Just got back from holiday and it turns out that while I was away, we fans of 90s first-person gaming received a double helping of exciting new re-releases!

Heretic and Hexen

Let’s start with these fantasy shooters from Raven, both using the doom engine. Heretic came first, swapping cacodemons and chainguns for gargoyles and magic wands, but otherwise hewing quite close to Doom’s simple run-and-gun format. Hexen was the sort-of-sequel that tried to be a bit clever with hub-based levels and puzzles, and also had three player characters.

Both are still highly enjoyable today, so it’s great to learn they’ve been re-released and remastered courtesy of those wonderful people at Night Dive. For a start you get high-rez graphics and widescreen support to rejuvenate these classics on your big fancy monitor. There’s also cross-platform multiplayer, some new episodes for each game and a unified launcher. Oh, and new remixed soundtracks. Even better, you get all of this for free if you have the originals on gog or steam.

(fun fact, these were some of the first games I ever bought on Steam, in a massive iD+Raven bundle).

So far this is similar treatment to what Doom 1 and 2 got from Night Dive last year. However it turns out there’s more: they’ve gone and tinkered with some of the weapons and levels, as well as adding entirely new features. For example in Hexen the Cleric now has a shield with his mace that can be used to block, parry and reflect fireballs. Time a parry correctly you can splat an Ettin (those troll-things you meet on the first level) in one strike of your mace.

They’ve also added markers on your map to tell you where to go next. I think players will be divided on this – some will be unhappy at introducing modern hand-holding, preferring the older days when you had to put in the hard work of searching for objectives yourself. I do think though that Hexen could get really obtuse at times – you’d flick a switch then spending an hour hunting around to find whatever the **** it actually did.

So yeah, as a time-poor dad gamer I don’t mind a little extra help. For what it’s worth you can turn off these new features. Also the DOS version is still included as an extra, which I strongly applaud. Even when the new features have a positive impact on the experience of playing the oldies, the original should always exist as an option.

You can find the remastered bundle on gog or Steam.

Azrael’s Tear

For a complete change of pace, how about this first-person adventure originally released in 1996, now again available on gog and Steam. Here you take on the role of a hi-tech thief in the near future, descending into a long-forgotten underground medieval complex in search of the fabled holy grail.

Turns out the place isn’t entirely empty. The knights originally charged with protecting the grail are still around, their lives unnaturally prolonged. They claim to be waiting for someone worthy to claim the sacred chalice but they may have their own agendas. Or may have just lost their minds entirely. There are further signs something deeply weird and disturbing is at work, and has been affecting both people and wildlife for a very long time. You’ll find not only ghosts and talking corpses, but actual dinosaurs. Maybe this grail thing isn’t so wonderful after all.

It’s a wonderfully atmospheric game – you get a real sense of descending into something ancient, haunted, and slowly decaying. It also a difficult one to categorise, since there are plenty of hazards, but not a whole lot of combat or anything requiring fast reflexes. There are only a few sections where something in a room is actively trying to kill you, and often it’s easier to just avoid them. In some ways it’s akin to something like Myst, but with a proper 3D engine instead of pre-rendered graphics. Then mix in a bit of System Shock, maybe.

This is definitely not a remaster of any sort, just the original game bundled with dosbox. I’m not complaining though – being a fairly obscure and commercially unsuccessful game, long consigned to the limbo of abandonware, I’m just glad it’s finally reached digital stores. Also in some ways that clunky 3D with its murky textures still perfectly suits the gloomy confines of Aeternis.

So it still comes with our highest recommendations – one of the true forgotten gems of 90s gaming.