Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders Review

I make it no secret that DOOM is my favorite game ever. I guess it's because it's the game I grow up with it and I find all the games of the series to be good. While I do love it, it's nice to see some people look at that game and not only make a good DOOM clone, but decided to add to it and make it better. So yes, I'm saying this is good already. Now let me explain as best I can.

Story

It's a 90's shooter so there not much to talk about. From the synopsis from the DOOM wiki, three sorcerers called the Serpent Riders came and people started to worship their awesomeness. except for the elves who find the powerful monsters very suspicious. When two of the riders left, the remaining one gets his cult to hunt them down. As the world gets destroyed, one man decides to stand up and kill the wizard. At least it's a fantasy setting and not with massive guns for a change.

Gameplay

It's DOOM with a few new things so lets talk about those: For starters you have an inventory to store items like health packs or invincibility rings, which allow to use them when you need to, unlike DOOM when it's used when you touch them. The weapons are mostly the same from DOOM except no shotgun or BFG, but one power-up called the Tome of Power allows you to use a secondary firing mode, such as turning your lightning gaulents into a life draining weapon or turning you chaingun equal into a weapon that shots multiple mines on impact. So we have a inventory and weapon modes. What else is new. Oh, you can FLY!! But it's only used to find secrets.
The enemies are also a step up from DOOM. These guys are designed to kill. We start with some flying imps and golems that just scratch you, then we meet guys that throw stuff, then ones that shot three balls at the same time and then the first guys start shooing fireballs, and so on. And that's not talking about the bosses which are a league of their own. These are some of the hardest bosses I've seen in a shooter and freak me out whenever I see some. Sure the Cyderdemon was cool but he's nothing compare to the Maulotaur with his giant hammer, fire attacks and charge attacks.
If there's any gripes I have with the game is that the levels have a pattern. What I mean is that it's yellow key, green key, blue key in any level in that order. This cause the levels to be dull after a while.

Presentation

Music is okay. there are some good tracks here, but they're nothing compare to anything from DOOM and start to sound the same after a while. The art design is mainly brown and grey but there's also a lot of blue, especially later in the game when we get to the underwater lair.Speaking of which, the Serpent Rider is everywhere. you constantly see his statues, his picture and symbol wherever you go.
Also, this is one of the goriest games I've played. Almost every enemies blows into tiny bits when kill. Sure other games have some prettying graphic kill animations but I could still recognize the corpse.

Verdict

It's a good DOOM clone with several improvements. If you love DOOM I recommended giving it a try.
8/10