Wolfenstein 3D

Wolfenstein is certainly an historical game and I think it does have some value in that regard. However lets face it. Wolfie hasn't aged well and everything this game did was later improved in Doom. First, Wolfenstein is that levels are bland and repetitive, designed in such a way that they become quite hard to navigate and very maze-like. Does it make it bad ? Absolutely not, as looking for secrets in order to get enough health and ammo is not only fun but becomes mandatory once you crank up the difficulty. This, coupled with the limited lives and the scoring system are quite an incentive to try to play the game is if you where on an arcade machine, or if it was a kind of pseudo rogue like if that's your thing, but keep in mind the game and especially its expansion spear of destiny is already fairly hard. That said, I could just say the same for Doom except that everything is better than in the good old Wolfie. It is a good game if you're into the history of games or into this specific franchise, but once you're done with chapter 1 there's no real reason to not switch to doom or another FPS. If you are looking to make the game run in a more modern and friendly environment I recommend that you look for Wolfesntein 3D TC, which basically ports the game into the gzdoom engine. This make things run a bit smoother without changing any of the basic mechanics and adds a map feature which greatly improve your experience if you don't like getting lost in bland mazes.

While not strictly the first FPS, it was the genre defining entry that would lead to Doom. While some people may be complaining about it being $10 you're getting the original six episodes, Spear of Destiny and the Lost Episodes in this pack. Maybe I'm just old and nostalgia blinded but the game is still a lot of fun to play today. The arcade simplicity really works in its favor. If you have any interest at all in the genre then Wolf-3D is a must play for historical perspective.

This was basically the title that lunched the first person shooter. While Doom gets more press it was this game that started a new direction for gaming originally published by apogee 17 years ago. it is still an great play even now and carries enough of an legacy that id returned to it with a quake 3 remake and a coming up sequel to that remake powered by the doom 3 engine. the first shareware episode is a remake of the Castle Wolfenstine by muse which this game was inspired by so much so that id legal had to dig for the rights to the name. The full version contains 5 additional episodes witch throw out WW2 realism in favor of killing Nazi mutants with pistols in there chests and Hitler in a mechanized suit. originally put out as a dos title it has seen bunches of retail issues leaving three copies of the current version "1.4". The version sold here by Apogee3DR is version 1.4g. That version includes the apogee logo and graphics set including the old order info for the game. For a while GT interactive (now Atari) sold wolf 3d with the hint book included and removed the apogee logo (replaced with a GT logo) and order info this version also ended up in the gt distributed id anthology. the one sold on GOG.com and the last Retail copy put out by Activision is similar the the last retail 1.4 but uses a activision logo on the setup screen. all three are the same game apogee did sell for a short time a 1.4 without cheats so if you buy a old set of wolf 3d floppies online the cheat codes may be removed. This is a must get game for any fps fan.

This game is quite a bit of good old-time fun for a few hours with ECWolf and a controller. (At least it seemed to suit me better than the original keyboard or mouse+keyboard controls.) I doubt it's engaging enough to fully want to finish it. Heck even back in the '90s I was satisfied after playing the demo consisting of episode one. Then again, I replayed that a few times to find most of the secrets. tl;dr Grab it, but only when it's on sale.

... but not much else. As I said about the early SpaceQuest games, the origial Wolfenstein 3D is a milestone in gaming as well. While id didn't actually "invent" the FPS genre, it was the first to put most basic aspects of it place, many of which are still there, making it the most definitive of the early first person shooters. I'm already running out of good things to say about this game. It really haven't aged well at all. Though the gameplay itself was the fastest and most frantic of its age, even back then it didn't really have the content to give it a lasting appeal. The roster of foes and locations seems shockingly narrow today. Come to think of it, even the Catacomb Fantasy series was better at this (though technically vastly inferior). Don't get me wrong, Wolfenstein 3D can be a LOT of arcade-y fun for some time, as it is, at it's core, a mighty finely tweaked game, but it quickly overstays it's welcome - repetition kicks in very soon. I guess the reason we liked it so much back then, because it was a technical pioneer, a true marvel in that sense. Unfortunately, more than twenty years later, that's not really something to be "enjoyed", rather something to "praise" or "acknowledge". Spear of Destiny is more of an expansion pack than anything else (think of a DLC for the old days). Has some cool new content, lot's of new levels, but the same old problems come forward here as well, and you'll probably stop playing the game after five or six levels at most.