Wolfenstein 3D

I really like the game itself - I'd give it 4 stars - and played it through several times in the past, but as the game is funny (even if a little repetitive), the price is absolutely not acceptable. I would agree with 5.99, compared to other great games of the genre in that price segment, Wolf3D seems extremely overpriced. To the game itself: There are many nostalgic memories with this game for me. I remember having first played it on my brothers 486. I played it so long, I even saw the corridors and hallways when I closed my eyes after that. Some years later I played the game on newer PCs, the last times on Dosbox. Its gameplay is core at its best: You have four weapons (pretty standard: Knive, pistol, assault rifle and gatling - none of them historically designed), many floors where you basically have to find the exit. You'll find treasures and secrets on your way and kill many, many Nazis. What I really found revolutionary on Wolf3D is the fact, that your enemies will not only see you, but also hear you: If you shoot in a room, the guards, not seeing you, will react and investigate. If you are fighting strong, they may leave the room to get reinforcements and come back with their colleagues. These aspects make Wolf3D very special and fascinating, as it gives you different approaches to a situation. You can play Rambo and storm a room or try to lure them out one by another. At the end of a campaign, you'll encounter a really crazy boss enemy.

Wolfenstein 3D is arguably the first TRUE FPS game in the genre. Other "First-Person Shooter" existed in some form or another back in the day and you can argue that Catacombs 3D already did it, but still this is the game set the standard. Though 3D gameplay was already peaked with Ultima Underworld (and that game utilized TRUE 3D Graphics, this game utilizes a 2.5D method so the "3D" is actually in illusion) Wolfenstein 3D made it alot easier and accessible to many PC users back in the day. Story is basic: Nazi are evil, shoot them. But of course its not that simple since the concept of Wolfenstein is that it focuses on the Occult and some "Sci-Fi/Supernatural" myths surrounding the Nazis with weird sci fi weapons and supernatural forces. Though those concepts were tackled in the later games of the series. All in all a very simple but still timeless shooter to play and a piece of gaming history.

Wolf 3D is a decent enough game. Simplistic and dated, but gets good mileage out of its barebones gameplay mechanics. It's surprisingly difficult too, with guards 360 noscoping you even at full health on the hardest difficulty. It does take a bit of a nosedive in Episode 6, though. The real kicker here is the absolute scumbag move of gog retroactively removing content from users' libraries. Wolf 3D originally came with it's expansion Spear of Destiny plus two additional mission packs (Ultimate Challenge and Return To Danger), which included all-new textures, reskinned weapons and enemies and all-new sounds. The mission packs featured 21 maps each - that's quite a bit of extra content we're talking here! In late 2022 - 7 years after the gog debut! - it was decided to merge the Wolf 3D and Spear of Destiny library entries - the two mission packs were nuked in the process! Users who hadn't downloaded the first build are now locked out of their legally purchased games. This is basically the very thing the DRM-free crowd had always rallied against: Loosing access to your stuff at the publisher's/vendor's whim. Ahh... the wonders of digital distribution! Thankfully for gog, they have have rectified this by recently revising their (ever-changing) definition of what constitutes DRM-free to the laughable "once you bought and downloaded your game, it's yours forever and it can't be changed against your will" Well, no shit! At least they won't send people over to wipe the backups from hard drive... yet. For a taste of the Kafkaesque nightmare that ensues when you contact support about your missing games, go here: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/the_gog_bethesda_joke_or_how_customers_get_the_short_one And yet, gog still prides itself on "Respecting your need for ownership." What a farce! The thread's OP states: "My decision is clear: not another cent on anything that has Bethesda involved." I'd like to amend that: not another cent to Bethesda and their enablers at gog.

This will be a quick review, as I have to get back to Spear of Destiny, but I saw some less-than-positive reviews and decided to throw my two cents in. The game itself is simple and relatively mindless, but it's fun, and that's all that I hoped it would be. I never played it when it first came out (just bought it 2 weeks ago, playing it through for the first time), so nostalgia isn't clouding my judgment. Yeah, there are a handful of enemies, and they all do (mostly) the same thing, but that's hardly a good reason to grade it down. If it's fun to shoot these enemies, why does the game need anything else? And sure, DOOM did everything better, but the idea of a review is to review a game on its own merits, not on what something else did years later. If you're going to compare it to the best FPS's of all time, why play anything else than Halo or Duke Nukem 3D? The point is, this game is an extremely solid FPS for its time. It's polished, easy to learn and a great way to kill a few hours. There's nothing like cracking open a door, mowing down 20 Nazis with your chain gun, swooping up their ammo and racing to the next room. In conclusion, this FPS is not for anybody who expects a modern shooter, but as for me, the game that started it all is still pretty darn enjoyable.