[OpenMaw]

So, a long time ago there was this ... *ahem* "series" called HACX. The first in the "series" was basically a glorified total conversion of Doom that was rushed out to try and beat Quake. It failed. This was an actual retail product, mind you. Though good luck finding an actual physical copy as it seems like it's quite rare. Though, to be honest, I don't think you'd want to. Personally, I never found it much fun. That's just me, though.

Original Banjosoft website:
http://web.archive.o....banjosoft.com/

A summary of the history of events that lead to HACX 2 never seeing the light of day:
http://www.drnostrom...hp?content=info

After all the furious myriad of conversations had on here about Duke Nukem Forever and the state of that franchise, I found it very interesting to read about HACX's history. It mirrors DNF in a lot of ways. In point of act it almost seems like it was a repeating theme. Romero went through the same troubles with Daikatana.

The first HACX of course runs on the Doom/Doom 2 engine. After it was released the team at Banjosoft got to work on making the sequel on the Quake engine, before very quickly upgrading to Quake II, and then once their deal with GT Interactive fell apart, they decided to move over to Unreal, wherein the whole thing imploded.

For those of you who may have never seen HACX 2 and are curious as to what it looked like without wanting to read paragraphs on paragraphs, here are all the screenshots I could find of it on the various archives:

HACX 2

[Fantinaikos]

HACX 2.0 is the latest version Nostromo developed ten years after 1.2 https://forum.drdtea...opic.php?t=5771

Apart these two, custom maps specifically made for HACX seems to be practically inexistent.

Assault on Ro Ho En
Dataville

[Morpheus Kitami]

Oh, man, I remember this. In theory, the level design was decent, but I never managed to motivate myself past the sewer level or the level after the sewer level. It had everything except that special something that made it actually good. I'm wracking my brain trying to think of what that might be, but I just can't think of it. Explains why nobody really thinks highly of it.

[OpenMaw]

I'd say it's a lack of finer polish and a sense of creative cohesion. It's... Stuff! Cyberpunk-tech-mutant... Stuff. There's not a strong forward thrust.

I'd say the Quake retail mod "Malice" probably does HACX better in that sense.

[NightFright]

Mind that HacX 2.0 is far from finished and probably never will be. The project is in limbo since at least a decade now. Last valid and fully functional release is v1.2.

And yes, Malice was quite good. A pity it didn't get the attention it should have received.

[MrFlibble]

 NightFright, on 01 March 2020 - 09:46 AM, said:

Mind that HacX 2.0 is far from finished and probably never will be. The project is in limbo since at least a decade now. Last valid and fully functional release is v1.2.

Well, v1.2 is basically a bugfixed and slightly polished stand-alone release of the original game, while v2.0 is more of an attempt to improve upon and reimagine it, with new art and edited maps.

You can still play the original DOS release v1.1 (available here), either by installing over Doom II or using a preinstalled copy (also available for download) with the Freed∞m Phase 2 IWAD. The only thing is that, as I've heard, the freeware v1.1 that Banjo provided is somehow not the real latest version of the game and is apparently actually inferior when compared to the shareware v1.0 release (also still available -- the shareware version similarly requires Doom II but only contains the first four or five levels).

While I haven't played HacX in its entirety -- only up to and including Garden of Delights, -- I have to say that I liked it more than the default Doom II mapset. The level design here is more Duke3D-ish, with each level being a more or less recognizable location with its own theme and textures. The monster sprites and other art are professional quality and very similar in style to art from commercial id Tech games, while clever Dehacked edits allowed for destructible items, breakable glass and modified monster and weapon behaviours. Everything is different enough for HacX to feel like a separate Doom engine game rather than just a total conversion.

I like the level design because it uses the visuals and progression for story-telling, very much like the Build engine games. Cyberspace levels are weird but not overly confusing, although I'd say that it was the least enjoyable part of the game for me (the premise of travelling through cyberspace must have felt way less nonsensical back in 1997 than it does now, I think). Everything else looks like places instead of just rooms with monsters. The gardens have this nice touch with Samurai statues that morph into Monstructs if you attack them. I haven't played further than that level but apparently the themes keep changing and there are European style medieval castles and such.

I agree it's a pity the sequel never came to be, because it seems that generally there aren't too many FPS games from the Quake/Quake II engine era that would still adhere to the earlier design aesthetics of mid-90s 2.5D titles.

[MrFlibble]

I just found this project aimed to bring HacX 1.2 closer to the original commercial release:
https://forum.zdoom....hp?f=19&t=73733

I did not realise that the freeware version 1.1, upon which the 1.2 release is based, diverged so much from version 1.0. I knew there were differences, including some of the bug/error variety, but it still escapes me how this happened that an allegedly later version became more buggy than the previous one.

[Ninety-Six]

I guess I'm now interested in what the differences between this "editorial reversion" and 2.0 are.

[MrFlibble]

Version 2.0 reworks the levels by adding extra areas and detail, I believe it's based on v1.2.