Wolfenstein 3D
Reviewed by Dogg
It is highly unlikely that one person does not know
the game that began the FPS (first-person shooter)
genre. BUT just in case you didn't know let me slap
you in the face, and then tell you that ID Software's
Wolfenstein 3-d was indeed that one game. Wolfenstein
3-d came out even before Doom (the game many claim to
be the forerunner of shooters even today), and it
shows. Wolfenstein 3-d first came out in the PC,
where it became a huge hit (it even got a sequel
recently called Return to Castle Wolfenstein) Later
on more versions were made, but those versions lacked
panache, and they had also lost all the intensive
brutality of the original PC version. So now BAM!
Entertainment has secured the rights to this old, but
privileged game and re-releases it to the public one
more time on Nintendo's handheld, the Game Boy
Advance, this time as a solid and proud PC port.
Hitler's Blood Included!
Wolfenstein 3-d taps you back in time, all the way to
1942-1943, during World War II Nazi Germany. Here
Adolph Hitler's regime runs wild and the prosecution
of many races begins. But then a soldier, B.J, or
your character, was brought into a dungeon to be
sentenced, but you escaped. So in the end you are
basically left by yourself, (with no protection) in a
huge castle filled with German soldiers, and even
Adolph Hitler himself. Here you must do the part of
taking out the soldiers, and then assassinating
Hitler. Do you think you can do that?
The adventure of B.J, however, is a lengthy and
trivial one; in fact this game is separated into six
episodes to separate the action and to simply to
bring people to playing any part of the game that
they might like. Each episode, in every part, is
different. One episode has you escaping from Castle
Wolfenstein, while another one puts you in the
director's seat of seeing first-hand the bloodied
corpse of Hitler himself. However, this brings me to
my next point, Wolfenstein 3-dÉ
Is bloody, offensive, and definitely not for the
young or weak-hearted thanks to its war-like status.
Bloodshed lies all over the place giving you a feel
that this game truly is offensive, and with all of
the portraits lying all around the place depicting
Hitler, and Nazi symbols, this game just takes it to
the max with its portrayal of nazism. The game also
has skeletons lying around, whose flesh was drained
out by gas (a scene of concentration camps), and
there are even other piles of skeletal orientations,
which show you more of the sickening things Germans
made other people of different races do back in the
early and late 40's.
However, the massive brutality and gore should not
curdle the fact that this is still a good game. While
you are thinking Wolfenstein 3-d you are thinking old
and outdated. While indeed it is old and outdated,
all of that special gameplay is integrated and in a
way put out into a special package that should
intrigue people of the early FPS crowning days.
However, while it is a proud PC port of an old game,
still, it would have been cool if something new could
have been added to the mix. Muli-Player support would
have been nice, a new episode would have been sweet,
and more weapons could have been portrayed.
Speaking of weapons, Wolfenstein 3-d has four
different types of them. While each is mostly the
same as the other, it is still a good list -- though
yet again more weapons could have evidently have been
better--. The four weapons are: a shotgun, a silenced
handgun (or the gatling gun), a swiping knife, and
the fan-favorite, the sub-machine gun. The shotgun is
a small weapon that fires slow, and practical. While
slow, this weapon is still one of the main
exhilarating weapons that you will use to kill your
enemies. You will normally start out with this
weapon, and this gun can be really useful against
some of the more 'slower' enemies. The second gun,
the silenced handgun, is basically like the shotgun
except for the fact that it fires faster, and is
silenced so no other guards can be alarmed or
distracted. The swiping knife is the weapon you will
always have because co-incidentally it does not need
any ammo. WOW! The knife is practically useless,
though, and it is hard to find a position in which
you will actually be forced to use this 'weapon,'
considering the fact that ammo packages are strayed
and thrown all over the place. The sub-machine gun is
the best weapon (obviously). This gun, while at times
hard to find, is really useful because it fires fast
and can kill many sets of enemies really fast. This
is also the best weapon to use when you are up
against the bosses of this co-essential
unsubstantiated game.
In this game you will never have any support, and
incidentally I find that a good and bad thing. Nazi
Guards and bio-genetic experiments try to stop your
every move, while at times [Nazi] dogs will come and
try to bite you to smithereens. And your best way of
taking care of these enemies is to wellÉ kill them.
Many guards are not really smart, and simple bullets
can send these guys packing. The same goes for dogs.
Now before you question the game's AI, simply think
and see just how old this game is. Uh-huh, thought
so. But there are some tough guards that you will
have to deal with. Some guards are even equipped with
machine guns making them hard, and the 'mutant'
experiments simply use every trick in the book to try
to take you out. This not only makes the game hard,
but it makes it more suited to a person's liking.
Control is where this game suitably seems to go down.
While the pressing of the A and B buttons to open
doors and to shoot bullets are not the problem,
neither is the strafing done by the L and R buttons,
yet something seems to integrate the controls at
time, which can seemingly make the experience very
bothersome. Every time I start playing I press the
Directional Pad to move, but most of the time my
character seems to do a whole spin, leaving enemies
to hit-and-run my ass, and also leaving me with an
idea of simply closing this game down. While this
does not happen often, it still is a problem to this
GBA perfect PC conversion title.
The graphics are your average fair of bland, yet
wellÉ average graphics. Environments are well done
and enemies are very colorful looking. Added themes
such as impaled skeletons, furniture, and barrels
also add a weird, but more pixilated approach to the
game. While it has not changed much, it still seems
to good to the limited power in which the Game Boy
Advance can process. You are also given options, in
the main menu, to increase the brightness or the
darkness of the graphics in this game: a la Doom.
The audio, however, for the most part is definitely
bland, and generic. Unlike Doom, which had background
music, Wolfenstein 3-d does not. Audibly, this game
is a falling romp to how much FPS have processed
throughout the past years. There are a few sound bits
though. Stuff like the sound of your gun firing, or
to the words that seem to come out of soldier's
mouths. I do not know German so do not expect me to
translate for you.
Overall, Wolfenstein 3-d is a sweet experience to how
much first-person shooters have changed throughout
the years, too bad though that Wolfenstein 3-d did
not go through that change. More additions to the
gameplay would have been nice, and soothing and
relaxing background audio would have been a blessing
indeed. Still, you are witnessing the first of the
FPS games, a game that unfortunately has not changed
through time, and in the end you will see that this
can be a good thing.
Overall: 7 out of 10