Yes it does, but you have to consider the time it was developed and released. Military shooters are ten-a-penny now, but in 1992, nothing like this had been done before. The simplistic design might not seem like much these days, but at the time, exploring these things in a 3D environment was something new, exciting and fresh. Also, the addition of Nazi symbolism and propaganda throughout the game, not to mention the opportunity to kill Hitler himself, was a hitherto unexplored and controversial design decision. What I find impressive about Wolfenstein 3D, and why I feel it remains a good game to this day, was the way the development team managed to make it work within their limitations. You only had three weapons, but if you find the Chain Gun, (the best of the three,) you have to be very careful with managing your resources as the rapid rate of fire drains your ammo very quickly. There are only five enemy types (not counting the bosses,) but each enemy presented its own challenge and needed strategic thinking in order to defeat, especially when they started appearing in significant numbers. While the levels could only be designed on a flat grid, there was a massive amount of thought put in to their design, and except for a couple of clangers, the layout of each level was bang on point. Wolfenstein 3D doesn’t look particularly good these days, and while the gun sound effects were meaty enough, the voices were tinny and distorted (more to do with the hardware limitations of the time than anything else.) But – and I’ve said it before – all the bells, whistles and graphics in the world can’t replace good level design and a solid core gameplay loop. With that in mind, if you like first-person action games, you could do far worse than try Wolfenstein 3D to experience the core of this style of game – and make up your own mind as to how little or far video games have come since 1992.
