Wolfenstein 3-D
Wolfenstein 3-D is a World War II themed first-person shooter developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software for MS-DOS on 1992-05-05, then ported to several other platforms. The game is the third game in the Wolfenstein series, and the first to use the Wolfenstein 3-D Engine. The game is based on a much older game, Castle Wolfenstein, and, like the original, you play a prisoner of war who must escape from a Nazi dungeon. Additional episodes were added where you infiltrate Nazi strongholds and kill Hitler and fictional Nazi leaders. Wolfenstein 3-D is a video game milestone being one of the first widely popular FPSes.
The game has been ported to several different platforms. There are effectively three versions of the game: the original MS-DOS release, the SNES and Apple IIgs port, and the Macintosh, 3DO, and Jaguar port.
Contents
Personal
I first played Wolfenstein 3-D in the early 1990s and was really impressed, not just by the 3D perspective, but also the gratuitous violence and digital speech. My favorite animation is the liquefaction death of Hitler. I rarely played the game fairly, usually relying on cheats to skip through most of the game, but I have played four of the episodes properly and have the feel of the game.
This was also one of the first games I spent a lot of time trying to modify. Before I had Internet access, I was able to get my hands on a map editor, and I made several custom maps for the game.
Status
I own Wolfenstein 3-D on Steam. I have beaten the first five episodes at Bring 'Em On difficulty.
Review
4 | 5 | 7 | 6 | 6 |
Best Version: DOS
— This section contains spoilers! —
Good
- The game, for its time, is a beautiful example of a first-person shooter done right.
- John Carmack's 3D engine is lightning fast, it even worked on medium-level hardware of the time.
- Though cartoonish, the graphics are well-drawn and attractive. Adrian Carmack's pixel art is top-notch.
- The enemy AI is pretty dumb, but it does sometimes cause some rather shocking results when they inadvertently sneak up on you from behind and strafe to avoid your gun fire.
- Bobby Prince's soundtrack is really good, and his incorporation of Nazi and American political music was a fitting touch.
- The sliding secret doors is a really cool addition. Tom Hall was right to nag John Carmack until he added them.
- The addition of a secret 3-D Pac-Man level was pretty cool.
Bad
- The game becomes monotonous pretty quickly. After the third episode, you've seen nearly everything the game has to offer, save the remaining bosses.
- The player turns too slowly.
- NPCs are able to shoot around corners even when their guns are clearly behind the wall.
- In several levels NPCs will open a locked door before you get the key allowing you to short-cut large sections of the map or get stuck.
- The use of lives and points doesn't really fit the game's theme and serves no measurable purpose.
- Many of the levels have a ridiculous layout. While this makes the game more playable (a realistic map would be dull), it also hurts immersion.
Ugly
- Allowing save scumming kind of defeats the difficulty, but, if you try to play without it, the game is ridiculously hard. So, unless you've memorized where all the enemies are, you're kind of forced to use it.
- A large portion of the secrets have no hints as to where they are. This means, if you want to uncover 100% of the secrets, you'll have to check every wall in every map, a tedious task.
Media
Box Art
Due to the Nazi imagery, Apogee used their logo as the cover art in several European countries.
This is the original US mail-order art by Ken Rieger. It was later reused for the Shareware copies and the digital release. BJ looks like a roided out murderous psychopath, especially when the only notion he's killing Nazis is the helmet of the dead guard. Still, it's well-painted, and I like the logo. This is my favorite.
This is the US box art used in stores, by Julie Bell. BJ is just as much a body builder, but a little less insane. The guards look even less like Nazis than before, although the top guard is reminiscent of the cover of the original Castle Wolfenstein. This art was reused for the Game Boy Advance, iOS, and modern emulated platforms.
Documentation
Masters of Doom. Describes the development process.
Maps
Screenshots
Graphics
- spriters-resource.com/pc_computer/wolfenstein3d - Additional sprite sheets.
Fan Art
Videos
Download
Credits
Role | Staff |
---|---|
Chief Operating Officer | Jay Wilbur |
Director | Tom Hall |
Designers | Tom Hall, John Romero |
Writer | Tom Hall |
Engine Programmer | John Carmack |
Programmer | John Romero |
Additional Programming | Jason Blochowiak |
Graphics | Adrian Carmack |
Music, Sound Effects | Robert Prince |
Sound Driver | Jason Blochowiak |
Voices | Tom Hall, John Romero, Scott Miller |
Documentation | Kevin Cloud |
Links
- Video Game Rating - 4
- Video Game Graphics Rating - 7
- Video Game Sound Rating - 6
- Games
- Video Games
- 1992 Video Games
- Video Game Prime Order - Action, Adventure, Strategy
- Video Game Genre - First-Person Shooter
- Video Game Genre - Shooter
- Acorn 32-bit Games
- DOS Games
- Game Boy Advance Games
- IOS Games
- Macintosh Classic Games
- PC-9800 Games
- Video Games I've Beaten
- World War II
- Software Distribution Model - Shareware
- Software Distribution Model - Open Source
- Video Games That Fail the Bechdel Test