off and focus on killing everything but hexen 2 doesn't have such a formula to be worked out because the puzzles aren't limited to switches and really dampens such a good game
I love the heretic/hexen series and still count them as one of my favorite series of all time. I wish there would be more of this types of game. I loved Dark Messiah and I look(ed) forward to Hellraid if it ever comes out. and i wish Heretic 2 would be on GOG or something since my CD won't work anymore.
I never would have assumed an FPS would be so cerebrally challenging. Some of these descriptions make it sound like the Thief's Guild mission in Thief Gold.
Oh, I don't remember commenting on this before. That's funny. Anyway, I do really miss games that didn't hold your hand. When you talk about brutal, crushing combat and not knowing what switches did, that makes me happy.
It is funny: I have always preferred Hexen to Hexen II. Hexen just felt so original always: stellar gameplay, well-balanced difficulty and authentic atmosphere from the beginning till the final showdown. The puzzles were also much more sensible and not so far-fetched in the first game than in Hexen II. As a kid, I was stuck right away in the Blackmarsh permanently, but as an adult player, the first puzzle seemed not so hard anymore. The difficulty level in general was about the same in both games for an adept FPS player. Hardest setting is pretty brutal indeed in the beginning of the games, but as you progress, there's soon no need for quicksave/loading every 30 seconds. The soundtrack of Hexen II is chilling, I really liked it! The mood in the Blackmarsh and Egyptian chapters are excellent due to the music. Maybe we get Hexen III some day?
Thank you for this review. I remember paying Hexen 2 back in the day. There was a unique challenge to these old style FPS that is just not as present in the newer releases. While that's not exactly a bad thing, within all the frustration and aggravation that came with the challenge, once you made it through, you felt a real sense of accomplishment. Heck, even my homework seemed easier most of the time lol. Now we have multiplayer FPS, which presents its own challenge (depending on your opponents skill/billfold :) Teacher.. did you finish your homework? Me.. no, but i beat lvl 1 in hexen 2. Teacher.. A+, good job
I still don't understand how i managed to finish this game when i was 7 years old without a walkthrough.... ....and without speaking english at the time.....
We all did, playing was hard not easy like today, but still we kept playing until we won. He said something bad in the video, that people coudn't finish without walkthrough which is not true, at all.
I always liked the puzzle aspect of video games where you had to search and pay attention to the environment. When you hit a switch and heard a door opening but had no idea where it was at.
I say a good idea is to look at it not like doom/quake but more like system shock or prey (2017) don't rush in trying to finish it quickly just enjoy exploring and looking around
u forgot to mention: 1-tomes of power: these are books you pick up if you use they give all your main weapons a different more powerful attack, example necromancer's bone shards becomes a bone ball that explodes on impact like a shrapnel grenade, a direct hit usually one hits enemies (I cant list everything but its something to behold) lasts only like 30 seconds. 2- cube of power, tome of summoning, disc of repulsion, polymorph stick (one hits any none boss enemy) and many many more powerful items and spells you pick up and can be used by all classes, these vary from summoning imps that shoot fire balls for you, force push spells that can throw enemies into lava or pits (you will be surprised how many enemies you get rid of this way). 3-Glyph of power, this is the grenade item BUT it is used differently by each class, the paladin throws it like a grenade and it sticks to targets and goes nuke, insanely damaging, for the assassin u can use it like a clamor mine, aim at a wall and it will stick to it and then extend a chain from it, this is the most powerful DPS in the entire game it will shred anything that passes through it EVEN YOU so careful when placing it, the necro levitates it to the nearest enemy and boom but its less powerful, and the crusader just leaves a ghost version of it in mid air and it explodes after 2 seconds for the most pathetic damage I have ever seen (but u get 5 charges for each glyph) 4-you run fast, LIKE REALLY FAST 5-the game has armor and it acts differently to each class, the armor pieces are an amulet braces breast plate and helmet, each gives 20 armor but each class depletes them at different rates, example the necro depletes the amulet the slowest making it his favorite armor, crusader likes breast plates, paladin like helmets and assassin likes braces. 6-each class gets powers at level 3 then 6, some powers are odd and situational, but some are just down right OP, the assassin gets shadow meld which works well with her weapons that are all (surprise weapons) if u stand in the shadows for more than a few seconds u turn invisible and ur attacks are critical dps 7- quarter of power, save these like they are your children, these babies refill ur entire mana pool CHERISH THEM
Still get chills from Hexen ettins xD. One of my favorite games when i was child, but i think i should check out Hexen 2 too as i never got hold of it. Puzzles felt many times crazy complicated even in Hexen 1 and as a lil one that doesn't know even english too well it was kinda frustrating, but holy**** the atmosphere is totally worth it.
Spent a lot of time on Hexen and Hexen 2. Hexen 2 looked amazing at the time if you had a good 3D card. I got a copy of it for free with my 3d accelerator and i still bought another copy later to play multiplayer.
I played this over a LAN co-op with my brother and dad growing up and it was a lot easier to figure out. Thankfully PC Gamer was doing some walk-throughs at the time so even the most obscure stuff was solvable. In its initial version, you couldn't save a co-op game, so if someone died or a computer crashed, you had to start a whole world over again. We played the demo a WHOLE bunch. In fact, my computer would disconnect from our multiplayer sessions, but doubling my RAM to 16MB (yes, MB) took care of that issue.
I was thinking about getting this until you went on to describe how obscure the puzzles are. It sounds like a pain in the arse, I'm a simple man, i just want to kill things and laugh like a maniac in my fps'.
+Serpico's Beard it's a very good game, try it. there quite a few site where you can download it for free. Concerning the puzzles only the 1st and 3d hub are hard but they are major offenders. keep a walkthroug around for the treasury key and the upper crown/wheel of ages. don't hesitate to crank the difficulty up, some levels can sometimes be devoid of enemiies, especially when back tracking. The true difficulty of the game come from the fact it force you to think outside the box to defeat your opponents,like Unreal. The 4 weapons and ammo won't be enought. You have to plan your attact and use the many item in your inventory to to create create killzone and ambush. This is especially true with the assassin. If your fps taste lean more toward the mindless bloodshed, blood, gore and gun blazing try Blood 1 and 2 or, or theSerious Sam or Painkiller serie.
Try outlaws or jedi knight, they're from the same era. Much more polished and fun to play IMO. LucasArts delivered in both its adventure and story aspects of the game.
You are right I played and finished the game it is a pain in the ass. You won't be able to finish it unless you get a walkthrough. Despite what everyone was saying it is not a good game.
Hexen 2 is confusing and punishing at times but its so damn good. I just love this style of game. These classic FPS games; Doom I & II, Quake I & II, Heretic, Hexen 1 & 2, Unreal, and then later such great games like the original Half-Life are some of the all time best games I've ever played.
I think this game was underrated. The story and puzzle quests were more interesting than other games. The idea of time travel to different places in history was cool as a kid. I never used a "walkthrough" for any games. For me that takes the fun out of it. Sure, killing bad guys is fun but the element of discovery along the way was what made it for me in any game.
Theres a crystal golem ? Is this where Miyazaki got the inspiration from for his crystal golems in Dark Souls ? Wouldnt be surprised, given his affinity for western games/themes and the fact that the crystal golem in DS is also one in several steps to accessing the dlc.
Haha, I remember being frustrated at the time, not being able to play this because I didnt have a 3-d card. I'd loved Hexen to bits and really wanted to play this but couldn't. By the time I did get a 3-d card I'd forgotten about this and had other gaming fish to fry and when I finally played this I was somehow disappointed. Thanks for these vids btw, nice little jog back down memory lane! :)
I'm collecting PC games for my vintage 1997 PC with a 3Dfx Voodoo 1 card and Hexen II is one that oddly I overlooked.It's especially nice because it is a 3Dfx enhanced title too.
It could be cool if they added the tome of power in Hexen 1 or 2 weapons more.. I like they put this item in Hexen 2, it's helpful because the fights can be hard and yeah, the enemies are smarter in this gamen the relief is less complexe but the fights are so much interesting', especially with the were jaguar/panther of the 2nd hub! Impressive for 97. The egyptian hub is really detailled and beautiful too ! Need Hexen 3.....
I played part of this game. One thing that made it very hard for me back then is that no one bothered to tell me about mouse look. The old doom style controls from Hexen still work, but trying to fight using them is very hard since you can't look up and down quickly or easily. As a result I always played as the assassin, since some of her weapon have a degree of homing which made up for the lack of auto-aim on the vertical axis which had been in Doom engine games..
Btw you got some superb games for review on your channel. I have lots of fond memories playing these games a. Looking forward getting stuck into watching this lot :)
Sheeeeeit. The inception-step-string is a great idea to fuck with your D&D campaign. Laughed my ass off either way. Nice review, might give this one a try some day.
Very nice review but when I open the game through steam, it starts up but then starts glitching out and lines of code fill the screen which is very annoying.
What happened to the necromancer's spells? The magic missiles have black squares around the center and the bone shards don't travel with the point forward...!
Nice review! For me it's the best game of the world, and the hardest too. Was hard for me to finish this game, as you said, it's confuse and you will be lost a lot of times.
The expansion that came out for the game, Portal to Preavus, added a new character, settings and some minor (although I think it was just skin changes) new enemies. It seemed a little more streamlined and linear, and seemed shorter. It was still pretty good and I enjoyed the expansion, although I don't recall having much issue with the original games' puzzle.
Thanks for the review. I have Hexen and Hexen 2 but I've heard they are really difficult and I suck at puzzles so I've always been afraid to start them. Maybe I'll pick up a walk through and give it a try.
The combat feels like Unreal 1 except in Unreal I was finally in the end able to predict the enemy's dodging and consistently hit them. With Hexen 2 I never had an easy time hitting the enemies. Also I got stuck immediately in the first room because I didn't find the hidden switch :P
Puzzles were fun, but I played with 3 other friends, after having brought them through Hexen (since I loved it on the N64, and wanted to see if it held up still -- which of course it did), we found that the biggest gripe we had about Hexen 2 was that the enemies were bullet sponges, and even the weakest of the enemies would outright kill 3 of us in a 4 v 2. Sounds like you've encountered that as well which makes me feel a bit better, as I don't think I'm going insane anymore XD All in all, I'd say play it, and don't be afraid to throw on god mode just to play for the amazing puzzles that it brings about. But if you love punishment, go for it standard.
I'm loving these reviews mate, it's like revisiting your teens! i should search but do you think you can find the time to review Exhumed? that was a great FPS back in the day, there's also a PC game where drove a futuristic tank and helicopter, was really cool but i cant remember what it was called, it's not Battlezone but you should do that too! Keep up the great work!
When you need to spend months and I mean literal months just to figure out how to fucking beat the first part of a game like I had to all those years back you never attributed to plain bad gameplay mechanisms. Its subscribing to the old notion of make it fucking impossible or nearly so and it will be considered a good game. No bitch after trying to finish the first part which i did only after like 60+ hours of gameplay * all joking aside probably more* i fucking stopped playing this game because of how utterly rage inducing it was. Sad thing is it was for the most part a good game marred by just utter shit puzzle mechanics and expectations.
+MrSumbody69 Hexen 2 could very well have used wolfenstein 3d's opening line and say "Get Frustrated!" My guess is the game was rushed out of the door (if anyone could speed development up it was ravensoft, btw) and by the time they realized how hard it was they a) didn't have time to change it, or b) decided to play along with it. And why rush it? 4 main reasons in 97, namely quake 2, jedi knight, half-life and daikatana. Then it was Unreal, DNF, Portal, trespasser, amen, ....
Basically, what would be considered secret areas in Quake became normal paths to progress in Hexen and Hexen 2. Despite the fun mechanics, it is a point of frustration.
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
Who's here after watching his updated Hexen 1 review?
Yep, here I am.
Ohhhhh yeeeee baby
Yep
I just searched for it and it is so different, I didn't even notice it was Gman
Aye
Unlike Hexen 1, Hexen 2 does puts a lot of emphasis on using inventory items in combat. If you are trying to take everything down with just your weapons, you are going to waste a lot of mana and health. Using inventory items helps out a ton. For example the Aztec areas have lava pits all over the place. Don't bother trying to fight it out with the cat-men. Simply lure them over to a lava pit and hit them with a couple Disks of Repulsion, knocking them into the lava.
But you don't get experience points if you kill them by knocking them into the lava, making the rest of the game harder.
Overall not a bad review, however there are some things not mentioned or wrong:
First the level up system, it becomes much more obvious when playing it on maximum difficulty as you kill a lot more enemys, making the very first level insanelyhard, but at somepoint the leveling system really kicks in. Also it does not only just give you mana: inteligence is blue mana , wisdom green, dexterity movementspeed, and strength how much damage you do and an overall hp increase, also each class has two features that you unlock when leveling up level 3 and 6 for example the paladin gets a bonus underwater at level3 and at level 6 he can revive if he dies, seemingly at random, however the more enemy you killed before the more likely it seems, the assassin gets invisible in shadows and the necromancer has some vampirism. also the granades are very different depending on the character, for example with the assassin when you throw a granade just right at the enemy it sometimes spawns chains from the walls at the enemy, pulling back and ripping the anemy apart, the effect is rare and not really reproducable tough.
One unique thing about hexen you forgot to mention is the necronomicon, an item which makes your current weapon a lot different and more powerfull making it feel like there ar 8 weapons instead of 4 per class. my favourite is the necromancers raven staff: with the item instead of shooting simple projectiles it shoots ravens ripping weaker enemys apart with ultimate damage and gore.
The combat gets a lot easier if you know some tricks, and there are a lot: for example try to throw an axe with paladin always to the feet of an enemy, there is a chance that it bounces between the enemy and the floor multiple times causing an insane amount of damage. Also you learn how to trick the ai and doge a lot especiallly with the paladin. Movement is key and you walk/run insanely fast though that is common in older games. I honestly don't think that hexenII combat is harder than half-life or rtcw, but just a lot different.
puzzles are insanely hard... agreed.
Some uniqe things about the engine: It's not simply the quake engine it's quite a LOT advanced, for example it features quake2s hub system: probably the reason why they went so cracy on the puzzle difficulty, it was something very new. there is transparent water and breakable stuff, animations look a lot smoother than quake, quite a lot of things that the quake-engine can't.
One thing that I have to mention is that hexen II is an absolute mood piece, leveldesign is visually very pretty, and unintentionally or not it was fortunately one of the games before colored lightning... which really added to the dark mood hexenII has. Just compare it to other (later) games around that time like quake2 or hereticII daikatana where the colored light teinted the whole level, killing texture detail and atmosphere.
+Joe Banana Thank you for your input.
@Joe Banana: Never thought about the no colored lighting aspect. I think you are right, the game has an amazing mood thanks to the lighting and the textures.
I think if they had colored lighting they would have overused it like most of the devs did back then. Since that would have been a new shiny tech, they would want to display it whenever they get the chance to promote the engine's capabilities.
Hexen II's visuals are perfect in my eyes.
Gggmanlives I may want to let you know apparently a group of people decided to create what can be considered Hexen 3 and it runs on the doom 3 engine right now however its still in development but there is a playable demo.
Not Necronomicon, Tome of Power. Otherwise damn, that's on point. Congrats.
@@karisasani7006 aah, Edge of Chaos. As the author of the 1st map of that project, I' had an inside look... I'd say it's currently dead. The best bet for Edge of Chaos imo would be to revive it in Quake Darkplaces, which is currently AHEAD of Doom 3 in terms of lighting and engine capabilities. But even better... the Shadows of Chaos mod for HeXen 2 is getting more content: ruclips.net/video/b1A7vcDxrlg/видео.html
Now and then I come back to this video just for the puzzle part, the music chosen and the way it's presented is just superb, it sums up perfectly the clusterfuck that were a lot of old adventure games.
I really LOVED this game back in the day. The relative difficulty of the combat and very different-looking zones (so it never became visually boring) gave it great replay value. But the first time playing I found no bugs, didn’t use a walkthrough (but I don’t think I had internet access at the time anyway) and didn’t notice the hard work (for the most part) because I was enjoying playing a RPG style FPS so much. The one section I do remember getting me scratching my head was figuring out the time-travel puzzle in the Egyptian sector, all the back and forth through time doing the right things in the right time zones. In case anybody’s put off the idea of this being just TOO DIFFICULT it’s worth mentioning that you can’t possibly do things in the wrong order in this game, or put things in the wrong place. If you can do something, then it’s right and you’re progressing and you’ll get there in the end. Thanks for covering this.
This game needs a remake or reboot that does it justice.
That would be nice, but... no one is going to do it justice. Developers are terrible these days. They do not love what they do.
They should reboot the franchise
Chris G Don't blame developers. People at DICE, Gearbox or Bioware are really talented developers. Blame their greedy publishers who are trying take every game and turn it into some crappy P2W "games as a service".
Cristián Paris Raven Software is owned by Activison sooo I think Heretic and Hexen should stay dead until some other company picks up the rights (Like New Blood Interactive!).
Yes man, I've been wishing for that for way too long. thief, doom, Wolfenstein, even shadow warrior got a remake. its time for hexen and heretic. hope they don't fuck it up like they tend to do nowadays.
I loved Hexen 1 the most. There was a sinister atmosphere in that game that was unsurpassed by anything else for some time.
I agree.
True. That's why I started playing it, but the puzzles got the best of me.
Totally agree, even though I didn't mind Hexen II.
raven's previous game, heretic, had a very similar vibe.
Hexen 1 is superior in almost everything. Weapons, enemies, level design, ambience... The only two things Hexen 2 has over 1 is the more modern Quake engine and soundtrack.
The ancient Egypt level puzzles on this game are ridiculously difficult to figure out.
The expansion "Portal of Praevus" is well worth picking up, the set of levels set in the Tibet-like location are really pretty.
This game is really atmospheric, very effective use of music (which is really good in its own right). One of my all-time favourites.
also, PoP has better puzzles and less backtracking
@@Zontar82 a modern-day unofficial expansion, Shadwos of Chaos, is seeing more content come soon as well! ruclips.net/video/b1A7vcDxrlg/видео.html
A word of advice to those seeking a challenging FPS from the "good old days": Skip this one. I take great pride in solving a game by myself (I play mostly adventure games) so when I heard about how difficult this game was and considering I was a fan of Hexen 1 I thought to give it a try. I was solving the first area puzzle just the way the narrator describes, but got stuck in a part where you're supposed to find a book in the stables or some place like that, but the book wasn't there. After trying many different things I decided I had found a bug, downloaded a guide to find out what went wrong, did everything right, EXCEPT, I was supposed to cross an area walking by one corridor instead of another. There was no explanation for why that was expected from the player, no reason or hint given whatsoever, you just were supposed to try any possible way of doing things to solve it. Is that how you turn a 10 hour game into "guaranteed 60 hours of epic exploration and adventure in X different worlds"? Yeah, some developers were THAT lazy, which is a shame, otherwise this might have turned into the fun medieval romp it was supposed to be. So unless you have nothing else to do and find it fun to make lists of anything you can do in a game, and do it in this order, then this other one, another ... a thousand times, you're better off playing almost any other FPS. Except Daikatana.
+Ometecuhtli are you sure about that? i played the first area and never found any kind of bug, since most of the items you get are not triggered by you walking through corridors but taking "x" item to certain place or opening a secret shortcut you never may have noticed otherwise. seriously dude. I was a kid and figured that out easily.
If you want to talk about hardcore, just try the egypt episode without a walktrought. that puzzle is insane.
+Parias In case anyone's wondering: www.gamefaqs.com/boards/39790-hexen-ii/66235882
What he fails to say is that under certain circumstances you had to avoid being seen by the king's statue (or the other way around, why? because (reasons)). If you can't remember it I highly doubt you did figure it out by yourself, more likely you just got lucky.
+Ian McLean I meant it a little tongue in cheek, of course it wasn't the worse fps (chasm comes to mind) but I'd still recommend at least other 20 games before these.
What an odd bug to be honest. never knew about this and i played the game more times than this guy. it is not a reason to dismiss a game just because someone happen to find a bug that no one else may get ever. and even then you just need to reset your progress. Is not even that hard. It's foolish considering how much forgiveness most of the games nowaday are getting for being filled to the brim with bugs, like fallout 4. I understand your opinion but firmly choose to dismiss it at just a random nitpicking.
I never mentioned any of the new releases for a reason, and it is certainly not my fault games full of bugs get away with it nowadays. You're also forgetting this game was released during what has been called the golden age of FPS, competing for my time with games like quake, jedi knight, half-life, unreal, system shock 2, wheel of time, ... how's that for nitpicking?
A brilliant video which sums up the problem with Hexen 2. I have only completed it once and gave up trying a second time because there was no push to go through all that again.
I remember never getting past the first level. Bought just cause it had a sweet box lol
Very insightful review - I recently did a playthrough of this after taking years to solve it when I was younger, and I feel entirely justified in having taken so long due to how needlessly obtuse the puzzles are! The explanation of the first hub is great and very accurate - although going backwards through the tree like that doesn't quite make it clear just how unhinted it all is at the start. For example, there's nothing ever telling you why you need to complete the potion of mithril transmutation - there's just a book on a stand telling you how, and you're supposed to know you're now meant to wander the world belting all the walls with a hammer until you eventually find the teleport that leads you there.
The mother of them all was the puzzle with the bridge and the nine tiles in the Egyptian world, which was broken due to a bug and only worked occasionally even when you got the combination right! I think a lot of people just gave up there...
+DavidXNewton That thing of the bridge puzzle isn't a bug. There are 3 different "correct" paths and when you get there the game choose one of them randomly, and if you fail, the path changes again. Quite an horrible puzzle.
never thought i would see someone reviewing this game, mostly because youtube seems to be full of nintendo game reviews. Found this channel by coincidence but im loving every review so far!
You should have talked about that fucking egypt puzzle that requires you to set up a fucking zodiac clock in two totally different time periods, that fucking shit was insanely difficult to figure out, it took me 10 years to beat that episode.
Gggmanlives I laughed soooo hard at you describing how to beat that icegolem in the first world! Been there, forgotten how to do that. Haha! Kinda good times! xD
I remember the puzzles in Hexen 1 being relatively easy to grasp. there was usually a single coherent objective in each world like get 3 of a certain item, etc. kind of like a legend of zelda dungeon. but when i played H2 I played the game for hours and couldnt figure out the long line of things i was supposed to do. Kinda killed it for me personally
Great review mate
I loved this game when it first came out. I loved the "adventure" type gameplay in this game
still looks awesome after almost 20 years, brings back lots of memories
Perfect review! This game was good, but it was tedious and made me a much angrier person. I had to walk away from this game many times for the sake of my sanity.
I thought it was a bit of a disappointment compared to how polished Hexen: Beyond Heretic was. Some of the artwork was cool and I did enjoy the mystery of piecing together the story to solve puzzles.
I found the enemies were sparse and for long periods of time you'd be wandering around empty levels kinda bored. I think the more modern time period Hexen II was set in was less interesting as well with fewer magic items and more mechanical weapons.
Eidolon certainly wasn't the badass that Korax was either - who could forget that voice or the eerie walkway into the Dark Crucible in the first game?
The way you say it makes it sound like it was the 90s version of Dark Souls.
Deimos That's not the worst comparison.
Deimos the best part about any open code pc game it can be made as hard as DS or even harder
+Deimos lol, it kinda was, except for the fighting. Even for its time the Hexen/Hereteic games/expansions were cryptic though. I can play Quake again and have fun, but Hexen gets annoying, you do have to look at a guide, or print a map.
+ilyriandevil well, you are comparing those old-school and the elder scrolls series to fucking dark souls. the key difference being that dark souls requires you to gameplay in order to succeed, whereas the other examples determine your winning chances with the current stats you have and luck (which demanded you to always stack up on resources and make an strategy before you fight, and even then the game would give you the option to save before committing to a fight). I rather have a game easy but with enjoyable gameplay than becoming frustrated at the fact that i cannot stop missing the swings of my swords. But to be honest, i am more of an action-oriented person, so i am speaking out of my own preferences when it comes to games, there is a part of me that avoid those games due to the extreme difficult they impose, but the other part it just ask me to avoid it due to the boring gameplay.
***** the thing is that dark souls achieve to feels like a fully fledged world without needing to be a giant sandbox, every area is connected to eachother and interesting to look at. Im really sorry about having your elder scrolls and fallout franchise watered down beyond belief, tho. the exploration and roleplaying aspect is fantastic in those games, but the gameplay is a priority for me when it comes to videogames focused on combat and epic fantasy stuff. In Skyrim every dragon looks the same, alduin looks generic as fuck, meanwhile, every boss or important character in dark souls emanates badass and unique design. I dont know about morrowind or the other legendary elder scrolls, because i get frustrated on the combat and gameplay.
BTW, the point where you suggested to fully invest in proficiency means that you have to sacrifice some other stats, like charisma. And damn it i cannot play a game where im not a handsome knight :j
*Anybody here after watching*
*Gman's updated Hexen 1 review?*
Nope.
@@dagainz6997 Bye!
I love this game, as i love the Quake engine without dark places, stock engine.
This game rules. I love the fact that it has complex puzzles. It set it apart from normal shooters.
Hexen 2 was hard. Really hard.
+pukki34 lol this game was a breeze for me. and i played on the 2nd hardest difficulty in the game
+Yosef Yonin dont lie
im not. there were only a few places i found legitimately challenging. most, were in the final continent and the bosses. and some annoying puzzles
just to emphesize, i finished the game as crusader with like 10 unused tomes of power and 5 unused urns and karaters of might.
maybe because i was using the mouse and keyboard... but everyone should have been doing that by now..
Yup, especially the puzzel are really confused me. Took a long time to solved it...
@@yosefyonin6824 Totally a lie
2:08 - It also increases your max health and unlocks additional skills, of which there are two per class.
This is a really well made review, nicely done. :D
I loved this game when I was a teen! The puzzles were made even harder because of the frequent bugs and crashes, but I had so much fun with it I just got back to it. I never did beat it.
The game is so awesome. Sadly, they don't do games like Hexen II anymore.
No, I played Hexen 2 all the way to it's end. It sucked.
@@johnmckenna5782 or maybe ..... You suck ..... da da daaaaa
Hexen 2 is enjoyable
@@aaadj2744 No, I played it through to it's end. It sucked.
@@aaadj2744 I was just joking, but I do agree the game sucks
Actually after that review I totally wanna try Hexen II. I know I had loads of fun with the nowadays almost unknown and pretty rare predecessor Heretic II.
This game holds up. I loved it's style decades ago and it still tickles my pickle.
Same, I'd love a Doom2016 engine (IdTech6) reboot.
Yes. I remember this game. I couldn't get past the first level. It's the first game I ever permanently rage-quit.
I threw the broken install disc into the dumpster.
I Never suffered getting lost in video games very well after I couldn't beat System Shock.
It doesn't help that these old games were notorious for making me motion sick. I was more willing to power through it when I was younger. It was about the time the Gamecube came out that I decided there were enough 3D games that didn't make me sick. I would no longer power my way through a game that did.
That was an unexpected tangent.
Dude, I thought you would pass out while explaining the complexity of the level. That was fun to watch... and scary. :p
Ahh, we used to play Hexen II DM a lot at school. IMO it was a lot more fun than Quake. I never go tired of watching people pulled into pieces by the Scarab staff enhanced by the Tome of Power.
About the single player: I'm not sure if I love or hate it because of the puzzles and level design. I completed this once in ~1998 without any walkthrough, at the hardest difficulty with the Necromancer, and it took few weeks (I was stuck in the Egypt for several days and almost gave up). After killing Eidolon I promised myself I'll _never_ touch this game again :D
The promise didn't hold, Installed Hexen II + Portal of Praevus few years ago and gave it a second try with the Demonness - again with the hardest difficulty, again with serious frustration in the Egypt and also in Rome (which I found really hard this time). After finishing it, I made myself another promise never to touch this game again.
Now, after watching this review I'd really like replay this.
So, I guess Hexen II is a pretty good game regardless of its extreme frustration aspect.
IMO, the differences between Hexen 2 and its prequel can be summarized thus: the puzzle element is much better and the combat is a bit weaker.
In the first game, due to the limitations of the Doom engine, the puzzle could pretty much only be advanced through the pulling of switches (with some placing of puzzle items). The giving of clues is a very delicate balance -- too much is hand-holding, and too little is unfair. Given the crude engine, I think Hexen 1 did the best it could, but fell on the unfair side. Hexen 2, on the other hand, got it exactly right. When playing this game blind, I never found myself without clues. Even when I was lost and wandering around for an hour, I never solved the puzzle by blindly shooting walls (or by looking up a guide), but I always managed to figure out what the game had been trying to tell me the whole time.
As for the combat, the first game had the fast, flawless, and satisfying Doom engine at its back. Even so, the limited number of enemy types and overpowered weapons made the combat feel non-challenging, and therefore unimportant. This is somewhat understandable, since the focus of the game was probably intended to be the puzzles. Hexen 2 had a major disadvantage to its combat system -- 3D actors, better AI, and PC limitations meant that there would be no more Hypostyle-sized ettin hordes. Rather than improve on the Hexen 1 system, however, and make more interesting varieties of enemies (which would have balanced the new limitation beautifully), they went with more HP per enemy. This makes each encounter more annoying and unsatisfying. What's worse, the variety of enemies mostly consists of more or less powerful versions of the same enemies (e.g. imps, spiders, archers, golems).
I don't mean to bash the game though. It is still on my top three games list, and I do recommend it for anyone who likes puzzle and/or shooter games.
That really sums it up pretty well.
Agreed. I like the classes more in Hexen 2 but I really miss having outlandish and badass weapons like the Wraithverge or serpent staff from the first game. I still think the first hub's puzzle is an amazing example of how much Raven learned from the first game and Portal of Praevus got rid of pretty much every little gripe I had with the main campaign.
I just really love the Heretic/Hexen world. Wish they'd make a new game
The puzzles being so cryptic is what ultimately made say nay to this
game. Ironic, since Hexen 1 was a very enjoyable experience for me.
There was a part in the 2nd episode of the game that required you to stand on a
switch on top of a ziggurat. Well, I did, and nothing in the room opened
up.
So, as I had been used to doing, I walked through the whole hub
and back for a total of 2 damn days trying to figure out where that
switch went to. I finally looked up a walkthrough and it said that I
should simply walk through the door. What door? I only saw that obsidian
archway, and that didn't open up when I hit the switch. I was really
confused.
It wasn't until I looked up a let's play that the
switch on top of the ziggurat was supposed to open the path through the
obsidian archway, and that I had spent 2+ days trying to progress past a
softlock. It was impossible to progress past that point without no-clip
and I had been trying to play as legit as possible up until that point.
I really, REALLY, wanted to like this game, but that instance was the tipping point, especially after beating the 1st episode guideless and taking hours upon hours to figure out. I never needed a guide to figure out Hexen 1, and sure, that took maybe more hours than if I had a guide, but it was a overall fun ride I still go back to.
I never want to go back to Hexen 2, and if I do, I'll be playing with a guide because I don't know what goes to what and, less still, what is going to break on me.
If you made it this far in reading,
Thank you
hexen 1 is actually really simple once you figure out its formula for each hub and are able to turn your brain off and focus on killing everything but hexen 2 doesn't have such a formula to be worked out because the puzzles aren't limited to switches and really dampens such a good game
you should try the expansion, portal of praevus, it has better (or less stupid) puzzles
I love the heretic/hexen series and still count them as one of my favorite series of all time.
I wish there would be more of this types of game. I loved Dark Messiah and I look(ed) forward to Hellraid if it ever comes out.
and i wish Heretic 2 would be on GOG or something since my CD won't work anymore.
+Michel van der Pol Dude I forgot Hellraid even existed. Man I hope it ain't cancelled.
I never would have assumed an FPS would be so cerebrally challenging. Some of these descriptions make it sound like the Thief's Guild mission in Thief Gold.
Lol love the narration of how you gotta complete the first level xD!! Im use to it tho heretic. And hexen will always have a special spot in my heart
I also got this game because of you, another nice game, but extremely complicated. *Good Job GGGMANLIVES*
I remember playing the shit out of the demo for this on a demo disc. Fav thing was putting the sheep in the catapult and sending it soaring,
cclbiah Same here, I was amazed you could do that with 90's game physics. I got my demo from a magazine called PCZONE
Thanks to John carmack and John romero for this,
i remember when romero get out from io storm in 2001....
damm these guys know how to do games
Would love to see an updated review for Hexen2, which talks a bit more about all the classes and shows off some more puzzles.
Curious to hear your thoughts on Timeshift, how about reviewing that some day?
Loved this review. Loved this game. Thanks for bringing attention to it. I just subscribed
+Jordan Chad Whittingham Thanks!
This was one of my favorite games in the 90s. I’ve not been able to find it since.
Oh, I don't remember commenting on this before. That's funny.
Anyway, I do really miss games that didn't hold your hand. When you talk about brutal, crushing combat and not knowing what switches did, that makes me happy.
Man the way your talking so fast along side that music is so funny
It is funny: I have always preferred Hexen to Hexen II. Hexen just felt so original always: stellar gameplay, well-balanced difficulty and authentic atmosphere from the beginning till the final showdown. The puzzles were also much more sensible and not so far-fetched in the first game than in Hexen II. As a kid, I was stuck right away in the Blackmarsh permanently, but as an adult player, the first puzzle seemed not so hard anymore.
The difficulty level in general was about the same in both games for an adept FPS player. Hardest setting is pretty brutal indeed in the beginning of the games, but as you progress, there's soon no need for quicksave/loading every 30 seconds. The soundtrack of Hexen II is chilling, I really liked it! The mood in the Blackmarsh and Egyptian chapters are excellent due to the music. Maybe we get Hexen III some day?
Thank you for this review. I remember paying Hexen 2 back in the day. There was a unique challenge to these old style FPS that is just not as present in the newer releases. While that's not exactly a bad thing, within all the frustration and aggravation that came with the challenge, once you made it through, you felt a real sense of accomplishment. Heck, even my homework seemed easier most of the time lol. Now we have multiplayer FPS, which presents its own challenge (depending on your opponents skill/billfold :)
Teacher.. did you finish your homework?
Me.. no, but i beat lvl 1 in hexen 2.
Teacher.. A+, good job
Man I wish this would come to GOG along with Heretic, Hexen, and Heretic II.
most if not all are available on steam
This channel is pure gold
I fricking looooved this game.! Played it over and over.
I still don't understand how i managed to finish this game when i was 7 years old without a walkthrough....
....and without speaking english at the time.....
We all did, playing was hard not easy like today, but still we kept playing until we won. He said something bad in the video, that people coudn't finish without walkthrough which is not true, at all.
I gave up twice. Back in the 90's and recently. Too boring, not even cheating would make it more interesting to me.
I always liked the puzzle aspect of video games where you had to search and pay attention to the environment. When you hit a switch and heard a door opening but had no idea where it was at.
I say a good idea is to look at it not like doom/quake but more like system shock or prey (2017) don't rush in trying to finish it quickly just enjoy exploring and looking around
u forgot to mention:
1-tomes of power: these are books you pick up if you use they give all your main weapons a different more powerful attack, example necromancer's bone shards becomes a bone ball that explodes on impact like a shrapnel grenade, a direct hit usually one hits enemies (I cant list everything but its something to behold) lasts only like 30 seconds.
2- cube of power, tome of summoning, disc of repulsion, polymorph stick (one hits any none boss enemy) and many many more powerful items and spells you pick up and can be used by all classes, these vary from summoning imps that shoot fire balls for you, force push spells that can throw enemies into lava or pits (you will be surprised how many enemies you get rid of this way).
3-Glyph of power, this is the grenade item BUT it is used differently by each class, the paladin throws it like a grenade and it sticks to targets and goes nuke, insanely damaging, for the assassin u can use it like a clamor mine, aim at a wall and it will stick to it and then extend a chain from it, this is the most powerful DPS in the entire game it will shred anything that passes through it EVEN YOU so careful when placing it, the necro levitates it to the nearest enemy and boom but its less powerful, and the crusader just leaves a ghost version of it in mid air and it explodes after 2 seconds for the most pathetic damage I have ever seen (but u get 5 charges for each glyph)
4-you run fast, LIKE REALLY FAST
5-the game has armor and it acts differently to each class, the armor pieces are an amulet braces breast plate and helmet, each gives 20 armor but each class depletes them at different rates, example the necro depletes the amulet the slowest making it his favorite armor, crusader likes breast plates, paladin like helmets and assassin likes braces.
6-each class gets powers at level 3 then 6, some powers are odd and situational, but some are just down right OP, the assassin gets shadow meld which works well with her weapons that are all (surprise weapons) if u stand in the shadows for more than a few seconds u turn invisible and ur attacks are critical dps
7- quarter of power, save these like they are your children, these babies refill ur entire mana pool CHERISH THEM
Still get chills from Hexen ettins xD. One of my favorite games when i was child, but i think i should check out Hexen 2 too as i never got hold of it. Puzzles felt many times crazy complicated even in Hexen 1 and as a lil one that doesn't know even english too well it was kinda frustrating, but holy**** the atmosphere is totally worth it.
Watching this I began to wonder why I've played this in grade school and to my memory, enjoyed it. I wish they made a sequel.
I remember being blown away by the graphics when I played this back in the day.
Spent a lot of time on Hexen and Hexen 2. Hexen 2 looked amazing at the time if you had a good 3D card. I got a copy of it for free with my 3d accelerator and i still bought another copy later to play multiplayer.
Watching after getting this game in a Hexen and Heretic bundle on GoG, never played the 2nd looks fun even if rage inducing with the tasks lol
Bruh
I played this over a LAN co-op with my brother and dad growing up and it was a lot easier to figure out. Thankfully PC Gamer was doing some walk-throughs at the time so even the most obscure stuff was solvable. In its initial version, you couldn't save a co-op game, so if someone died or a computer crashed, you had to start a whole world over again. We played the demo a WHOLE bunch. In fact, my computer would disconnect from our multiplayer sessions, but doubling my RAM to 16MB (yes, MB) took care of that issue.
I was thinking about getting this until you went on to describe how obscure the puzzles are. It sounds like a pain in the arse,
I'm a simple man, i just want to kill things and laugh like a maniac in my fps'.
+Serpico's Beard it's a very good game, try it. there quite a few site where you can download it for free. Concerning the puzzles only the 1st and 3d hub are hard but they are major offenders. keep a walkthroug around for the treasury key and the upper crown/wheel of ages.
don't hesitate to crank the difficulty up, some levels can sometimes be devoid of enemiies, especially when back tracking. The true difficulty of the game come from the fact it force you to think outside the box to defeat your opponents,like Unreal. The 4 weapons and ammo won't be enought. You have to plan your attact and use the many item in your inventory to to create create killzone and ambush. This is especially true with the assassin.
If your fps taste lean more toward the mindless bloodshed, blood, gore and gun blazing try Blood 1 and 2 or, or theSerious Sam or Painkiller serie.
Try outlaws or jedi knight, they're from the same era. Much more polished and fun to play IMO. LucasArts delivered in both its adventure and story aspects of the game.
You are right I played and finished the game it is a pain in the ass. You won't be able to finish it unless you get a walkthrough. Despite what everyone was saying it is not a good game.
Hexen 2 is confusing and punishing at times but its so damn good. I just love this style of game. These classic FPS games; Doom I & II, Quake I & II, Heretic, Hexen 1 & 2, Unreal, and then later such great games like the original Half-Life are some of the all time best games I've ever played.
I think this game was underrated. The story and puzzle quests were more interesting than other games. The idea of time travel to different places in history was cool as a kid. I never used a "walkthrough" for any games. For me that takes the fun out of it.
Sure, killing bad guys is fun but the element of discovery along the way was what made it for me in any game.
Theres a crystal golem ? Is this where Miyazaki got the inspiration from for his crystal golems in Dark Souls ? Wouldnt be surprised, given his affinity for western games/themes and the fact that the crystal golem in DS is also one in several steps to accessing the dlc.
One of my favorite games ever. You also have not played the game unless you used the CD music...it's fantastic.
Best video review ever!
Hmm... Hexen 1 and 2 are things I've thought of trying.
Nothing you say has downright dissuaded me so I guess I'll pick them up sometimes.
Splotch the Cat-Thing you'll need a walk through for hexen 2. It's puzzles are straight up just stupid and no normal person will understand them.
Hexen is awesome. Hexen 2 sucked. Take it from me I have played and finished both of them.
@@johnmckenna5782 FUCK YOU. NOOB LIKE YOU ARE COMPLAINING LIKE THAT
Haha, I remember being frustrated at the time, not being able to play this because I didnt have a 3-d card. I'd loved Hexen to bits and really wanted to play this but couldn't. By the time I did get a 3-d card I'd forgotten about this and had other gaming fish to fry and when I finally played this I was somehow disappointed.
Thanks for these vids btw, nice little jog back down memory lane! :)
I'm collecting PC games for my vintage 1997 PC with a 3Dfx Voodoo 1 card and Hexen II is one that oddly I overlooked.It's especially nice because it is a 3Dfx enhanced title too.
It could be cool if they added the tome of power in Hexen 1 or 2 weapons more.. I like they put this item in Hexen 2, it's helpful because the fights can be hard and yeah, the enemies are smarter in this gamen the relief is less complexe but the fights are so much interesting', especially with the were jaguar/panther of the 2nd hub! Impressive for 97.
The egyptian hub is really detailled and beautiful too !
Need Hexen 3.....
I played part of this game. One thing that made it very hard for me back then is that no one bothered to tell me about mouse look. The old doom style controls from Hexen still work, but trying to fight using them is very hard since you can't look up and down quickly or easily. As a result I always played as the assassin, since some of her weapon have a degree of homing which made up for the lack of auto-aim on the vertical axis which had been in Doom engine games..
Btw you got some superb games for review on your channel. I have lots of fond memories playing these games a. Looking forward getting stuck into watching this lot :)
Man I’d love to have a new Hexen game
If an Australian complains about too many spiders you really really have put TOO many spiders into your game.
good review as always :)
Sheeeeeit. The inception-step-string is a great idea to fuck with your D&D campaign.
Laughed my ass off either way. Nice review, might give this one a try some day.
Very nice review but when I open the game through steam, it starts up but then starts glitching out and lines of code fill the screen which is very annoying.
What happened to the necromancer's spells? The magic missiles have black squares around the center and the bone shards don't travel with the point forward...!
Nice review! For me it's the best game of the world, and the hardest too. Was hard for me to finish this game, as you said, it's confuse and you will be lost a lot of times.
That sounds more difficult then it actually is, great fun game!
I don't think i need to play the game now i have seen your review. Thanks!
the particle effects look awesome! o.O
Awesome Video! : ) Did you ever think about reviewing Heretic 2?
I finished this game when i think i was 11 years old w the god mode cheat. Those puzzles were awesome, and i just loved exploring the world.
The expansion that came out for the game, Portal to Preavus, added a new character, settings and some minor (although I think it was just skin changes) new enemies. It seemed a little more streamlined and linear, and seemed shorter. It was still pretty good and I enjoyed the expansion, although I don't recall having much issue with the original games' puzzle.
Great review as always. Did you use a source port? Or did you use mods? My version on steam looks a lot worse compared to this video.
Thanks for the review. I have Hexen and Hexen 2 but I've heard they are really difficult and I suck at puzzles so I've always been afraid to start them. Maybe I'll pick up a walk through and give it a try.
Good thing you mentioned that scorps and jaguarmen freeze up intentionally.. I thought I had bugged the game somehow lol
Please review heretic 2! Such a great game!
The combat feels like Unreal 1 except in Unreal I was finally in the end able to predict the enemy's dodging and consistently hit them. With Hexen 2 I never had an easy time hitting the enemies. Also I got stuck immediately in the first room because I didn't find the hidden switch :P
I played the demo and it got you up to the point where you grind the bones. It took me days.
Puzzles were fun, but I played with 3 other friends, after having brought them through Hexen (since I loved it on the N64, and wanted to see if it held up still -- which of course it did), we found that the biggest gripe we had about Hexen 2 was that the enemies were bullet sponges, and even the weakest of the enemies would outright kill 3 of us in a 4 v 2. Sounds like you've encountered that as well which makes me feel a bit better, as I don't think I'm going insane anymore XD
All in all, I'd say play it, and don't be afraid to throw on god mode just to play for the amazing puzzles that it brings about. But if you love punishment, go for it standard.
Awesome game, I had it on my N64
Yep. Good game and review. Really enjoyed it back in the day. Heretic as well.
I'm loving these reviews mate, it's like revisiting your teens! i should search but do you think you can find the time to review Exhumed? that was a great FPS back in the day, there's also a PC game where drove a futuristic tank and helicopter, was really cool but i cant remember what it was called, it's not Battlezone but you should do that too! Keep up the great work!
+Anthony Brown Yes I reviewed it.
+Gggmanlives yeah I found it! Thanks man. Really great work mate
+Gggmanlives the old helicopter/tank game was called Extreme Assault, it's more of a FPS game, have you played that?
Love your vids man! keep it up
When you need to spend months and I mean literal months just to figure out how to fucking beat the first part of a game like I had to all those years back you never attributed to plain bad gameplay mechanisms. Its subscribing to the old notion of make it fucking impossible or nearly so and it will be considered a good game. No bitch after trying to finish the first part which i did only after like 60+ hours of gameplay * all joking aside probably more* i fucking stopped playing this game because of how utterly rage inducing it was. Sad thing is it was for the most part a good game marred by just utter shit puzzle mechanics and expectations.
+MrSumbody69 Hexen 2 could very well have used wolfenstein 3d's opening line and say "Get Frustrated!"
My guess is the game was rushed out of the door (if anyone could speed development up it was ravensoft, btw) and by the time they realized how hard it was they a) didn't have time to change it, or b) decided to play along with it. And why rush it? 4 main reasons in 97, namely quake 2, jedi knight, half-life and daikatana. Then it was Unreal, DNF, Portal, trespasser, amen, ....
when i first played this i finished the first part in like 3-4 hours without walkthroughs... lol
Basically, what would be considered secret areas in Quake became normal paths to progress in Hexen and Hexen 2. Despite the fun mechanics, it is a point of frustration.