Favorite Heretic/Hexen Game?

[swordgrunt]

I agree with MmM in that point. The Heresiarch is somewhat similar to D'Sparil, even summoning Dark Bishops during battle as D'Sparil summoned Disciples. Possibly, the final boss could be the Heresiarch riding Korax? ;D
And maybe different, mini-boss like enemies to end hubs 3/4?


BTW, another thing... Korax's face doesn't look even remotely similar to that of the walls. Well, it might just be that I haven't had a close look in Korax...

[Enjay]

Heh, I've just remembered that both D'Sparil and the Heressiarch have similar deaths too in as much as they both get reduced to skeletons as part of their death animation.

[Gez]

swordgrunt said:BTW, another thing... Korax's face doesn't look even remotely similar to that of the walls. Well, it might just be that I haven't had a close look in Korax... [/B]

Gez said:

It's a bit sad that he doesn't look like himself.

He's not too far, but still not that. The jaws should be a bit less wide, and he'd need to have large horns on the sides of his skull, plus tiny horns on the side of his lower jaw. More prominent cheeckbones and a slightly higher brow as well.

[Enjay]

Maybe he just got his artist-slaves to embellish his image to make him look more scary/impressive just like the kings of old etc. :)

[kristus]

That image could just as well represent the heriasarch's sprite as well.

Realy bugs me that they didn't switch places on those two.

[Enjay]

kristus said:

That image could just as well represent the heriasarch's sprite as well.

I'd never spotted that, but you're absolutely right. Especially if you consider the guy in the final Heretic pic to be the Heressiarch (which IMO is virtually undeniable).

[swordgrunt]

Wow, that's impressive. One more puzzle in the Hexen world: why isn't the Heresiarch the final boss. It even looks like this is intentional. I never noticed how Heretic's end points to the Heresiarch being a Serpent Rider or other important character.

[printz]

The Korax would make a cool boss if he weren't so basic and easy to destroy. He's too weak while lacking the scripted events. The Heresiarch would have been like a deja vu...

[Vermil]

HeXen was made over a very short time, 8 months, and came out 4 months before Quake.

Though a very good game, it is entirely conceivable that HeXen was rushed to beat said other game.

I have red many rumors around here about the Heresiarch and Korax being the wrong way around, but perhaps the one that most sticks out is a fairly recent suggestion that the entire 3rd and 5th hub's of HeXen look like they were originally suppose to be the other way around.

The manual does state that Korax resides in a stronghold filled with secrets that the player must learn in order to reach him after all

Indeed, HeXen's first hub also seems quite out of place when you think about it. Korax's map could bolt on to the end it making that into a stronghold. If you really want to be a conspirist, the seven portals could, more than any other map in HeXen work as something like Quakes start map.

[Stilgar]

Enjay said:

Maybe he just got his artist-slaves to embellish his image to make him look more scary/impressive just like the kings of old etc. :)

That was always my impression of it, that it didn't look all that different from him and was probably just a somewhat abstract representation. The six horns I always saw as emblematic of his six arms. More of a seal than a strict portrait I guess.

[Enjay]

@Vermil: Interesting stuff.

And possibly taking this too far, Korax taunts you at various points in the game with a deep, manly voice but when you finally meet him he uses little more than animalistic grunts. I'm not saying that the Heressiarch has much more in the way of intelligible sounds, but they are a little closer to the taunting voice than Korax's sounds.

[StoneFrog]

Who knows? Maybe his rule is one of those "Korax resides in secrecy from the public as his top goons rule over the world". That is, perhaps the Heresiarchs are meant to be the "leaders" of Cronos and, as such, all that stuff is based off of them (though it does not explain the final Korax wall message, as that's when both are dead).

I agree though that Korax looks too "animal" in his corporeal form.

Has anyone tried emailing a Raven Software worker from Heretic and Hexen development?

[khartael]

Man, I wouldn't rely on the Raven staff for explaining these story changes for the simple fact that I don't think they even thought them through, at -all-.

In fact, if you dig into the pre-release FAQs and articles about Hexen II, you'll find out that they didn't even remember Eidolon is supposed to be red (per the final Hexen snapshot) until some fan emailed them and asked them if that's how he'll look like.

[printz]

Vermil said:

a fairly recent suggestion that the entire 3rd and 5th hub's of HeXen look like they were originally suppose to be the other way around.

Well, the final product seems tu run smoothly. The third hub (Seminary) does indeed look more sterile than its sequel, the Ramparts. The Necropolis is indeed dark and ... spooky. But the Dark Crucible is utterly disappointing. The waggling opening is great, but the boss arena is too basic looking -- pretty much like a small warehouse. None of the grand fighting field of Heretic and none of the twisting suggestions of Dark Crucible's start. And it looks dinky in comparison to Bright Crucible too.

[StoneFrog]

khartael said:

Man, I wouldn't rely on the Raven staff for explaining these story changes for the simple fact that I don't think they even thought them through, at -all-.

In fact, if you dig into the pre-release FAQs and articles about Hexen II, you'll find out that they didn't even remember Eidolon is supposed to be red (per the final Hexen snapshot) until some fan emailed them and asked them if that's how he'll look like.

I know. Though at least his snail form was red!

[kristus]

Maybe Romero knows.

[Ichor]

printz said:

But the Dark Crucible is utterly disappointing. The waggling opening is great, but the boss arena is too basic looking -- pretty much like a small warehouse. None of the grand fighting field of Heretic and none of the twisting suggestions of Dark Crucible's start. And it looks dinky in comparison to Bright Crucible too.

That's nothing compared to Dark Citadel. At least just about all of the other maps leading up to it more than make up for that.

[StoneFrog]

When browsing YouTube, I came across something neat.

Most people know Hexen by the computer and N64 versions, but apparently the PSX version had FMV sequences - I had no idea!

Introduction

Look at his related videos, etc, to find the others. They basically replace each textual interlude. Neat stuff.

[Necros20]

Well at least Hexen 2 had some environmental variety unlike Quake which was for the most part just different shades of brown and grey.

[StoneFrog]

I think Hexen II = most beautiful Quake engine game (excluding derivatives such as HL).

[myk]

Nah, the models in particular are ugly. I find Quake better looking by a considerable degree. Quake II also looks better than Hexen II.

[StoneFrog]

Meh. I didn't like Quake II's concept of "blur all the textures to the point of eye cancer" to hide the pixellation. Maybe they thought it was all pretty and high resolution, I don't.

[Stilgar]

StoneFrog said:

Meh. I didn't like Quake II's concept of "blur all the textures to the point of eye cancer" to hide the pixellation. Maybe they thought it was all pretty and high resolution, I don't.

That's an OpenGL thing, the software mode wasn't like that. You see it in some Doom ports too when they smear the lower-resolution graphics all up.

[MmM]

I think the Hexen 2 models are pretty good--given the limitations of the Quake engine. Looking at them in a modeling program, they are more detailed, and better animated, than Quake models in my opinion.

I also agree that the environmental variety puts Quake to shame as well. Not that I dislike Quake or anything, I love it, it just doesn't have that much variety in appearance. Of course, in fairness, Hexen 2 is building on what id Software already did, so, from that perspective, not having to monkey with inventing an engine from scratch, Raven had more time to allocate to design and graphics.

[myk]

The models are more complex, but the type of monsters they created worked better as sprites (the imps or gargoyles are a good example, comparing them to the ones in Heretic and Hexen). In my opinion the problem is related to what you say; "given the limitations of the Quake engine". My take is that when there are limitations it's best not to push them much, or the limits become intrusive. The Hexen II models were more detailed, but that often gave them a "papery" feel, whereas Quake's were more solid. I think that's why I didn't start liking models much until more recently (when technology became better at handling them in detail).

MmM said:
I also agree that the environmental variety puts Quake to shame as well.

There was variety, but I think the types of environments they chose were rather predictable and uninteresting. The went for "places" instead of "moods" as in Quake, even as far as the creatures are concerned. Maybe the fact that I had been to Greece, Egypt and Mesoamerica made some of the locational imitations kind of weak in my eyes. Thus my impression is that Hexen has a more unreal and absorbing feel than Hexen II.

[Grazza]

Stilgar said:

You see it in some Doom ports too when they smear the lower-resolution graphics all up.

I could be wrong, but I don't think there is a single OpenGL Doom port that doesn't allow you to turn off filtering. At least, I can't think of any.

That is, you can use GL and still have everything pixelated if you prefer it that way.