Witchaven II - Blood Vengeance
PC CD ROM minimum system requirements 486DX/66mhz 8MB RAM 62MB hard disks space Double speed CD ROM drive SVGA. £39.99
THE Doom trilogy has a lot to answer for. Some good, some bad. And because of its immense popularity, it spawned innumerable clones.
Witchaven, this game's predecessor, was one such game and it trumpeted a medieval twist on the Doom theme. But, unlike most of the other imitations, Witchaven was genuinely good in its own right less than a year later.
Now, Witchaven's sequel has arrived, but very little has changed in the interim Witchaven II has improved graphics, some new enemies and your weapons can now be enchanted to give them an extra bit of umph. Apart from that, it is almost identical to the original.
This may seem a little cheap on the programmers' part, but whaven was so good at the time that they obviously decided not to add too many more ingredients for fear of spoiling an already very tasty dish. After all, didn't Doom II get away with the same thing, and it is generally regarded as the best.
However, once you get down to the bones of Witchaven II, you'll find plenty to keep your mind off the more serious things in life. Besides all the one on one fighting that makes up the body of the game, Witciiaven II has plenty of spells, potions, armour, weapons and other artifacts for you to collect.
While there isn't too much to criticise in Witchaven II, at the same time, it won't be accused of breaking any new ground. It's basically a re-hash of an old idea. But a good one nonetheless. One sore point is the fact that in SVGA mode it's chuggish even on a reasonably fast Pentium. Happy witch hunting.