Witchaven II: Blood Vengeance

Last updated
Witchaven II: Blood Vengeance
Witchaven 2.jpg
Cover art by Ken Kelly
Developer(s) Capstone Software
Publisher(s) Intracorp Entertainment
Producer(s) James Wheeler
Designer(s) Scott Nixon
James Wheeler
Programmer(s) Les Bird
Joe Abbati
Composer(s) Joe Abbati
Steve Newton
Engine Build
Platform(s) DOS
ReleaseMay 6, 1996
Genre(s) First-person shooter
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer

Witchaven II: Blood Vengeance is a fantasy-themed first-person shooter for DOS compatible operating systems released in 1996 by Capstone Software. It is a sequel to 1995's Witchaven . Both games use the Build engine. It was Capstone's last proprietary game before they and their parent company Intracorp went bankrupt. In Witchaven II, the player controls the returning knight Grondoval, the hero of the first game, as he is trying to stop an evil witch from carrying a titular blood vengeance in revenge for him having slain her sister in the original game. It received generally negative reviews, with criticism directed at its controls, enemy AI, and general mediocrity as compared to other first-person shooters coming out at the time. The game is supported by the BuildGDX source port. [1]

Contents

Gameplay

Gameplay screenshot of Witchaven II in full-screen mode Witchaven II gameplay.jpg
Gameplay screenshot of Witchaven II in full-screen mode

The sequel's gameplay system is very similar but features some other improvements over the first 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 men instead of monsters. [3]

Plot

Witchaven II takes place after the events of the first game, when the forces of darkness were triumphed over: the witch queen Illwhyrin was destroyed in her lair in the isle of Char and the evil curse was lifted. During the victory party celebrating the destruction of Witchaven, the hero of the game, Grondoval, falls into a slumber. After awaking, he is told by the mysterious female golden dragon named Ikethsti that the great witch Cirae-Argoth, one of the most powerful of Nether-Reaches Order of Witches, has arrived to avenge the death of her sister. An 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 vanquish Cirae-Argoth, thwarting her plot, and to capture the Horned Skull item which would then contain her evil powers forever. The story is told in the intro sequence and further explained in the game's manual. [4]

After killing Cirae-Argoth, the game ends with a cinematic sequence showing her corpse turn into a skeleton, which then suddenly rises and attempts to flee while laughing until it's hit and shattered by Grondoval's magic missile. Grondoval loses consciousness and awakens in a different location. The dragon 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. (This scene directly contradicts much of what was written in the game's manual, including text beyond the introduction section.) 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 ominous music plays. Computer Gaming World , baffled by the ending cutscene, included it in their 1996 list of the least rewarding endings of all time. [5]

Reception

Witchaven II received mostly poor reviews. Computer and Video Games criticized the quality of the game's cinematic cutscenes and the enemy AI, as well as its overall feel of a rushed expansion to the first Witchaven instead of a more proper sequel. [12] A review in Next Generation said that the game "is an improvement over the original, but it doesn't stack up to comparable games in its genre." The reviewer argued that hand-to-hand combat from a first-person perspective is intrinsically unexciting since the player character can neither aim nor move around as much, and complained of controls that are less than responsive. However, he praised the Build level editor as being better documented than the one in Duke Nukem 3D. [3] Brett Jones of PC Gamer US wrote: "Where Duke takes players on a wickedly frantic and bloody ride, Witchaven II has you slogging, trundling, and hacking your way through dark levels and mindless enemies from start to finish," and adding: "If the controls weren’t so bad and the enemies so boneheaded, you might find Witchaven II’s sinister design a welcome change from the norm. But those little touches aren’t enough." [7] Daniel Jevons of Maximum panned the game, saying that "The graphics are sluggish (despite using the same engine as Duke), the controls are unresponsive, the collision detection is dodgy (particularly on close combat), and the game commits the cardinal sin of having loads of invisible hidden traps that kill you instantly." He remarked that the game was a particularly poor choice for buyers given that Duke Nukem 3D had just been released and Quake was due out in less than a month. [9]

Related Research Articles

<i>Duke Nukem 3D</i> 1996 first-person shooter video game

Duke Nukem 3D is a first-person shooter video game developed by 3D Realms. It is a sequel to the platform games Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem II, published by 3D Realms.

<i>Duke Nukem Forever</i> 2011 video game

Duke Nukem Forever is a 2011 first-person shooter game developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K for Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. It is the fourth main installment in the Duke Nukem series and the sequel to Duke Nukem 3D (1996). Players control Duke Nukem as he comes out of retirement to battle an alien invasion. Like its predecessor, Duke Nukem Forever features pop culture references, toilet humor, and adult content.

<i>Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame</i> 1993 platform video game

Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame is a platform game released by Broderbund in 1993 for the MS-DOS, and later ported to Macintosh, Super NES, and FM Towns. It is the second installment in the Prince of Persia series, and a direct sequel to 1989's Prince of Persia. Both games were designed by Jordan Mechner, but unlike the original, he did not program the sequel himself. In the game, players control the Prince as he attempts to return to Persia and defeat the evil wizard Jaffar once and for all, who has assumed his appearance, seized the throne, and put his love interest, the Princess, under a death spell.

<i>Blood</i> (video game) 1997 video game

Blood is a 3D first-person shooter video game developed by Monolith Productions and published by GT Interactive and developed using Ken Silverman’s Build engine. The shareware version was released for MS-DOS on March 7, 1997, while the full version was later released on May 21 in North America, and June 20 in Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Build (game engine)</span> First-person shooter engine

The Build Engine is a first-person shooter engine created by Ken Silverman, author of Ken's Labyrinth, for 3D Realms. Like the Doom engine, the Build Engine represents its world on a two-dimensional grid using closed 2D shapes called sectors, and uses simple flat objects called sprites to populate the world geometry with objects.

<i>Shadow Warrior</i> (1997 video game) 1997 video game

Shadow Warrior is a first-person shooter video game developed by 3D Realms and published by GT Interactive. The shareware version was released for the PC on May 13, 1997, while the full version was completed on August 25, 1997 and released in stores on September 16, 1997. Shadow Warrior was developed using Ken Silverman's Build engine and improved on 3D Realms' previous Build engine game, Duke Nukem 3D. Mark Adams ported Shadow Warrior to Mac OS in August 1997.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capstone Software</span>

Capstone Software was a subsidiary of IntraCorp, a Miami-based computer and video game company. Founded in 1984, Capstone created first-person games such as Corridor 7: Alien Invasion, Operation Body Count, William Shatner's TekWar and Witchaven, and is also known for releasing games based on movie/TV licenses. Capstone's first-person games used the Wolfenstein 3D engine, and later, the Build engine.

IntraCorp was a game publisher based in Miami, Florida, founded in 1984. The company faced bankruptcy in 1996, leading to its closure along with their main subsidiary, Capstone Software. IntraCorp was involved in the development and publication of games spanning various genres.

<i>Witchaven</i> 1995 video game

Witchaven is a dark fantasy first-person shooter video game developed by Capstone Software and published by Intracorp Entertainment in 1995. Its sword-and-sorcery themed story tasks the knight Grondoval with a quest to seek out and destroy a lair of witches in their titular fortress, fighting hordes of hostile monsters along the way. Witchaven features action role-playing elements such as leveling, as well as an emphasis on melee combat. Its code was based upon an early version of the nascent Build engine. The game received overall mixed reviews, such as praise for its atmosphere and gory combat, but criticism for some aspects of gameplay. It was followed by a sequel titled Witchaven II: Blood Vengeance in 1996.

<i>Crusader: No Remorse</i> 1995 video game

Crusader: No Remorse is an action game developed by Origin Systems and published by Electronic Arts. It was first released in 1995 for MS-DOS, with the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn ports following in 1997. Set in a dystopian future 22nd century, the game centers on The Captain, a special ops officer and supersoldier, who defects from the tyrannical world government, the World Economic Consortium (WEC), and joins the Resistance rebels.

<i>Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project</i> 2002 video game

Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project is a platform game developed by Sunstorm Interactive, produced by 3D Realms, and published by Arush Entertainment. It was released on Microsoft Windows on May 14, 2002, in North America and on June 14, 2002, in Europe. A port of the game would be released for the Xbox 360 on June 23, 2010, by 3D Realms directly, followed by an iOS port on January 9, 2014.

Sunstorm Interactive was an American video game developer founded in 1995 by Anthony Campiti, which specialized in hunting simulators and first-person shooters. The majority of their titles were small-scale "value titles", priced between $20 and $30 as compared to the typical computer game that was priced at $50 at the time.

<i>Dune II</i> 1992 video game

Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty is a 1992 real-time strategy game developed by Westwood Studios and published by Virgin Games. It serves as the sequel to Dune (1992).

<i>PowerSlave</i> 1996 video game

PowerSlave, known as Exhumed in Europe and 1999 AD: Resurrection of the Pharaoh in Japan, is a first-person shooter video game developed by Lobotomy Software and published by Playmates Interactive Entertainment in North America, and BMG Interactive in Europe and Japan. It was released in North America, Europe and Japan, for the Sega Saturn, PlayStation, and MS-DOS over the course of a year from late 1996 to late 1997. On May 24, 2015, Powerslave EX, an unofficial remake of the PlayStation version appeared on GitHub. The MS-DOS version of PowerSlave was added to the GOG store on November 19, 2020.

<i>Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels</i> 1995 video game

Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels is a video game published by Electronic Arts in 1995 for the 3DO, which was later ported to PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Microsoft Windows. It is based on Games Workshop's board game Space Hulk and is the sequel to the 1993 video game Space Hulk. Like its predecessor, Vengeance of the Blood Angels combines first-person shooter gameplay with real-time tactical elements. Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels is part of the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

<i>William Shatners TekWar</i> 1995 video game

William Shatner's TekWar is a 1995 first-person shooter video game derived from the TekWar series of novels created by William Shatner and ghost-written by science-fiction author Ron Goulart. It was designed using the Build engine.

<i>Mega Man</i> (1990 video game) 1990 action-platform video game published by Hi Tech Expressions and Capcom

Mega Man is an action-platform video game that was developed by Stephen Rozner, an ex-employee of Capcom U.S.A, and published in 1990 by Hi Tech Expressions for DOS systems. It is the first game in the Mega Man franchise to be released for home computers.

Duke Nukem is a media franchise named for its main character, Duke Nukem. Created by the company Apogee Software Ltd. as a series of video games for personal computers, the series expanded to games released for various consoles by third-party developers. The first two games in the main series were 2D platformers, while the later games have been a mix of first-person and third-person shooters.

<i>NAM</i> (video game) First person shooter video game

NAM, sold under the name Napalm in Walmart retail outlets, is a first-person shooter set during the Vietnam War. It was developed for MS-DOS by TNT Team and published by GT Interactive in 1998. A direct sequel, World War II GI, was released in 1999.

References

  1. ↑ Tarason, Dominic (2018-09-10). "Redneck Rampage looks smarter but feels as dumb as ever with this modern port". Rock Paper Shotgun . Retrieved 2023-03-20.
  2. ↑ "3dsl1996". 3dsl.game-host.org. 2007-08-03. Retrieved 2014-03-02.
  3. 1 2 3 "NEXT Generation Issue #22 October 1996". 1996-10-22. Retrieved 2014-05-04. Even more obscure is the GDX port of Witchaven, Capstone's fantasy-themed FPS/RPG. It's a bit like Hexen, although far jankier and vastly less forgiving. WitchavenGDX isn't complete yet, but you can find it and all the other GDX ports over on Makarov's page here.
  4. ↑ Witchaven II Manual – via Internet Archive.
  5. ↑ CGW 148: "The 15 Least Rewarding Endings of All Time".
  6. ↑ Computer Gaming World 146 (September 1996), p138.
  7. 1 2 "PC Gamer Online | Witchaven II". PC Gamer . 2000-02-29. Archived from the original on 2000-02-29. Retrieved 2014-03-02.
  8. ↑ "Witchaven II". Gamerankings.com. Retrieved 2014-03-02.
  9. 1 2 Jevons, Daniel (June 1996). "Maximum Reviews: Witchhaven[ sic ] 2". Maximum: The Video Game Magazine (7). Emap International Limited: 129.
  10. ↑ "PC Player German Magazine 1996-07". July 1996. Retrieved 2014-05-04.
  11. ↑ "PC Action Magazine (August 1996)" . Retrieved 2014-05-04.
  12. ↑ "PC Review: Witchaven 2 - ComputerAndVideoGames.com". 2001-08-13. Archived from the original on March 18, 2007. Retrieved 2014-05-04.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.