The weapons are all the same, the spells, the potions, the goals for each level. We've now seen the 'medieval Doom' game from nearly every conceivable angle and because Witchaven 2 doesn't really introduce anything innovative or dever into the scene, it ends up looking more like an extra levels disk for the first game than a sequel, Everything's virtually the same, you see. That's perhaps the biggest problem facing Witchaven 2 - the fact that since the first game we've had Heretic, Hexen, Azrael's Tear and, of course, the Quake demos.

Obviously Hexen's had something to do with things here, as at first glance the two games are nearly identical. I'm a computer programmer and I'm addicted to innards') because now things are much more in the 'spooky' camp as opposed to the violent one. Thankfully it seems that the designers have either calmed down a bit or attended numerous counselling sessions ('Hi everyone, my name's Brad. Yes, there is still quite a bit of blood every time you hit someone, but there isn't nearly as much of the surrounding nastiness as there was first time round.

This time things aren't nearly as bad on the old Gutsometer. Anyway, all this is a rather convoluted way of saying that because it wasn't banned outright, the gore-filled Witchaven managed to sell enough to warrant a sequel. That's the advantage of having a ' Gore On/Off button I suppose. Meanwhile a game like Witchaven - with its blood, guts, gore, decapitation, violence and unjustifiable mutilation - is busy corrupting the minds of our gameplaying youth, turning them into dangerous psychopathic monsters, and no one bats an eyelid. Then in a fit of understandable depression he utters the word 'bastards' under his breath, with his back to the camera before the 9pm watershed and hundreds of Whitehouse Whingers are immediately on the phone to the tv company telling of their outrage. A character in a popular early-evening television drama serial has his entire family leave him, his house blown up, his illegitimate son arrive on the scene then contract bone cancer and die, his dog get run over by a lorry, and a national poll come out in the paper saying that everyone hates him. I Get Very Worried About The so-called moral majority sometimes.

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