COMPUTER GAME REVIEW : A Worthy Successor to Doom : The addictive Heretic is a spectacularly entertaining game that is simple to play and full of surprises.

If you were one of the many people transformed into an anti-social insomniac by Doom, the addictive shoot-’em-up computer game that swept the country last year, there is bad news.

Heretic.

It’s the new game co-authored by the same team as Doom, and if anything, this one is even more addictive.

Unlike Doom, which takes place in outer space in the future, Heretic is set in a Medieval milieu of rustic castles, quaint villages, vast fields, waterfalls and frozen lakes. Unfortunately, you are rarely in one spot long enough to enjoy the view. It will come as no surprise to Doom veterans that this bucolic-looking world is also populated by a variety of villains--flying gargoyles, ax-wielding skeletons, hooded wizards, stone figures come to life, to name a few--all trying to track you down and annihilate you.

Like its forerunner, Heretic is what’s known in computer gaming circles (you can just imagine the stacked-up pizza boxes) as a first-person adventure. You are the hero, and as you play, you see everything on your PC screen from the hero’s point of view. The only part of you that is visible are your hands wielding whatever weapon is available at the moment. It’s probably all for the good that you never see yourself--a press release notes that the role you’re playing in Heretic is that of an Elf Wizard.

For all its “Sword and Sorcery” aspects, Heretic is never ponderous, and it’s certainly never cutesy. The setting, like that of Doom, is secondary in importance--although it should be noted that Heretic’s graphics, created by a team that specializes in fantasy games at Raven Software, are beautifully done--and it features no princes, fairies or lessons to be learned.

Heretic is just a spectacularly entertaining and smart roller-coaster ride of a game that is basically simple to play and full of surprises. If Heretic becomes, like Doom, a huge commercial success, it’s perhaps because the programmers and other creators at Texas-based id Software, where the games were created, have taken aspects of such time-tested children’s activities as hide-and-seek, searching for treasure and capture the flag and put them on a computer screen.

E ach episode of Heretic has seven levels, and each level takes place on a different landscape. You use the arrow keys on your keyboard to speed around while killing the bad guys and searching for ever-more-powerful weapons. The goal on each level is to find the keys that unlock the doors leading, ultimately, to the end of the level.

The first episode of Heretic, available only on the DOS format, can be downloaded at no extra charge from the Internet or from the major on-line services such as America Online and CompuServe. It also just became available on software discs at retail outlets for about $10. The full, three-episode version is available on disks or CD-ROM for $40 by mail order from id Software at (800) 434-2637.

At the end of each level comes a message telling how much time it took you to complete. Although Heretic is a bit gory, this message was the only part of the game I found horrifying.

The violence in Heretic seemed cartoonish and benign; the real terror came from the realization of how long I would sit at the computer to get through “just one more level” before heading off to bed.

I did complete all three episodes of Heretic and was relieved when it was all over. I was then able to return on a more full-time basis to the real world.

But it was sure fun while it lasted.*