HacX

Post by **MrFlibble** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 2:26 pm

HacX is a game that has recently come to my attention. It appears to be not very well known because it started as a commercial add-on/total conversion for Doom II that did not sell well, and eventually the developers have released it as freeware. By version 1.2, HacX no longer requires Doom II to play, and thus has become a stand-alone, freeware game that can be described as a Doom lookalike with a cyberpunk theme.

HacX official site
HacX screenshots
HacX at MobyGames
HacX at Doom Wikia
An interview with Perry "Bow" Bowman at DoomWorld

Since it is freeware and does not require any additional files to play, I wonder if you'd consider adding it to the site's collection.

Santhosh CHRiS · Post by **Santhosh CHRiS** » Sun May 08, 2011 9:03 am

I'm sorry but your avatar creeps the hell outta me

Post by **MrFlibble** » Mon May 09, 2011 12:15 pm

Well, that's certainly not the first coincidence here

http://www.reloaded.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=11244

If you're wondering who's Mr. Flibble...

Santhosh CHRiS · Post by **Santhosh CHRiS** » Tue May 10, 2011 7:30 am

MrFlibble wrote:Well, that's certainly not the first coincidence here
http://www.reloaded.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=11244

If you're wondering who's Mr. Flibble...

Ah thanks for the info. Gotta get me one of those to scare the kids heh heh.. Cool links btw. I like your homepage. Perhaps you should put some Google ads for a little revenue on the side for site maintenance

Post by **MrFlibble** » Tue May 10, 2011 8:26 pm

Santhosh CHRiS wrote:I like your homepage. Perhaps you should put some Google ads for a little revenue on the side for site maintenance

Um, I don't have a homepage.. or a site for that matter

If you meant FED2k, I'm just a member there

Post by **MrFlibble** » Sun Mar 04, 2012 4:24 pm

Although the stand-alone HacX v1.2 requires a modern source port to run (Chocolate Doom or ZDoom will do fine) , it turns out that it is possible to play HacX v1.1 under DOS without the original version of Doom II as well.

Alongside the standard distribution of registered HacX v1.1 (the first version to have been released as freeware by Banjo), which requires Doom II to install, there's a plain files package what was originally done for people who have a non-DOS release of Doom II (Win95 or Mac). You can get it here:
http://gamers.org/pub/idgames/themes/hacx/hx11pack.zip

To play this version without the Doom II installation, a configuration file is required, and also the main IWAD file, which by default was supposed to be DOOM2.WAD. HacX v1.1 uses certain files from the IWAD, including the palette. This is the major difference between v1.1 and v1.2 (which does not require any external files to work), and because of this the v1.2 IWAD can be used in lieu of the original DOOM2.WAD simply by renaming it. I think it might also be possible to use the shareware Doom IWAD. The game will accept any IWAD, including those from other shareware/demo versions of Doom engine games (Hexen, Strife), with as much as a warning, but other games have different palettes and for that are not usable.

As for the configuration file, you can use the SETUP.EXE programme from any other Doom engine game shareware or demo, keeping in mind that the resulting CFG file must be renamed into DEFAULT.CFG for it to be recognized by HacX.

Post by **dosraider** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 1:48 am

...... is kinda amazed that so much time and energy is put in this, based on a complete obsolete game engine.

Post by **MrFlibble** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 9:04 am

Well, obsolete or not, I like it

Besides, HacX is by all means a pretty good game.

As for the DOS version, in fact, Chocolate Doom does provide a comparable experience with the v1.2 IWAD, but it doesn't recognize the MIDI driver on my machine for some reason, so Adlib/OPL remains the only option for music. Other than that, while I do like updates and improvements to old games, being able to play the really old, original version is also a nice treat