Friday 3 August 2007

A Quick look at Hexen and Warcraft 2

Here is a quick look at two of the PC ports that made an appearance on the Saturn that I recently bought. I will go through a quick summary of each game including some Pros and Cons.

Hexen - Sega Saturn Version.



Pros:

Doom Clone

Cons:

Doom clone

No really, this is one of the games I played on the PC back in the day and I gotta say that I have a bit of a soft spot for this game.


This game looks badly pixelated and crappy. There is no way around that. If you expecting something that looks better than Doom, don't. There are a wide variety of monsters and hallways though...but they all look very dated.

It's a first person shooter. In terms of gameplay it's in between Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. You can jump and fly but you can't duck. You also get an inventory for items.


It's got a few RPG elements to it. You can choose one of three characters to play and you get different weapons and strengths from each.


The control scheme for weapon and item switching just plain sucks. It sucks. You have to hold in the "z" key then use the direction pad to scroll through the weapons... When I played the PC game I would use the basic melee weapon to save ammo. Then when a badass flying imp on fire would pop out I could quickly press a number key to select a better weapon to blast it to bits. In the Saturn version you would have to sit there like a moron flipping through your weapon collection until you got the right one (all the while getting ripped to shreds). I guess you have to turn tail and run until you get a free second to switch weapons.

Also you can't save normally unless you have a memory cart. That's OK for a Saturn nut like me but it's a bit disappointing for people who are not planning to buy extra memory. There is a password system that allows you to skip around the levels.

All in all I think it's a fun game. Controls and general look of the game is WAY better on PC.

What I paid: $5 for game with case and manual.

What it's worth: Honestly about $4, $6 Mint, $8 Unopened. (USD)

Warcraft II: The Dark Saga





Pros:

Contains the original Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness and its expansion pack, The Dark Portal.

Looks just as good as the PS version making this just about the best value console version of the game.

OK music.


Cons:

No multiplayer.

No extra levels or features. (except for minor stuff like auto build)

Not as fun without the mouse. Controls in general are worse.

The graphics look ALOT worse on the Saturn compared to PC versions.


The pros and cons pretty much sum it up for this game. If for some reason you can't find a decent version of the Warcraft 2 for the PC or can't run the original game then this game might be ok for you.
Basic strategy at it's best. (You know before Warcraft turned into a system to get losers to pay monthly fees it was an ACTUAL GAME! *shock*) Think of this game like a giant chess board where you can influence the number and strengths of the pieces.

What I paid - $3 for the disk

What it's worth? - There are some insanely high ebay prices for this game. Thats gonna throw things off. However I will still say $5, $8 Mint, $10 unopened. (USD) There is no point in letting ebay hype decide your prices.

For example I just got all three Final Fantasy 7 disks in working condition for $1. Some dude that works at Gamestop had some guy give him a whole bag of video games including FF7 for free. For a laugh check out what the morons on ebay are paying for this game....Don't let ebay decide what you will pay for a video game.

3 comments:

fatherkrishna said...

Another top quality post Caleb! I didn't know about either of these games! Warcraft II: dark Saga...So this is the grandaddy of WOW? Amazing!

I think of the two, I like the look of Hexen more...

On the FF front ALL those games seem to fetch a very high price these days and they're sold in places you wouldn't expect like comic stores and such... Personally I only played one for about an hour and it did nothing for me.

Great to have you back posting on the SJY, I know you're a busy man!!

NebachadnezzaR said...

Played both games on the pc, but I need to buy at least Warcraft II for the Saturn for completion's sake (yes, I'm a Warcraft addict).

Both great games, by the way, especially Warcraft II, one of the most important RTS's of all time.

Anonymous said...

I really liked your article.