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Heretic was the first Doom engine license I ever played - I played the shareware and enjoyed it quite a bit, but not quite as much as it's bigger brother Doom. The story was something about a lone avenger looking to defeat some ancient evil - okay, so it wasn't the most original story. It was fun however, and the maps were creative. The weapons were interesting and what's this? Inventory management? Heretic took a great game and added some cool new features. Weapons could be powered up via the Tome of power and other mystical artifacts could be gathered and used when needed, as opposed to Doom's grab it when you want to use it style.

I played the shareware through a few times, but it never got my attention so much that I felt compelled to buy the full product. Time passed, and the first person shooter market took off. We saw a lot of great titles like Lucasart's Dark Forces and some "ahem" less than memorable ones like The Island of Dr. Radiaki. Doom 2 came out and treated us to more of the same but still fun carnage. Then I noticed something else, Hexen. This sequel to Heretic boasted 3 classes - Figher, Mage and Priest. Each had their strenghths and weaknesses and weapons as well. There were more artifacts to boot.

Hexen was the first game to introduce me to truly fun co-op play in a first person shooter. I'd played Doom, but somehow it wasn't the same. Hexen 2 had something that Raven has proved again and again. They're possibly the best architects in the first person gaming field. The bell tower and entryway in the very first level showed that in a first person shooter, the surroundings don't necessarily have to take a backseat to everything else. They proved that again with Hexen 2, the quake engine successor to Hexen. Other games were shipping with the Quake 2 engine but Hexen 2 utilizing the older engine still managed to compete with newer technology.

Now, with all the serpent riders destroyed, Raven takes us back to the hero who started it all. Corvus was the elf who dispatched the villian of the first game - D'Sparil the Serpent rider. In the opening sequence of Heretic 2, we see Corvus win the battle only to find that the gateway home is only D'sparil's final evil. Corvus is banished to a wasteland to search for a way home that he may never find. In a strange twist, one of the artifacts well known to Heretic players, the tome of power reveals to Corvus that something has happened and it is now possible to return home. Upon his return Corvus comes to find his people afflicted with a terrible plague that causes madness and other less desirable traits to surface. Soon Corvus himself is diseased and he must not only save himself and his people, but all the people of his world, Pythoris.

After playing Unreal, going back to the Quake 2 engine for the mission packs was a painful experience. They were bland, brown games with little color, and the effects quickly grew stale. Raven has taken the Quake 2 engine and breathed new life into it. Colors abound, and the deserts, swamps, ruins and castles are brought to life with great care. As with any Raven game, the level design is amazing. If you thought Half-Life level design was good, wait till you see this.

Weapon effects pretty much have to be seen to be believed. Gone is the bland railgun trail and hyper blaster lighting. The fully charged fire staff leaves a great looking flaming trail as it literally slices your enemies limb from limb. Call me grim, but I enjoyed watching my enemies flee armless after tasting the sting of my staff. If you aren't up for some close combat, magic spells will smite your foes from afar. From the simple fireball, to the more exotic Storm bow and Phoenix bow, to the old faithful Hellstaff, all the weapons will dazzle. If you find that the offense isn't enough, you can turn to a more defensive nature with a bevy of spells that will help guard you from the evil you face. As with the previous games, there are artifacts that can be found that, when powered, will defend you, repulse the enemy, or give your weapons a momentary super charge.

Another notable addition is a map! Although a flat 2D representation of the levels, it proved invaluable in one of the more confusing areas that I became lost in. For the most part, that isn't too common. The maps are large and incredibly detailed. In order to keep them manageable, they're broken down into logically done sub levels.

Oh, did I mention the third person perspective viewpoint? Gone is the familiar point of view of seeing through your character's eyes. The game closely resembles Tomb Raider's camera angle, but with some changes. The user easily modifies the camera itself, and control of Corvus is a little easier than what it takes to make Lara do her thing. If you push Corvus into a raised platform, he'll hop onto it if he can rather than you telling him to via an action key. Corvus also moves quite a bit better than Lara. There's a lot of well-crafted animation in Corvus. He'll tread water, pole vault, flip, crawl, clamber and run about the map as you navigate Pythoris. Watching Corvus wield his staff is a real treat, and if you leave him to do nothing he'll swat at flies and examine his surroundings. As the game progresses, so does his illness - a fact noted by changes to his looks. He'll begin to look sicklier and will act accordingly.

The same careful attention has been paid to the numerous enemies in the game. Each is unique to the area it inhabits - lizard people abound in the swamps, but not in the hive of the insect race. (Where of course, you'll find plenty of bugs that know all about the flies you swatted and ants you stepped on.) At the end of each of these unique areas, you'll be required to defeat a "Boss" creature, all of which have distinguishing attacks. The first one alone attacks with some amazing firepower and later you'll be set against the biggest, ugliest lizard you ever saw. The game advances the story with effective use of cinematic sequences that utilize the game engine. While not quite on par with Half-Life's, they are still well done. The intro and ending cinematic are fully rendered works using the now familiar Smacker engine, used in Diablo and Starcraft. The ending itself is somewhat different. I had to watch it a couple times in order to catch just what happened. I feel I should mention that brute force is not enough to win the final battle - I killed the final challenge twice before I realized what I really had to do to win. The ending wasn't what I expected - it was a bit of a change from the standard "kill the evil wizard" ending, and more in line with Ultima 5 for those that remember that. (And no, don't go looking for a sandalwood box!)

I played Heretic 2 for 8 hours solid and beat it. Given that it took a few days to get through Half-Life and Unreal, I was somewhat disappointed by how short it was. Of course, I played it for 8 hours solid without fail - I got pulled into it that much. Even if the single player game is that brief, there's still multi player, which even at the demo stage was excellent. It plays well on both LAN and modem and is supported by the popular server tracking software, GameSpy. User created maps have already sprung up for deathmatch, and it's safe to say that Heretic 2 is not about to disappear off the multi player scene anytime soon.

The control scheme is considerably different from the standard Quake engine game, due in no small part to the new perspective. Add in inventory management, and you have a lot of keys to setup. For the most part, I bound simple keys like movement and quick inventory management and left out any keys bound directly to items. It works quite well, and by the end of the training level, you should be able to master the controls. Add to this the ability to bind simple scripts and you have the simple yet powerful control system well known to all Quake players.

Looks like you can teach an old dog new tricks. Raven has taken the Quake 2 engine and given it more than just a coat of new paint. Between the skill of the level designers, the great textures from the 2D artists, and the amazing animation, it looks like a whole new game. The art looks crisp and detailed, as opposed to the blurry and muddled look in most Quake engine games. Corvus' illness is well depicted, as his "skin" changes from level to level showing the advancing stages of the plague. The weapon effects, as I stated earlier, have to be seen in action - screenshots just don't do them credit. Arms, heads and other parts fly when Corvus' staff goes to work. Some of the attacks of the boss enemies are just amazing, bear witness to the amazing beam of light that the very first one attacks you with. Corvus is amazingly well animated,,as are all his foes - the attention to detail in this regard is excellent. Fogging effects in the swamp and elsewhere are well done, and are a nice inclusion.

Ambient sounds are present in every level, from crickets and frogs in the swamps to more ominous tones in the final encounter. The voiceover in the cinematic sequences is well done and interesting; aside from that, the sound is adequate. Some nice touches are the clicking language of the insect race and the barking orders of the overseers in the mines - not to mention the dancing and singing of their not-so-helpless victims when you free them.

You insert the CD and tell it to install. Pretty painless. Drivers and Direct X 6.0 come on the CD that means there's little if anything for you to worry about. 360MB hurts though - hard drives may be getting cheaper, but not that cheap and not that fast.

Heretic 2 is a really nice game. It shows that the Quake 2 engine is by no means out of the race in terms of first person shooters. (This was something I had started to wonder about when I saw the mission packs...) Of course, we pretty well knew this from Half-Life, but Heretic 2 shows that even great modifications are possible with success. If you've played all the previous Heretic universe games, this is certainly a worthy successor, and a creative addition at that.