Posted on: June 23, 2023

Daventry

Games: 354 Reviews: 4

The legend that would birth a genre!

Pro: Revolutionary for time of release. First time we saw super fluid control in a 3D space from a first-person perspective. Id pioneered addictive gun play that felt satisfying. Doom would later provide a kinetic and visceral feel to firing weapons that was only achieved through an intentional design that married animation, sound and programming in perfect harmony. The designers successfully created a dynamic where you wanted to pull that trigger over and over and experience that ensuing cathartic wave of watching your enemies erupt into tiny bits, or “gibs” again and again. The seeds of that can be felt here with the rhythmic rat-a-tat-a-tat-a of the machine unloading into nazi soldiers. SOUND! Crisp and chunky sound effects. The clanking and locking of the metal doors sliding open and shut echoing around you. The crunchy reveal of a secret wall opening before you. Actual voices of the soldiers as they are alerted to your presence or cry out in their death throes. The sound design elevates the game to a higher level of immersion and fun. Superscaled and detailed sprites for the bosses. SPEAR OF DESTINY: The final level and boss. No spoilers here, but the twist at the end is great. It is the cherry on top of an overall incredible game experience and sets shooter fans up for the ballistic ride Id was about to take them on with their next big game! Con: The game is probably too long. 90 levels created at a time when the designers were limited in how much variety they could add to the design, causes it to feel like it stretches itself too thin and it becomes repetitive. 45-50 levels would have been ideal. Episode 4 Mission 7. Trigger the wrong secret panel, and you soft lock your game with no indication that you have done so, or how. In a game that encourages you to discover and explore every secret wall, this is particularly cruel and can result in hours wasted wandering the level in search of something missed. Something the game will never disclose. 7/10

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Posted on: August 11, 2023

brendano

Verified owner

Games: 564 Reviews: 8

Incredible game, underwhelming release.

Let's not mince words, Wolfenstein 3D is one of (if not the most) important PC games of all time. In some ways, it's more important than the signifcantly more popular release of Doom only a couple years later. Wolfenstein single handedly made FPS the dominant genre on home computers for generations to come and its fast raycasting engine brought 3D graphics to the masses. The gameplay is quick, simple and easy for anybody to understand. That's why it pains me that the folks at Bethesda still haven't given the game a proper remaster. This isn't a modern source port. Instead, it's the same DOS release we've seen for over thirty years now. The Spear of Destiny mission packs have inexplicably been stripped from this release, we still don't have proper widescreen support for higher resolutions. Modern keyboard controls have been mapped but you still can't circle strafe. There's no option to toggle between the original and higher resolution sprites of the MAC/3DO/Jaguar version. I can understand excluding the Mission Packs as Bethesda may never have had the rights to them to begin with, but where's the remixed levels from the console ports with new weapons? As it stands, this is such a small slice of Wolf3D compared to the many versions that would follow. Including SOD and a new menu to select which game you're playing is a nice touch. I just wish more could be done to present a more complete Wolfenstein package to a new generation of players.

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Posted on: June 7, 2021

Nandeyanen

Verified owner

Games: 159 Reviews: 5

A Historically Important but Dated Game

Compared to the Doom and Quake, Wolfenstein 3D is easily the hardest to go back to out of Id Softwares old-school FPS games. The main thing holding the game back is really just that it lacks the variety that make those other two so great. There are three guns in the game, and they're all basically just fire rate upgrades. The levels are maze-like hallways with the same texture over and over again and very little in the way of features to orient yourself after. The enemies are also pretty much just variants of the same basic guard you see in the first level, with the occasional dog or boss thrown in. There's still fun to be had with Wolfenstein 3D, especially playing on higher difficulties where small mistakes can leave you dangerously low on health and ammo, but at the end of the day it's hard to recommend Wolfenstein 3D over pretty much any of the old-school FPS that it inspired.

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Posted on: February 7, 2022

Rolagarthor

Verified owner

Games: 149 Reviews: 62

Shotter's grandpa

It is a very revolutionary collection for the 90s. Before Martian demons, the Nazis had to be humiliated, why not? A must for any collection. I've been lost in the labyrinths of this pair of games, with almost 80 levels, it's anachronistic fun guaranteed!

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Posted on: March 25, 2020

jcubria

Verified owner

Games: 65 Reviews: 2

The game that started it all...

This is the father of all FPS First Person Shooter games. A classic and still fun to this day.

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