17th August 2025, 9:37 AM
(This post was last modified: 17th August 2025, 9:38 AM by A Black Falcon.)
In 1995, some friends of mine gave me two then somewhat older PC games as gifts, Hexen and Master of Magic. It probably was the first FPS that I owned. I'd played a few shareware games like Wolf 3D and Ken's Labyrinth, but didn't have any. I liked both games, but Hexen's really hard! I most definitely didn't finish it; I highly doubt I got out of the first big hub (was that the second hub after a little first one? I forget.). Figuring out what to do in that large world full of enemies and puzzles is quite challenging.
I did not buy Hexen 2 or Heretic 2 when they released, but I know that Hexen 2 is, again, a complex puzzle-focused title, though I think it's less nonlinear than Hexen 1? After that, though, Raven clearly made the decision to make their games more linear and straightforward, and that's where you see the simple, action-focused Raven shooters we saw after that, including Heretic 2, the Star Trek Elite Force games, the Star Wars Jedi Knight 2 and Jedi Academy titles, and such. I have always thought negatively of Raven's simplistic Star Wars games compared to Lucasarts' dramatically better and more complex Jedi Knight 1. Yes, JK1's still my favorite FPS. However, I get why Raven went in that direction; I mean, Hexen's really cool, but how many people are going to actually get through that difficult and complex title? I didn't, and I bet a lot of other people didn't either. In comparison, Elite Force 1 (to mention my favorite of that later batch of Raven titles) is a game that anyone can finish. It's a fun thrillride without the depth or complexity of their earlier titles but with plenty of fun moments and action. Is this a worse game than what Hexen did because of how it aims at a much larger mass audience and was designed for anyone to be able to finish it, instead of being designed only for the truly skilled and dedicated to be able to complete the adventure? In a way yes, but also it's just a change in philosophy. Overall I think both games are pretty close in quality, they're both solid B games. I'd probably give the slight edge to Hexen though. Their Star Wars games though I think are a lot weaker than that. Some of that is certainly bias against them because of how huge the downgrade from JK1 is, but I also think they're below average games in general.
Some time after that Raven got attached to the CoD series, and all they do now is be part of the CoD machine. I don't like or play that series.
As for this release, it's pretty neat that anyone who owned the previous releases gets this free. I probably would not have bought this on PC, but I don't need to think about it, since I got the Heretic and Hexen series previously now I have this. I haven't tried it yet but maybe I will.
I did not buy Hexen 2 or Heretic 2 when they released, but I know that Hexen 2 is, again, a complex puzzle-focused title, though I think it's less nonlinear than Hexen 1? After that, though, Raven clearly made the decision to make their games more linear and straightforward, and that's where you see the simple, action-focused Raven shooters we saw after that, including Heretic 2, the Star Trek Elite Force games, the Star Wars Jedi Knight 2 and Jedi Academy titles, and such. I have always thought negatively of Raven's simplistic Star Wars games compared to Lucasarts' dramatically better and more complex Jedi Knight 1. Yes, JK1's still my favorite FPS. However, I get why Raven went in that direction; I mean, Hexen's really cool, but how many people are going to actually get through that difficult and complex title? I didn't, and I bet a lot of other people didn't either. In comparison, Elite Force 1 (to mention my favorite of that later batch of Raven titles) is a game that anyone can finish. It's a fun thrillride without the depth or complexity of their earlier titles but with plenty of fun moments and action. Is this a worse game than what Hexen did because of how it aims at a much larger mass audience and was designed for anyone to be able to finish it, instead of being designed only for the truly skilled and dedicated to be able to complete the adventure? In a way yes, but also it's just a change in philosophy. Overall I think both games are pretty close in quality, they're both solid B games. I'd probably give the slight edge to Hexen though. Their Star Wars games though I think are a lot weaker than that. Some of that is certainly bias against them because of how huge the downgrade from JK1 is, but I also think they're below average games in general.
Some time after that Raven got attached to the CoD series, and all they do now is be part of the CoD machine. I don't like or play that series.
As for this release, it's pretty neat that anyone who owned the previous releases gets this free. I probably would not have bought this on PC, but I don't need to think about it, since I got the Heretic and Hexen series previously now I have this. I haven't tried it yet but maybe I will.
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