In my opinion it is better than Quake. I'd recomend it even by todays high standards.

User Rating: 9 | Hexen II PC
Rating: 9.2/10
Genre: Fantasy FPS/RPG
Replay value: Four differen characters means it has 4 times the lifespan!

BACKSTORY
Ages ago, there existed a place suspended between time and space known as the chaos sphere. Within this celestial orb, demons rove, and one day the foolishness of humanity outdid their better judgement, and the sphere was pierced. Before it could reform, three brothers escaped from the sphere, and were known as the serpent riders therein. For the world of Thyrion, from which your character hails, the serpent riders existed as little more than myth. Stories were told of a forgotten world that was targeted by the demons, whose aim was to possess that which they did not control. This world was Pithoris - the setting for Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders. When the demons had corrupted the seven nations of the world, the two most powerful among them left for new and greater quarry, leaving their weaker sibling, D'sparil to root out the last resistance of Pithrois - the Sidhe elves. Little did they know that the Sidhe had a champion among them who took it upon himself to gather the artefacts of the fallen nations in an effort to kill D'sparil. He was successful. Soon after, the remaining serpent riders came upon the world of Hexen. The role of Eidolon - the most powerful of the serpent riders - in this war in Hexen is unclear. His weaker sibling Korax took to the field and "Perverted the leaders of the world to do his bidding", but was undone, like D'sparil, by the resiliance of an underestimated enemy, or in this case, three enemies. It came as a dark shock to Thyrion when they realised that these were not myth, but real events, and Eidolon turned his rage and lust for revenge against Thyrion. Probably in an effort not to underestimate his foes like his brothers did, he summoned the four horsemen of the apocalypse to guide his armies, and swept over the world. Within a day, he had decimated it...

STORY
As one of four heroes, you must follow in the footsteps of a former hero who failed in his mission. you must rise up and cleanse the influence of Eidolon and the Serpent riders forever. By defeating the four horsemen - Famine, Death, Pestalence and War, you will gain access to the tower of Eidolon himself, and the domain of the chaos sphere with it. By doing this, the demons that plagued the worlds of humanity will have no more damage to deal... or at least... until the expansion pack and heretic 2...

GAMEPLAY
You can choose between four characters, each has his or her own abilities and weapons. They are the Paladin, whose melee preferences make him ideal for up close and personal situations. The Crusader whose weapons drink mana - the games ammo source - but do horrific levels of damage. The necromancer who inexplicably cannot raise the dead, but is magically affluent. And the Assassin, whose melee weapon gains double damage if she strikes from behind. The game is seperated into five Hubs, which are the medieval castle of Blackmarsh, where Human thralls roam, the Mesoamerican temples of Mazera and its were-jaguars, the deserts of Thysis where giant scorpions and mummies abode, the city of Greeco-Roman Septimus, where medusa seek to turn you to stone, and lastly you return to Blackmarsh, but the stakes are higher than before and the enemies laugh in your face as you scurry in their midsts. Each one provides its own host of demons and puzzles. The puzzles tend to be as confusing as the following sentence. "Find the key to open the door in which you will find the key to open the door in which the key to the place where the key is, which opens the door to the item you need to kill the crystal golem is". You get the point.
There is even one puzzle in Thysis which is so "I'll check online-ish" that it'll have purist games murdering their dog in anger. However, for the most part, i like the intricracy of the puzzles. It makes a welcome rest from the fighting, which brings me to the main part of the game. The combat. Unlike most FPS games of the time, your character levels up and learns new abilities as they do so. To level up, you must kill enemies, which are many in number and variety and not to be taken lightly. Unlike a lot of FPS games made at before Hexen 2, this game does not attempt to escalate its difficulty by overwhelming the player with numbers of weak enemies, like Doom or Hexen 1. In Hexen one, there is a place near the end in which about 50 Ettins, the first enemy in the game, ambush you and try and murder you, which is annoying for me. Instead, this game will raise the stakes by placing new enemies in the next room, or old ones in new ways. It keeps the game fresh, as you never know what enemy awaits you through the next portal or doorway.

GRAPHICS
At the time, it was customary to invent a new adjective to describe the graphics in games like this. It was one of two games in my history which i wanted to play so much that i actually bought a new computer to play, albeit it was my Dad who bought it - me being only seven or eight at the time (The other being Super Smash Melee and a Gamecube). This game was a "Crysis" among its adversaries, not least of all because it caused a crisis for other developers as it set a new benchmark for games that theirs did'nt meet. It was the first game i played on an actual PC - before all i had played was a C64 - so you can imagine my reactions to it. It is because of this that I hold it in such high esteem today, and i think anyone who played it in 1998 would as well. Seriously, even by modern standards it would get a 2.5/10 on graphics, which may not sound much, but this game is 12 years old! i mean, some games today are scoring less!

SOUND
Horshack. Whatever it means, it never ceases to chill when an Archer lord bellows it out as he tries to pin an arrow in your forehead. All of the creatures you face are terrific in their array of sounds. The narrator in the intro sounds especially convincing. (Look it up on Youtube to see what i mean - "Hexen 2 Intro"). The music is also aptly gothic, if a bit limited.

LIFESPAN
the first four Hubs should take about 7 hours each to complete for the first time through, and the fifth about 4. Thats 32 hours, and there is four different characters! The secondary playthroughs will be significantly shorter because you will know all of the puzzles and secrets, but it still amounts to a good fifty hours or so.

OVERALL
9.2/10. You can get this game on Steam for less than "Five" of whatever your currency is. Go and buy it, you won't be let down.