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Lordareonz

Who's Better? Hexen Vs Heretic

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kristus said:

Hexen is the sequel to Heretic.


I'm fully aware. I was just noting that despite their differences, they feel like they are a part of the same game.

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kristus said:

And the Heresiarch is an easy enemy for all classes really. But I agree that the gas flechette of the Cleric is a bit problematic because it works through any and all shields in the game. It makes sense that it works on the Centaurs and Slaughtaurs. But the Heresiarch got a magic shield. Should be covered for toxic fumes then you'd think.

Depends on what you mean by "works". It makes them groan/scream and stop moving, but unless I'm grossly mistaken, they're not actually taking damage when the shields are up.

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I prefer Heretic's atmosphere to that of Hexen, and I would agree with those who have said Hexen can become tedious. Hexen is however a truly different game, while Heretic and Doom are very much the same. I would pick Heretic over Hexen, but by a very small margin. You should certainly play both.

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Heretic is doom with all the badass guns that go BLAM! and big mean demons that go RAWR! replaced with wimpy little wands that go zap and magical wizards that sort of mumble.

Hexen is about smashing monsters in the face with a big fuckoff axe.

You heretic lovers better check that weak ass shit.

Serious:
When it boils down it: atmosphere and exploration are probably what's most important to me when it comes to first person shooters and Hexen really delivers in theses areas far better then heretic. I quite enjoy the HUB system and the fact that maps sort of resemble real world locations just enough to make them interesting. I agree with the lack of variety weapons makes this game a little duller then it could have been, but they still mostly pack enough of a punch to make them fun to use (especially the fighters).

I found I got board of heretic's levels very quickly. Some of the monsters designers are pretty cool, and the introduction of a usable inventory was nice but almost everything else about this game Doom dose better.

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kristus said:
It's just a damn shame they never made the third and last part of the saga. :(


It's no True, Hexen 2 is the last chapter of the Serpent Riders Saga, It is on the world of thyrion, and we must kill Eidolon, the last serpent rider, Unfortunnaly it usees the QUAKE engine!

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Captain Red is sort of right, heretic is really hokey and brightly colored. I still love it though - I don't think the weapons are underpowered, I usually end the game with tons of unused artifacts even on Black Plague. Hexen provides more challenging and varied combat. Also, I thought you could always use the quietus without mana?


Anyway, play heretic if you want to spray colorful destruction all over a bright landscape and not think too hard. Play hexen if you want to get more involved in the exploration and puzzle solving, and have more intense fighting.

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Lordareonz said:

It's no True, Hexen 2 is the last chapter of the Serpent Riders Saga, It is on the world of thyrion, and we must kill Eidolon, the last serpent rider, Unfortunnaly it usees the QUAKE engine!

Bleh.

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Most of Hexen 1's puzzles are switch and key hunts anyway. I only got stuck and had to find a walkthrough if I couldn't see a doorway, or if the level was faulty and got me really trapped due to logic errors.

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Lordareonz said:

kristus said:
Bleh!

why? becouse it uses the quake engine?


Because it wasn't Hecatomb.

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I just tried playing through Hexen as the Cleric, and when I got to the Seven Portals the serpent staff wasn't there. Hmm. It pisses me off when stupid things like this ruin the game. I just stopped playing after that. I remember awhile ago getting stuck in the Shadow Wood hub when the last few switch lights at the hub exit didn't come on (I am almost completely sure I hit all the switches). *Sigh*

Has someone gone into Hexen.wad and fixed it/improved it? I'd do it myself if I had the skills.

And I don't know what you people are talking about with the "Heretic looks gay and colorful" notion. As far as I'm concerned, that game is the shit.

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Probably because the Heretic has purples, yellows, and light blue colors, something that Doom never had. That's probably where they get the "colorful" thing from.

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Reaper978 said:

I just tried playing through Hexen as the Cleric, and when I got to the Seven Portals the serpent staff wasn't there.

Did you search the guardian of steel?

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Indeed, the second weapon appears on a different sub level of the hub depending upon the class you are playing. Though none appear on the main Seven Portals level.

When playing as a Cleric, your second weapon appears on the Guardian of Steel for instance. When playing as a Mage, your second weapon appears on the Guardian of Fire etc.

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An interesting mod provocation is to make a vanilla Hexen wad with very different gameplay depending which class you choose. And also have a worthier Korax showdown. And I hope the undead player kin don't fight each other. They'd be so much better as a team. I hope the wraithverge distinguishes friend from foe, even when it's fired by the AI.

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Vermil said:

Though none appear on the main Seven Portals level.

Timon's Axe do as far as I can recall appear on the main Seven portals level.

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kristus said:

Timon's Axe do as far as I can recall appear on the main Seven portals level.

Under non-hard skills they all appear at the Seven Portals.

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Vermil said:

Indeed, the second weapon appears on a different sub level of the hub depending upon the class you are playing. Though none appear on the main Seven Portals level.

When playing as a Cleric, your second weapon appears on the Guardian of Steel for instance. When playing as a Mage, your second weapon appears on the Guardian of Fire etc.

Argh! I guess I was too quick to judge, I guess I'll try it again.

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I am only now finally playing through the full version of Heretic, and I've never played all of Hexen either. However, I'm now just starting EP 4, and there's just not enough freakin' ammo around and far too many enemies. Is this episode deliberately unfair or should I persevere? Ep 1-3 were all pretty simple to beat for a DOOM vet.

One thing I didn't like about Hexen, from the shareware version at least, was that I spent most of my time just punching the same easy baddies constantly. I want to SHOOT things in a FPS.

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bimlanders said:

I am only now finally playing through the full version of Heretic, and I've never played all of Hexen either. However, I'm now just starting EP 4, and there's just not enough freakin' ammo around and far too many enemies. Is this episode deliberately unfair or should I persevere? Ep 1-3 were all pretty simple to beat for a DOOM vet.

Episodes 4 and 5 are harder than 1--3, kinda like Doom's Episode 4 is harder than the three previous.

However, it's still pretty doable. You have to conserve ammo by aiming carefully and thinking tactically (maximizing infighting, luring enemies into crusher traps, using the timebombs as effectively as possible, using the gauntlets when appropriate...), though.

bimlanders said:

One thing I didn't like about Hexen, from the shareware version at least, was that I spent most of my time just punching the same easy baddies constantly. I want to SHOOT things in a FPS.

Well, you get two more weapons per class in the full game, but as a whole the focus of combats in Hexen is much more on mêlée than on distance. The ranged-only class, the Mage, has a ridiculously weak pea shooter that takes a couple of subjective hours to kill an ettin and makes a sound so annoying that just hearing it is like Raven software punishing you for using this cowardly class instead of going mano-a-mano with a cleric or fighter.

In short: not a shooting game.

(On the other hand, skill 5 with the fighter or cleric is ridiculously unfair. Those chaos serpents, when fast, shoot constantly and you meet several of them before getting your first ranged weapon. Tackling them with the mace or the fists is... ouch. The mage is the only class that's remotely playable in that skill level, but then it is tedious x1000.)

And don't get me started on Death Kings.

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I'd say Heretic (not having played Hexen). As for equivelences between Doom and Heretic...well, the weapons have an almost 1:1 equivalence, with monsters it's a tad harder. I'd say gargoyles are something of a cross between lost souls and imps, golems ~= demons (including invisible varieties), disciples would be something like a cacodemon of sorts, Iron liches would be a pumped-up cacodemon, and the Maulotaur would be nothing less than a Cyberdemon equivalent, but a lot of stuff is pretty unique or doesn't have a real two-way equivalent in either game.

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Doom is the best. Just play that.


Seriously.



On topic, I prefer Heretic, but I am biased coz I haven't played Hexen in a long time. I don't own a copy of it, whereas I still have Heretic floating around on my HD. I do remember really enjoying Hexen, even though I got lost and wandered around in circles quite a bit.

Gez said:

(On the other hand, skill 5 with the fighter or cleric is ridiculously unfair. Those chaos serpents, when fast, shoot constantly and you meet several of them before getting your first ranged weapon. Tackling them with the mace or the fists is... ouch. The mage is the only class that's remotely playable in that skill level, but then it is tedious x1000.)

And don't get me started on Death Kings.


Admittedly I haven't played Hexen in a long time, but I do remember finishing it on the hardest difficulty with a fighter. You probably already know this but you can hide behind statues etc, and just punch 'through' the statues, but the serpents/mages etc cannot shoot through the statues. Was the only way I could do a lot of the game.

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Hexen has its flaws.

I can say that the Clerics and the Mage are not as satisfying to play as the Fighter. The First Person melee skull bashing thing is extremely satisfying. The sound effects, the death sounds, etc. All are good and addicting.

I always found Heretic to bore the crap out of me. The weapons are horrible. The crossbow alone just feel so boring. Most enemies have very boring death sounds or effects, minus only and only golems.

Its still a fun game in itself, but the ammo part is also just extremely aggravating. I always, always, always run out of ammo. The game actually wants me to use that silly stupid yellow wand all the time? No thanks. Boring.


I will always love Hexen somehow. Its much more original, and I don't care if its puzzles are "switches and keys". I can't believe some people blame it for RARE errors with scripting and such. Its an old game, and it quite complex in itself. Finding your way the first time was very satisfying.

What Hexen requires to like is simply: You must like to search, and you must like to beat the crap out of people at closer range. If all you can think of is guns, then Hexen is too much for you.

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Gez said:
And don't get me started on Death Kings. [/B]

At least you get the second weapon right away, although as the fighter you'll have a real tough time getting that hammer with four death wyverns flying around. Once you do, it's quite satisfying going back and smacking those things down to the ground.

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I think that Heretic is better than Hexen, because Heretic still has the classic Doom-styled gameplay, while Hexen has too many headache puzzles that get boring after a while.

Also, continuously spawning Ettins is no fun at all.

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Gez said:

the Mage, has a ridiculously weak pea shooter that takes a couple of subjective hours to kill an ettin and makes a sound so annoying that just hearing it is like Raven software punishing you for using this cowardly class instead of going mano-a-mano with a cleric or fighter.

In short: not a shooting game.

Nonsense. The Wand is a very important and powerful weapon if used right. It is a rail gun weapon so it tears through everything in it's path. Line up monsters and you shoot them all at the same time. Plus it's great for getting the Centaurs and slaughtaurs occupied by being frozen in their protect pose, they can't really do anything against you when you use the wand. They will just get back in there and then you can either keep shooting for a bit and have them die that way. Or you run up and place a couple of flechettes and then they die that way instead.

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I agree. I find the wand a very useful little weapon. It's also one that I have ported to the other Doom games in Zdoom and it holds its own there too.

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I grew to hate its sound and how long it takes to kill even weak enemies with it after finishing Hexen + Deathkings with the mage. Yeah, the ripper is useful. But it makes the gameplay turn into a boring trench war where you sit in one place and you slowly, slowly tewb-tewb-tewb to death enemies that are trying to advance, all the while hoping to find some mana in the next room so as to use more interesting weapons.

Tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb...

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Gez said:

Tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb-tewb...

Heh. Yeah, I get what you're saying there. I still like it though.

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