Post by wafflerevolution on Sept 10, 2013 18:28:59 GMT
by Apathetic_Prick
One has you rampaging through labs, cities, warzones and temples, the other has you solving puzzles up and down until you're blue in the face - while rampaging across elemental planes, castles, dungeons and temples. What's not to like?
CyberMage: Darklight Awakening
Electronic Arts is pretty much looked upon by hardcore gamers as the antichrist of the gaming world, and for good reason; they absorbed their best subsidiaries and then dissolved them. Subsidiaries such as Westwood (which actually was the last to go), Bullfrog, and one of the best sci-fi and fantasy gaming studios around, Origin (which was one of the first to go). Before EA effectively told not only its fan base, but also its most talented developers to kiss their collective ass, they churned out a lot of incredible titles. CyberMage was one such title.
In 1995, Origin released its FPS magnum opus, CyberMage: Darklight Awakening. The story was composed by D.W. Bradley (Wizardry), who also was the head coder, and production was carried out by none other than Warren Spector (Ultima Underworld, System Shock). While it was well recieved, it was relegated to the bargain bin within a few months. Hardly anyone could afford it because of its nasty requirements (486 DX66 with 8MB of RAM, which it barely ran on in 320x200, and it makes my 233 MMX with 64 MB of RAM choke a little on 640x480) though anyone that could, would be blown away by its forward thinking and stellar concepts.
Cybermage was the first FPS to introduce vehicles, an economy (it's a year ahead of Strife) and genuine scripted sequences, such as the battles in the street between police and the armies of Necrom, the game's villain. And this is two years before Shadow Warrior, four years before Half-Life and Tribes and seven years before Halo.
The story of the game is told in two media, the first being a comic book that came with the game (although my EA C-l-a-s-s-ics version didn't have this in the box, so I'm assuming it's on the CD), and the second is through the game itself. You are the CyberMage, a cyborg with a psychokinetic gem linked directly to your brain. This is pretty much a reward for giving your life to save that of one of the game's central NPC's, M. Katt. At first, you don't really have any specific goals other than survive (the game starts with you breaking out of the lab you were reconstructed in), but eventually, you'll learn who the real antagonist is - Necrom, an individual much like yourself, except that he's much more powerful (not that this is not a spoiler as the back of the box would reveal as much).
The game has some very diverse environments, from labs and corporate offices to city streets (complete with high rises!), sewers, a warzone and a religious temple the game pretty much has it all covered.
Now, being a CyberMage, you have powers to compliment the weapons that you'll use as well; the game has 14 weapons and 8 attack powers to use. The powers feed off of a mana reserve, and you can increase this (as well as your health) by absorbing the souls of the enemies you kill. However, souls of innocent or good characters will reduce your health or mana (sometimes permanently). You aquire new powers by either getting hit by one you don't have (and early on in the game, you may want to think twice - or you may not get the opportunity to) or from Darklight artifacts, which look like small pyramids with spherical gems in them.
Another really cool feature of the game is its economy system. In the city centre, you can purchase weapons, health packs and armour upgrades. You can also gamble for more money, too, so that you can buy extremely powerful gear early on in the game (which you'll find you'll actually need).
As good as all of this sounds, the game also unfortunately suffered from at least one very nasty bug; the final (and most powerful) power can crash the game when used or if it's used on you - and being that Necrom is the final encounter, he will use this attack sometimes. While it's not game-breaking, it can be extremely frustrating.
The game also suffers from a terrible control setup. Thankfully controls can be remapped, although interestingly enough, the game plays much easier with a decent gamepad, I've found.
Lastly the game is hard as hell - although it's so beautiful and immersive (for a DOS game, the graphics are absolutely incredible), you may not be too perturbed. Or you just might.
Because of the game's excessive demands, I would recommend playing on a dedicated DOS machine, not an emulation. Even in the best machines, DOSBox probably runs no faster than a Pentium 90, and that's just not enough guts to play this game in its full glory. Unfortunately, the source code is not under public domain, so no source port exists to play this in Windows, or any other OS for that matter.
Hexen: Beyond Heretic
Some of us have heard of Raven Software, some have not. Anyone that has knows they're a company that has striven to break the mould with each and every release, from their breakthrough, Shadow Caster to their gruesome FPS titles Soldier of Fortune and SoF 2, which create replay by allowing you to choose your arsenal before you play your mission.
Hexen was a different kind of game, though. The sequel to the critically successful "Heretic", Hexen continued the story of the Serpent Riders, powerful alien creatures that enslaved worlds and dimensions; Hexen does not take place in the same world that Heretic does.
In Hexen, the protagonists will go after the Serpent Rider Korax, who has poisoned the realm, blah blah blah blah blah; the game is not exactly big on story.
Unlike Heretic, which was pretty much run-and-fry-get-key-hit-switch (no guns in Heretic, just magic-based weaponry), Hexen has a very strong emphasis on puzzle solving (although mostly switch-based, but this is the Doom engine we're talking about here). It also has some jumping required (and thus you actually are able to jump).
In Hexen, you select your character before you play; there's the warrior who specialises in melee combat, moves faster and has higher defence, the mage who specialises in ranged combat and could fight in CQB to save his life, and the cleric who dabbles in both and is essentially the happy medium. From there, you go forth into the game world. Weapons use mana - blue or green for weapons 2 and 3 and both for weapon 4 - and the inventory system from Heretic is carried over.
Hexen is different from most other Doom engine games in that its level structure, while linear in that after you complete an area you move onto the next, each area is an episode unto itself. Hexen uses a level system dubbed Hub level design that's based around the concept that multiple levels will link to a single central hub.
As you progress to different areas, each hub will get more and more complex. Hexen also has some level scripting, called ACS scripting; Raven really went to work on the Doom engine to make this game do what they wanted it to do.
ACS scripting is mostly level-based, although iirc, it's what Strife uses to create NPC's, so it is actually a lot more versatile. What it's used for, though, is for the puzzles across the hubs; it's what allows a switch on one level to affect another level inside the whole construct of the hub - whether it be a switch, a key activator or a line activator.
Aside from the PC, Hexen is available on the Nintendo N64, Sega Saturn and SONY Playstation. There is also a Windows sourceport availbale for it, Doomsday, which is linked to in my previous CCU Weekly spotlight entry (Modding), and there is a major mod for it, the Korax Mod. There are also some levels and mods created for it; it is a Doom engine game, after all.
Hexen also has an expansion, Deathkings of the Dark Citadel, which I unfortunately have not had the chance to play.
It also has a sequel, Hexen II, which was released for PC and Mac, and uses the Quake engine. Anyone who has it will want the New Hexen sourceport, as it doesn't play nice with modern videocards, and GLHexen2 was only meant to run off of a Voodoo Banshee or Voodoo 2.
Hexen 2, released in 1997, has 4 characters that can level up and attain new abilities. Unfortuantely I haven't gotten very far as its puzzles are nothing short of brutal.
Hexen 2 also has an expansion, The Portal of Praevus, which not only introduces new levels, but a new character as well, the Demonness. I have had no luck in finding this, although when I bought the Nightmare levels for Blood 2, the manual for Portal of Praevus was found in the jewelcase. Well, that's EB for you.
Hexen could be run in DOSBox, but you're wasting your effort; the sourceports allow you mouse aim and 3D acceleration - and higher resolutions to boot, so that's the way to go.