Witches 2
| Witches 2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | Raven software | ||
| Publisher | id software | ||
| Senior Developer | Brian Raffel Eric C. Biessman |
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| Erstveröffent- lichung |
1997 | ||
| platform | Windows , Mac OS | ||
| Game engine | Quake engine | ||
| genre | First person shooter | ||
| Game mode | Single player , multiplayer | ||
| control | Keyboard , mouse | ||
| medium | Download , CD-ROM | ||
| language | English | ||
| Age rating |
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| information | Since the youth protection reform of 2002, the original USK age rating from 18 years is no longer valid | ||
Hexen 2 is a first-person shooter in a dark fantasy scenario by the American development studio Raven Software from 1997. It was published by id Software and distributed by Activision . It was the third game in the Heretic and Witches game series and the last in the Serpent Rider trilogy. The game, released for Windows and Mac OS , was the first game outside of id Software to use a modified Quake engine and offered both single-player and multiplayer content. In 1998, a playfully modified sequel to the game series appeared under the title Heretic 2 .
action
Witches 2 continues the storyline of the fight against the serpent riders from Heretic and Witches . After defeating D'Sparil and Korax, another game world, Thyrion, must be freed from the rule of the last serpent rider, Eidolon. He is the oldest and most powerful of the three serpent riders and is supported by four generals who are a reference to the four riders of the Apocalypse . In order to defeat them, the character travels to four different continents, which are modeled on different historical periods and cultures: Medieval Europe in Blackmarsh, Mesoamerica in Mazaera, Ancient Egypt in Thysis and Greco-Roman antiquity in Septimus. After defeating the generals, the player meets Eidolon himself in Blackmarsh and must defeat him in his cathedral.
Gameplay
The gameplay of Hexen 2 is similar to that of the original Hexen . Instead of three classes, there are four in Hexen 2 . Each class has its own weapons and an individual play style: Paladin (offensive play style), Crusader (defensive), Assassin (secret play style) and Necromancer (magic).
Hexen 2 adds certain elements from role-playing games to the shooter gameplay . Each character has a number of statistics that improve with experience . This meant a gain in strength for the player character, as the number of hit points and mana supply increased. As in the previous one, the levels of an action section are linked to one another. Changes in one level can affect others.
Among the improvements over witches and Quake are destructible environments and increasable skills. The book artifact "Tome of Power" from Heretic is also included again.
development
The original plan was for a game called Hecatomb to conclude the Heretic and Witches trilogy. After John Romero left id Software in 1996 , this was discarded. The then distributor Activision urged Raven Software to split the development of Hecatomb into two different games, Hexen 2 and Heretic 2 . Activision argued that the previous titles were sufficiently different to be perceived as titles in their own right. That is why it was recommended to have a sequel to each title rather than a single final section. In the end, only a few ideas from Romero's Hecatomb concept were found in Hexen 2 and Heretic 2 .
Hexen 2 is based on an improved version of the Quake engine . This is why the game uses the OpenGL interface for 3D acceleration. Since graphics cards from the manufacturer 3dfx with their alternative technology were predominant at the time of publication , the Windows version installs a driver variant of OpenGL (opengl32.dll) specially adapted for 3dfx hardware. This driver acts as a wrapper for the proprietary Glide interface and is therefore only compatible with 3dfx graphics cards. The graphics card manufacturers PowerVR and Rendition published specially designed OpenGL drivers for the use of Hexen 2 with their products. If you remove the adapted OpenGL version, the game falls back on the standard OpenGL system library. Much of the music consists of remixes of the Hexen and Heretic soundtrack .
Activision acquired the rights to port the game to the PlayStation and Sega Saturn consoles . However, these were never realized. In 2007 the game was re-released on Steam .
Victories
Raven Software developed a modification to the game called Siege and released it in 1998 for the revised QuakeWorld multiplayer architecture known as HexenWorld. The concept was to replace the normal deathmatch in favor of a team-play castle siege. The basic idea was to divide the players into two teams, attacker and defender. After a time limit, the team that controls the crown wins. The mod uses matching objects from the single player part of the game, e.g. catapults and ballistae. The classes have been changed a lot, with new weapons and skills compared to the normal Deathmatch.
Publication of the source code
As with Heretic and Hexen , Raven published the source code of the Hexen-2 engine on November 10, 2000 under the GNU General Public License . This enabled the game to be ported to different systems such as Linux and the Dreamcast .
Portal of Praevus (add-on)
On March 31, 1998, Raven released the game expansion called Witches 2 Mission Pack: Portal of Praevus . It includes new levels, enemy creatures and a new playable character class, the Demoness. The plot revolves around the attempt to reawaken the three serpent riders by the evil magician Praevus. The setting is the fifth continent, Tulku, which has a Sino - Tibetan design. Unlike the main program, the game was not published by id Software and was therefore missing in later re-releases.
The scope of the expansion included new quest items, new enemy types and new weapons for the Demoness. It is the only class of players that - similar to the magician in the first witch - begins with a ranged weapon. The add-on also brought some minor improvements to the game engine, mostly related to the user interface, level scripts, particle effects (rain or snow) and 3D objects. In addition, Portal of Praevus contains a secret level with returning enemies. The only patch released for the expansion added recurring items (health, ammo) in Nightmare difficulty.
reception
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“Those who prefer a large arsenal of weapons and only sneak through corridors to slaughter hordes of monsters will certainly be poorly served with 'Witches 2' - at least as far as the single player mode is concerned. If you are not afraid of exerting your little gray matter, you get a successful sequel with this program, which can convince with extensive levels, excellent graphics and the extended character system. "
According to Erik Bethke, Hexen 2 was not a commercial success with sales of around 30,000 units.
Web links
- Official website of Raven Software ( Memento of March 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- Official website of id Software ( Memento of November 16, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
- Witches 2 at MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Protos: Witches II . In: Ziff Davis (Ed.): Electronic Gaming Monthly . No. 94, May 1997, p. 40.
- ^ John Keefer: Legendary id Software games now on Steam . GameSpy. Retrieved September 5, 2011.
- ↑ Siege Information Overview . Archived from the original on February 2, 2009. Retrieved September 5, 2011.
- ↑ Hexen 2 source released . In: GameSpy . Archived from the original on December 21, 2009. Retrieved September 5, 2011.
- ↑ a b Power Play
- ↑ PC player
- ↑ Witches II . In: Future Publishing (Ed.): Edge . No. 51, November 1997, pp. 90-91.
- ↑ Hexen II for PC - GameRankings
- ↑ Witches II Mission Pack: Portal of Praevus for PC - GameRankings
- ^ Witches II - PC - IGN
- ^ Witches II Mission Pack: Portal of Praevus - PC - IGN
- ^ Ron Dulin: Witches II Review . September 22, 1997. Retrieved September 2, 2017.
- ↑ Hexen II Mission Pack: Portal of Praevus - GameSpot ( Memento from June 29, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
- ^ Erik Bethke: Game Development and Production . Wordware Publishing, 2003, ISBN 1-55622-951-8 , pp. 16 .