If you like First Person Shooters, Heretic is definitely the abandonware game for you. Because it is based on the Doom / Doom Two engine, play is very simple and obvious so the player can concentrate on solving the (relatively simple) puzzles and ridding the world of assorted monsters and other baddies.
Heretic is set in a traditional dungeon crawling world where one brave wizard (that’s you, buddy!) is on a mission to clear each level, pick up treasure and, of course, survive the experience.
As you walk, run and even fly through staircases, rivers, pits, paths and tunnels, you will encounter everything from skeletons (relatively easy to handle) to demons (considerably tougher!). As you move around, you collect power ups ranging from additional “ammo” for your magical arsenal, armor, life points and special bonuses including the ability to fly.
Game play is very simple. Most control is done using the keyboard (and yes, you can re-define the controls to suit your own way of playing). Unlike Doom, you can look up and down, vital since height is used to liven up the game play (like Doom, paths can never cross but the use of different heights makes you forget this until you look closely at the game map).
Multiplayer gaming
is supported, but only on IPX networks, so some digging through legacy network settings is required. As far as internet play goes, probably the best thing is to forget it unless you can simulate a null modem over the internet. Multiplayer games can be co-operative, teaming up to deal with the level as quickly as possible, or death match, where only one rule applies “if it moves, kill it!”. Inter player chat is allowed, with pre-programmed “chat macros” letting you tell your (soon to be ex) friends to “Eat &*^% and die” at the press of a couple of keys. A little niggle is that when one player exits a level, all others are teleported out too, letting someone doing badly pull everyone out. Unusually for a game of this vintage, it is possible to record a multiplayer game and then play it back from any player’s perspective.
Although the graphics are not of the same quality as the later Quakes, the simplicity of play makes Heretic a good game to come back to again and again to fill in the odd five minutes. If you haven’t tried it yet, give it a go!
