It seems that the artist was more concerned with making the weapons and projectiles aesthetically pleasing, because they boast effects and animations that must have been quite impressive at the time and retain much of their charm to this day. While most of the creatures look ok, the animations used in this game tend to be limited to walk and attack cycles composed of just a few frames, which causes much of the action the appear a bit choppy. Generally, weapon sprites are very well made (with the Ethereal Crossbow and Phoenix Rod being my favorite) and monster sprites are decent, except for those that appear poorly proportioned, which may have been a stylistic choice. The quality of these sprites oscillates between good and mediocre. Sprites are generally used in Heretic for most objects in lieu of polygons due to technological limitations of the time. While early three dimensional games were often visually barren due to technological limitations, Raven did a good job of designing areas that had details such as flickering braziers, tapestries, smouldering lava flows, and stain glass windows. The 3D environments are somewhat crude, but have aged gracefully thanks to Heretic’s art style, which was fairly colorful. Heretic is also notable for its inventory system which is touted as the first to appear in a first person shooter. While Heretic may seem primitive by today’s standards, it runs beautifully and the fantasy setting is refreshing in a genre that is primarily dominated by military themed games. After slogging through the technical mess that was The Elder Scrolls: Arena, I could plainly see why Id Software’s DOOM engine was so highly lauded. Those familiar with the classic first person shooter, DOOM, will see a lot of similarities in Heretic, and rightfully so, since it uses the same engine. Click here if you wish to view the Heretic (DOS) description page for screenshots, save files, guides, and more information.Īfter giving my first DOS game a rather middling score, I decided to hunt down a better example of a classic computer game and stumbled upon an FPS title called Heretic.
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