Software Review
Copyright (c) 1995, Joe DeRouen
All rights reserved


Heretic Reviewed
by Joe DeRouen



I wanted to dislike the game.  I really did.  It just isn't the sort of
entertainment I normally enjoy.  I'm more the Return to Zork or Myst
type, and I rarely play shoot-em'-up graphic violence types of games. 
After about fifteen minutes of playing ID Software's new shareware
release Heretic, however, I was hooked. 

Heretic is a sequel of sorts to Doom and Doom II (also from ID) in terms
of the 3D game engine and style of execution, however the setting is in
another world entirely.  In Doom, your avatar is a marine bent on
ridding Hell of all it's demons and devils.  In Heretic, you play the
role of a vengeful Sidhe (pronounced "She") out to right the wrongs laid
upon his race by the evil Order of the Triad.  The Sidhe, offers the
manual, are a race of ancient elves adept in arcane sorcery and keepers
of the tomes of power.  You must find your way through ruins filled with
gargoyles, golems, undead warriors, and several other gruesome fiends
bent on forever ending your quest.  Several powerful Sidhe weapons and
equipment, such as the powerful Dragon's Claw and the healing quartz
flask, lie hidden in the ruins.  It's up to you to find them - as well
as the keys that unlock the doors to deeper levels - before the monsters
find you.  Your ultimate goal is to gain revenge for your race and maybe
even kill D'Sparil, one of the members of the Order of the Triad, in the
process. 

Sound convoluted?  It is.  The plot is summed up in about six paragraphs
in the manual and is even less clear than the synopsis I just attempted.
Get past the absence of a plot, however, and you'll find yourself having
fun and enjoying Heretic for what it is: an excellent arcade game
complete with stunning in-your-face graphics, a hauntingly brooding
sound track, and spine-tingling special effects that help to make this
illusion of reality complete. 

The fluid movement and quick reaction time of your player (not to
mention that of his enemies!) provides the final touch of realism. 
Movement is controlled by either keyboard, mouse, or joystick.  You can
turn and maneuver in any direction, even staring at the ceilings or the
floors.  I've played Heretic for hours, always with a critical eye, and
have yet to find a glitch in graphics or movement continuity. 

If you have access to a LAN, modem, the Internet, or the new DWANGO
network, you can play in multi-player mode.  You can team up with a
friend or two to combat the forces of evil or pit forces against each
other in Deathmatch mode.  Up to four people can play Heretic via
multi-player mode, and instructions on setting up such a game are
explained clearly in a text file called README.TXT included with the
game. 

A lot of people are going to view Heretic as Doom in a fantasy world. 
Up to a point, that's true.  You shoot monsters using a variety of
weapons, as you do in Doom.  You search for treasures.  You look for
entrances to other levels of your confines.  You can play multi-player. 
Doom has all that as well.  But Heretic does it all better.  ID managed
to top themselves and in doing so set a new standard to be beat. 

The game, however, is not without it's flaws.  Installation from the CD
ROM (or four 3.5" floppies) requires a whopping 20 Meg of free hard
drive space.  When installed, though, the game only takes up 12 Meg.  I
had to delete several programs and files to make room for the game.  If
the decompression program had been different, it wouldn't have had to
require more space than it actually needed.  That's going to be a
problem for some people and something that probably could have been
prevented with a little foresight and work.  

Also, the very selling point about Heretic - it's realism - gives me a
headache.  Literally.  You can get so lost in the game that you become
dizzy simply following your character's descent through twisting
passages and winding hallways.   Finally looking up, you'll be stunned
to realize that you've spent the last three hours staring at the screen
pressing your keys or turning the joysticks.  Just remember to take a
break now and then and come back to the real world for a bit.

All in all, though, Heretic is well worth the registration price of
forty dollars.  Thus far, I've enjoyed nearly ten hours of
heart-pounding game excitement and I'm just barely past the third level
of Episode One.  A good gamer can look forward to literally dozens of
hours of monster chasing and treasure hunting fun. 

Heretic requires a minimum IBM compatible 486/33 with 4 megs of RAM as
well as a 100% Sound Blaster compatible sound card.

Heretic is available from ID Software.  You can download the shareware
version on your better BBS's around the country.  The shareware version
includes only the first of three episodes and, while certainly playable,
is more of a sampler than a main dish. To purchase the registered
version ($40.00) call 1(800)ID-GAMES.  Specify CD or 3.5" when ordering.

(c) 1995 Joe DeRouen.  All rights reserved.