Gaming off the Beaten Path

  I've talked about "random shareware" quite a bit in the past. Those demos that everyone in the 90's seemed to have installed on their computers without any knowledge of how they got there. It's finally time to talk about the game that, for me personally, epitomized that phenomenon. I had absolutely no idea how the first episode of Heretic ended up on my computer back in the day, but I can tell you for a fact I played those levels over and over again. As is apparent to anyone who follows my content, I am a huge fan of Doom. But I've always been more of a fantasy nerd than a sci-fi nerd. So now you are telling me there's a game that's basically Doom but in a fantasy setting? Sign me up! It's funny how things come full circle, the mystery of how Heretic got on my computer has been in the back of my mind for longer than it probably should have been. Yet thanks to the research I've done for this post, I think it is close to being solved. Whenever ...