JOE714's Review of Hexen II Mission Pack: Portal of Praevus

Despite its age, The Portal of Praevus still provides a very entertaining close to the Serpent Riders saga...

User Rating: 9.3 | Hexen II Mission Pack: Portal of Praevus PC

By JOE714 | Review Date: September 18, 2006

Despite the fact that I wore the sectors of my hard drive that housed Hexen 2 to a frazzle – playing through it several times as each of the four iconic characters, not to mention all the time spent chasing down Eidolon’s dirtbag brothers in Heretic and Hexen – I was very eager to grab a copy of the game’s expansion pack. The gameplay was what drew me back; even though most of Praevus’ minions were just as brick-dumb as before, with an intellect sufficient to do little more than duck, dodge, and run directly at the player, Hexen 2’s Quake-based battle mechanics were gratifyingly intense. The addition of the Demoness as a fifth unique character made up for the expansion’s relative brevity, since the new content was essentially a single extended episode with Asian influences similar to the original campaign’s settings in Medieval England, Greece, South America, and Egypt. Like the Medusae endemic to Septimus or the jackal-headed mummies found only in Thysis, the expansion included some interesting additions to Hexen’s stock of fantastical fauna that related directly to the game’s Tibetan theme.

Notable Feature: The Demoness, if only because it’s almost always more fun to play as one of the bad guys. While it’s true that the Necromancer and Assassin were far from angelic, and that none of the characters’ alignment had an effect on the game’s story arc, drawing the fifth adventurer from the waning remnant of Eidolon’s army tied the expansion to the Serpent Riders trilogy more effectively than the first Hexen’s expansion pack, Deathkings of the Dark Citadel. That’s not to say that Deathkings wasn’t remarkably fun, by the way, or that following the trilogy’s storyline was emphasized much by the games’ designers. The succubus’ background simply reflected Raven Software’s consideration for the importance of character and motivation to even a rudimentary role-playing model; her addition to the list of characters made sense.

Favorite Weapon: The Demoness brought her black magic to the fight, flicking blood and casting spells and wielding a huge batwinged staff. However, all of those were just redesigned versions of the weapons used by the other four characters. The Crusader’s Lightbringer held top honors as the most effective of the bunch – almost unfairly so, since it was as easy to use as a laser pointer and relatively modest in its consumption of mana.

Favorite Enemy: I found myself running away from the loud, huge, and devastating Yakmen in abject fear. Like the roaring Hell Barons from Doom and nigh-indestructible Gargs in Half-Life, a good FPS enemy evokes fear through a combination of appearance and endurance. Anyone who was ever chased by a territorial bull in real life (as I was in my early teens) could tap directly into the panic of running blindly from Praevus’ Yakmen.

Favorite Level: The booby-trapped hallways and icy arenas of the entire episode are very well-designed, in terms of both layout (plenty of room to strafe and sling flechettes) and appearance.

The entire Serpent Riders series is imaginatively detailed and still a lot of fun despite the fact that the original Doom and Quake engines are extremely long in the tooth. Anyone who can find a copy of Heretic, the Hexens, Deathkings, and the Portal of Praevus (whether online or stuffed in the back of a drawer full of retired games) might enjoy a quick quest for the Chaos Sphere across those worlds.

Hexen II

Despite its age, The Portal of Praevus still provides a very entertaining close to the Serpent Riders saga...

Ultima Thule how thou at times hath taunted I!

Play this game with updated UQE 2006 graphics!!!