Wolfenstein 3d

Wolfenstein 3d is out on XBLA for 5 smakeroo's but is this dos based dino worth your time? 

Playing old games can be like watching old episodes of Rosanne,  you may think you are being entertained, but when the reality sets in, a little piece of soul will fester away and die each time you do it.  On the other hand, playing old games is a lot like reading the unabridged version "Count of Monte Cristo", while new comers might not 'get it', the people that do stay, will clearly see how un-modern it is , they will enjoy the fruits of their labors.

Where were you in 1992? If you reply "Not born yet" then you want to turn back.  Now.  And say hello to your mother for me.

"This is why we played games in '92. The chicks where ugly"

1992 was a great year, Windows 3.1 was first released, Dan Quayle misspelled potato, and thought that Murphy Brown was a real person with bad morals. Gas was $1.05 a gallon and bacon was $1.92 a pound.

While the mainstream was watching Home Alone 2, Lethal Weapon 3 , Sister Act and a myriad of other crappy movies, the lucky peeps were in their basement, killing Nazi's in stunning 2.5D.

Wolfenstein 3D is billed as the FPS that made FPS games popular.  (Id made two FPS games before this, Hovertank 3D and Catacomb 3-D , Please note the Hyphen only appears on Catacomb 3-D)  It came packed with a ton of content and support such as a level editor, and a random level generator.

If you had the random level generator, you had the Super upgrade pack.  A free Add-on that also include 800 levels.  How many modern day games offer that? And at about 2 meg in size, it pretty much non stop awesome.  I challenge you to find a modern free add-on that offers that much content. 

You can see the engine is quite primitive compared to Doom, the levels are build with boxes, all the same size that have to be arranged on a grid.  You could in theory, make top down level maps out of Pixel Blocks if you so desired.

The XBLA version is divided up in the six original episodes with a total of 60 maps(56 if you can not find the secret levels). Your main goal is to race to floor 9 to kill the boss while grabbing as much Nazi gold as possible.  The game still keeps the original lives and scoring system as the original, but utilizes leaderboards to make the score worth while(as of this writing, the leaderboards are really broken and don’t score harder difficulties like they should). 

As you run through the boxtastic levels you will find plenty of Nazis to shot and plenty of Nazi gold to steal.  The game only has three weapons.(not counting the ever useless knife)  All different versions of the same gun, Pistol, Machine Gun, and chain Gun. So don’t expect all the cool guns from the newer "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" 

Each level has a lot of Nazis to shoot in the face and a large amount of secrets to find, but the lack of architecture and textures make the levels easy to get lost in.  As a side note, if you are in Germany, you wont ever get this game.  It feature a large amount of swastikas.   Before you give up on this game for lack of level design, keep in mind, when Wolf3d was new, it was breaking ground left and right.

The bosses are slightly larger version of the normal soilder but have some nasty weapons to kill you will such as evil nazi syringes, filled with evil nazi poison.

The most notable enemy in the game is the dancing zombie with the a .50 caliber desert eagle piston that he shoots with amazing accuracy.  He will land the bullet in your eye socket from a mile away so you take up to 50% damage in one attack.  He does this because he has a third arm glued to his chest. He dances with his 'normal' arms and shoots you with his bonus arm.

One should take note, this is not a Halo game where you can recharge your magically shield of rainbows when you are losing because you neglect things, like 'cover', and 'strategy'.

This is a hardcore FPS with a little realism added.  Some first time players will find Wolf3D difficult.  The bad guys in Wolf3d kick but and take names.  You are likely to die only from a few attacks(unless you are playing on this sissy difficulty modes).  So you best bet to stay alive is to be sneaky, and use the games many secret passages to make your way through the levels.  Taking apart the Nazi forces systematically will ensure they will shoot you in the back of the face and keep your health and ammo level up.

Graphics

The graphics are quiet dated, but the sprites have a lot of personality.  The repeating textures and lack of architecture makes for confusing levels at times.  This looks very clean for a port of a game that’s this old, but does not shine as bright as XBLA Doom does.

Sound

Some of the Music is horrid but the funny mysterious things the bad guy spout off is cool.  Brush up on your German.

Game Play

Killing Nazi is awesome.  Having read a bit about this game before sitting down to write, I found a small group of people claiming this game was an insult to German.  Well now, THAT is an insult to Germans.  People that always think Germans are Nazi's are very stupid.  Germans where not Nazi's. Nazi's were German.  That’s a HUGE difference. 

Overall

The original Wolfenstein Game with the add-on's was about ten meg at the ultra max.  This version is over 100 meg.  How did this happen? It’s a shameless promo for the new Wolfenstein game coming out.  The vast majority of the file sizes rests in a promo video for the new game.  In fact, the easiest achievement to get unlocks content for it.  LAME!

 The achievements are nice and simple. You should get 200/200 with this game without to much headache.

 If you like shooters and wants something fresh and feel like a bit of nostalgia.  This is as far as you can stretch 400 MS points next to Doom.