They are remastering many classic 1990s first person shooters these days and I am here for it. I’ve recently enjoyed Powerslave: Exhumed and Quake, but one series I had no hope of seeing redone has finally emerged with the complete series in one collection, with new add-on levels as well. Heretic + Hexen was a surprise announcement a few weeks ago with an immediate release at a low price. For me, it appeared on XBox's Super Elite Platinum Plus Game Pass thing, so it was there as a part of my subscription.
I had only played the spin-off game Hexen previously, on a great Nintendo 64 version, but I found it pretty cool and will eventually go back and beat it too. But first was Heretic, because I like to play series of games in order if I can. In essence, Heretic is a re-skinned Doom game, using a modified version of the Doom engine, that plays like Doom with a few exceptions.
There is now an inventory and items that can be used at will, rather than as it was in Doom where the item activated once you picked it up. They were fun to use and added another strategic dimension to the whole thing, where I would hoard them and then use them in a panic as needed.
Just like Doom, there are secret areas to be found, and the game totals your kills and the percentage of secrets you found at the end. The magic weapons are fun to explore, and like Doom, get better and more powerful as you go. Ammo is not unreasonably tight in supply but shortages can happen if one relies on one particular weapon too much, as I did the green crossbow.
It was long enough to be fun but short enough not to wear out its welcome, so I will definitely be back to beat Hexen sooner rather than later. With all these remakes of 1990s first person classics, won't somebody remake Redneck Rampage? I only got to play a few minutes of it back in the day so I'd appreciate an update of that one too, if any game companies or their AIs are listening.
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