Hexen

"A Dark Game, But It's Nothing Great"

Hexen is a game that's got an interesting concept, but that's about all that's interesting about it. This game has a lot of flaws that bring the level of fun and enjoyment down, but there are some good things to it.

Story: 7/10
Hexen has a bit of an interesting story to it... The world of Cronos is one of strict order and balance, controlled by three institutions...the Legion, the Arcanum, and the Church. Nothing happens that these three don't control. One day, a dimension traveling Serpent rider known as Korax appears on Cronos. He sways the leader of each institution and offers then the gift of Unlife, and soon Cronos and everyone on it is under his control. All except for three people... Baratus of the Legion, Daedolon of the Arcanum, and Parias of the Church. Together, these three enter the dimension portal through which Korax appeared. However, they are separated, and must do alone what they had little hope of doing together...defeating Korax and saving their planet from his sway.

Graphics: 5/10
This game came out in the early days of the N64, and thus it lacks the prettier graphics of later FPS such as Perfect Dark. The pop-up in this game is often and noticeable, which detracts from the whole 'roaming the darkness' experience. Characters and enemies are very simplistic looking with not too many details in them, and environments and walls melt together with everything else at a distance, making for a dark colored mess. If you don't have the brightness on your TV up, it can be difficult to see enemies, and you can wind up dead quick.

Sound: 6/10
The sounds in this game really aren't that great, but they are pretty good for the N64. Some of the sounds also become necessary due to the horrible graphics, because when you notice you're dying and can't see anything killing you, you can usually hear whatever it is chewing on you. Some of the weapon and death sounds are pretty cool though, very gruesome and barbaric sounding. And there's one voice that pops up every now and then which is kind of evil sounding, and he says some interesting things. Overall, the sounds here aren't that good, but they really aren't horrible either.

Control: 4/10
Wow...there are a lot of problems here. The N64 controller just does NOT work well with this game. Movement is very hard at best, and controlling your character can be a real pain in the butt at times. This is especially bad when you're surrounded by enemies and are trying to escape. There's really nothing that great about the controls in this game, they're just difficult. It'll take you a good hour or so to get used to them.

Gameplay: 7/10
Well, this is where Hexen offers some new ideas and innovations. You have the choice of playing as three different characters, all of which control and play differently than any of the others. You have a Warrior, who is the strongest and fastest, but he's not good with magic and must attack close range; the Mage who is physically the weakest of the three and the slowest, but he has the most powerful magic and can kill enemies from afar with his weapons, and finally the Cleric, who is a mix of the previous two classes. This is a pretty cool thing to do for a FPS, but it doesn't get done properly in my opinion. The characters don't have different levels or game stories, and the weapons available for each are VERY limited...four apiece, and you have to find pieces of the fourth throughout the game to assemble it. However, you can get some sub-weapons that everyone can use, such as the very unique porkelator, which will turn your enemy into a pig. You can also summon a Golem to protect you and kill your enemies. Aside from these interesting aspects though, it's your standard poorly done FPS gameplay. Hexen has a multiplayer, but the poor graphics, poor framerate, and poor controls make this very hard to enjoy, and it isn't even really worth your time. Stick to the single player.

Replay Value: 3/10
With so many flaws and such a poor single player mode (which is VERY difficult, might I add) and the multiplayer is so horrible, playing this game more than once will take quite a bit of effort, and most likely some tylenol.

Buy or Rent?
This game will definitely not be for everyone. In fact, it's probably only for a very select group of people who are either die hard fans of the Hexen series or must have every FPS. As a FPS fanboy, I wasn't very impressed with this game, and I never really got into it. You should definitely RENT this game first.

OVERALL: 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 06/23/02, Updated 06/23/02