Oh what a fantastic game Heretic is. This is my original choice of favorite old school FPS. Now I am a major lover of all things which involve medivial ages, fantasy, monsters, demons, witches, werewolves blah blah blah and I prefer fantasy of reality/sci fi any day. Thus inspite of Wolf being fun there was a certain something missing in it for me. This void was completed by Heretic, one more masterpiece by ID Software which was released in 1994 .
Players took the role of a nameless Elven hero whose race, the Sidhe, was nearly eliminated by a horde of evil monsters from another dimension. The player must first fight through the undead hordes infesting the "City of the Damned". The game starting skill levels are coolly named with Thou needeth a wet-nurse, Yellowbellies-r-us, Bringest them oneth, Thou art a smite-meister, Black plague possesses thee.
Enemies are super awesome like Disciples of D'Sparil - dark wizards with black robes and faceless hoods who throw orbs at you. Golems which are humanoids made up of rocks that attack up close with their fists. Nitrogolems are more powerful Golems that have an attack where they charge up an aura of flames, and then launch a screaming fire skull that homes in on their victim. It also has undead warriors, Iron Liches and Gargoyles.
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| Disciple of D'Sparil |
This is a dark game spread in an eerie looking empty world where occasional enemies lurk behind closed doors and dark corners with levels in set ups of docks, a citadel by a river, crypts, a dungeon, a cathedral (very spooky) and even a secret graveyard level!
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| Gargoyles |
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| Golems |
The music in the cathedral level was so spooky and haunting that it was stuck in my head for hours after I played the level. In fact it disturbed me so much that I actually went to a temple and prayed to god to get it out of my head.
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| The Cathedral Level |
Now I played Heretic many times over because I really loved it (and as I write about it I feel an immense desire to play it once again) so I started blasting cheery pop music in my next innings to avoid the haunting melodies of the game and to create a lighter environment. Thus, to this day when I hear Jennifer Lopez's hit debut single - If you had my love, all I can think of is my heretic characted in a particular level with grey skies and tall boundary walls. I was listening to that song a lot those days while playing the game :)
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| This part makes me start playing Jennifer Lopez's music in my head |
Special items are available and upon activation give you special powers for a limited amount of time. One of the most powerful pickups that can be found is the "Tome of Power" which creates a much more powerful projectile from each weapon, some of which change the look of the projectile entirely. The best out of them is the Morph ovum, which transforms enemies into chickens! If the player gets hit by a morph ovum projectile, they will transform into a chicken, and will have only 30% of their health. Heretic also features an improved version of the Doom engine, sporting the ability to look up and down within constraints, as well as fly.
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| Iron Liches |
FUN FACTS : Heretic contains different cheat codes that variously give the player invulnerability, all weapons, kill everything on a particular level. However, if the player uses the "all weapons" cheat code from Doom, a message appears warning the player against cheating and takes away all of his weapons, leaving him with only a quarterstaff. If the player uses the "god mode" cheat from Doom, the game will display a message saying "Trying to cheat, eh? Now you die!" and kills the player.
