Witchaven II: Blood Vengeance
| Witchaven II: Blood Vengeance | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | AWE Productions[1] Capstone Software |
| Publisher(s) | Intracorp Entertainment |
| Designer(s) | Scott Nixon James M. Wheeler |
| Composer(s) | Joe Abbati Steve Newton |
| Engine | Build engine |
| Platform(s) | PC (MS-DOS) |
| Release | May 6, 1996 |
| Genre(s) | First-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer (up to 16 players) |
Witchaven II: Blood Vengeance is the sequel to the fantasy first-person shooter video game Witchaven, created and released in 1996 by Capstone Software. It was Capstone's last proprietary game release before their parent company Intracorp went bankrupt.
Gameplay
Just as its predecessor, Witchaven II used Build engine of Duke Nukem 3D fame. The sequel's gameplay is very similar but features some other improvements over the original game, such as possibility to wield two weapons (one in each hand) and to hold a shield in the non-weapon hand. Compared with the previous game the level of difficulty was also increased and the graphics were partially refined. Unlike the first game in the series it came with the Build level editor which meant that the players were able to create their own levels.[2] Unlike in the first game, most enemies are human.[3] There are 15 levels in the game.[4]
Story
Witchaven II takes place after the events of the first game, when the forces of darkness were triumphed over: Illwhyrin, the witch queen of Char, was destroyed in her lair and the evil curse was lifted. During the victory party celebrating the destruction of Witchaven, the hero of the game, Grondoval the Witchbane, falls into a slumber. After awaking, he is told by the mysterious ancient female golden dragon named Ikethsti that Cirae-Argoth, one of the most powerful of Nether-Reaches Order of Witches, has arrived to avenge the death of her sister. In an elaborate act of revenge, her army of demons and Argothonian clansmen has abducted Grondoval's beloved princess Elizabeth and the other people of his homeland Stazhia to exact the titular blood vengeance and now it is only up to Grondoval to try and rescue his countrymen before they will all be gone forever. His new quest is fight his way to find and defeat Cirae-Argoth, thwarting her plot, and to capture the Horned Skull item which would then contain her evil powers until it could be destroyed. The story is told in the intro sequence (in which the dragon just burns the village and flies off north, without saying anything[5]) and further expanded in the game's manual.
The game ends with a cinematic sequence showing the corpse of the slain witch turning into a skeleton, which is then shattered by Grondoval's magic missile when it rises and attempts to flee. Grondoval then loses consciousness and awakens in a different location. The dragoness Ikethsti arrives again to tell a cryptic message, saying the whole plot was really an elaborate set up as Cirae-Argoth was not her real master and Grondoval's kindred has never disappeared; it was actually only Grondoval who has vanished. Ikethsti also tells him his trials are far from over, and they will see each other again (apparently hinting at another sequel that has never arrived). In the final scene the witch's skull swallows a butterfly and vanishes into the ground while an ominous music plays.[6][7][8]
Reception
Witchaven II received rather average reviews (albeit PC Zone rated the game 72 out of 100[9]). Often criticized was quality of the game's cinematics and the enemy AI being as poor as in the first game, as well as its overall feel of a rushed expansion to the first Witchaven instead of a more proper sequel.[10] According to a review in Next Generation, while the game was "an improvement over the original," it did not "stack up to comparable games in its genre" (in particular, Duke Nukem 3D) and called it "innovative but unsurprising" and "just like Doom.[3] Computer Gaming World gave Witchaven II only 2 out 5 stars, citing "sluggish game speed, buggy gameplay, no continuity in the story and generally weak use of of the Build engine", despite the game's "ferocious, in-your-face action".[11]
See also
References
- ^ AWE Productions: Games
- ^ 3dsl1996 - 3dsl.game-host.org
- ^ a b Next Generation 22 (October 1996), p. 187
- ^ Witchaven II: Blood Vengeance - The Computer Show
- ^ YouTube - Witchaven II Blood Vengeance Intro
- ^ YouTube - Witchaven 2: Blood Vengeance - Defeating the Witch
- ^ YouTube - Witchaven 2: Blood Vengeance - The Dragon
- ^ YouTube - Witchaven 2: Blood Vengeance - End Credits
- ^ GameRankings entry
- ^ PC Review: Witchaven 2 Review - ComputerAndVideoGames.com
- ^ Peter Olafson, "Duke's Ugly Cousin: Capstone's Second Witch Hunt is Anything But Bewitching", Computer Gaming World 146 (p. 138)