shhhusta
4 reviews liked by shhhusta
Never played the Serious Sam games before besides a very short five minute session in "The Next Encounter" when I was a kid on my PS2. How the fuck did I not know about Serious Sam? I'm a huge HUGE Doom fan, or fan of old school FPS in general, this is like Doom Eternal in 2001! I had so much fun with Serious Sam and if you are a fan of old school shooters and haven't played this, YOU'VE GOT TO.
The Legend of Zelda
1986
Legendary game, good for its time, but mechanics are outdated and hard to navigate without the manual.
Left 4 Dead 2
2009
Endless co-op fun
This review contains spoilers
2011. My first Thanksgiving back from college. I'm at my friend's house, because I never really got along with my family. The Central Valley is cold this time of year, and it's cold inside that little house as we bust out his old N64 and put in a game I've never heard of, but the name is cool so I'm down. I pick the Fighter (obviously, if you know us) and he picks the Mage, (obviously, if you know us) and we're off.
We must have played this thing's shitty N64 port for twelve hours straight. We got stuck at the Dragon Chapel, we couldn't figure out how to get past the rotating pillars. In those hours we encountered some of the most devious traps and heinous bullshit backtracking puzzles we have ever seen in a game like this. We swore we would get our revenge on this creation. We're going to beat Hexen someday.
A few days later, I download Steam and I buy Hexen 2 (because Hexen wasn't on the Steam store yet). I have still not played Hexen 2. Someday. When Hexen 1 comes out on Steam, I buy it for us both. We're going to beat Hexen someday.
For awhile, I live with him, and now and then we try playing over LAN. We'll get to the second hub or so, save our game, and then something will come up. We're going to beat Hexen someday. We aren't in any rush.
2021. We are different people than we were that first break back from college. We've been through a lot of things, drifted apart, drifted together, grown and changed and stayed the same. Neither of us live in California anymore. I'm on the West Coast and he's on the East Coast. We're going to beat Hexen someday. We figure out how to run multiplayer through GZDoom. I have to forward ports like it's 1999 or something. That's nothing compared to what lies in the game.
I'm still a fighter, this time he's a cleric. We solve all the puzzles on the Seven Portals for what feels like the hundredth time. We open that stupid rotating pillar door. No idea why we couldn't do it back then. There's so much worse bullshit later on. We almost soft lock our game in the Gibbet (if you know you know).
I love this game so much and I hate this game so much. I love the atmosphere of it, the moodiness of the art, the elegance of the classes and their weapons, the speed and moment-to-moment simplicity that a Doom engine game promises and delivers, the challenge of the encounters. I hate how completely fucking obtuse it is, how it alternates between delighting in your suffering and being completely indifferent to it, how you will run in more circles than the Indy 500, how you either must have a guide or lack a life to have any chance of making it to the end.
There are not a lot of individuals I would earnestly recommend Hexen to. I think if you want a good retro FPS, you have it in DOOM, and if you want it to be fantasy-themed, you have that in Heretic. There are games that are harder on purpose, though I feel that there are few games I've played that are as hard on accident as Hexen seems to be.
It's true that, overall, I enjoyed my time with Hexen, as much as I despised individual moments within it. If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that my taste in games is weird, and even then I would not consider it one of my favorite games, or one of the games that says a lot about what I value in games.
It is, nonetheless, probably the most important game I have played.
My best friend Katare and I beat Hexen on August 26, 2021.
We must have played this thing's shitty N64 port for twelve hours straight. We got stuck at the Dragon Chapel, we couldn't figure out how to get past the rotating pillars. In those hours we encountered some of the most devious traps and heinous bullshit backtracking puzzles we have ever seen in a game like this. We swore we would get our revenge on this creation. We're going to beat Hexen someday.
A few days later, I download Steam and I buy Hexen 2 (because Hexen wasn't on the Steam store yet). I have still not played Hexen 2. Someday. When Hexen 1 comes out on Steam, I buy it for us both. We're going to beat Hexen someday.
For awhile, I live with him, and now and then we try playing over LAN. We'll get to the second hub or so, save our game, and then something will come up. We're going to beat Hexen someday. We aren't in any rush.
2021. We are different people than we were that first break back from college. We've been through a lot of things, drifted apart, drifted together, grown and changed and stayed the same. Neither of us live in California anymore. I'm on the West Coast and he's on the East Coast. We're going to beat Hexen someday. We figure out how to run multiplayer through GZDoom. I have to forward ports like it's 1999 or something. That's nothing compared to what lies in the game.
I'm still a fighter, this time he's a cleric. We solve all the puzzles on the Seven Portals for what feels like the hundredth time. We open that stupid rotating pillar door. No idea why we couldn't do it back then. There's so much worse bullshit later on. We almost soft lock our game in the Gibbet (if you know you know).
I love this game so much and I hate this game so much. I love the atmosphere of it, the moodiness of the art, the elegance of the classes and their weapons, the speed and moment-to-moment simplicity that a Doom engine game promises and delivers, the challenge of the encounters. I hate how completely fucking obtuse it is, how it alternates between delighting in your suffering and being completely indifferent to it, how you will run in more circles than the Indy 500, how you either must have a guide or lack a life to have any chance of making it to the end.
There are not a lot of individuals I would earnestly recommend Hexen to. I think if you want a good retro FPS, you have it in DOOM, and if you want it to be fantasy-themed, you have that in Heretic. There are games that are harder on purpose, though I feel that there are few games I've played that are as hard on accident as Hexen seems to be.
It's true that, overall, I enjoyed my time with Hexen, as much as I despised individual moments within it. If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that my taste in games is weird, and even then I would not consider it one of my favorite games, or one of the games that says a lot about what I value in games.
It is, nonetheless, probably the most important game I have played.
My best friend Katare and I beat Hexen on August 26, 2021.
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