Wolfenstein 3D

The Good
Now this is something I should review long time before. Well, I guess I was too busy re-playing the game instead, hehe. I remember first time seeing this game. I had some ol' 386 with B&W monitor, which only helped the atmosphere, since all the World War II oldies were in B&W technique, either 'cos they were old, or to increase the realism. Well, even teh Schindler's List was B&W even though it's from last decade movie. Anyway, I prefer old movies instead, and in this game, I prefer old 1st person shooters as well, lol. You know, back in time everything was so easy. You didn't have like 300 keys to press or 780 directions to point onto, but simple left, right, up and/or down, with a button to shoot. I remember "Wings" game from my Amiga days. It's still my best simulation (even though I really dislike simulation genre), and I remember all 237 missions I ended. It was vector based graphic and on only 2 floppies for Amiga, but it was great nevertheless. That only shows how game really doesn't have to take 7 CDs to be good. Same goes for Wolfenstein 3D, though if you compare it today, it would more be like 2 and a half D :)

First thing nice is that this game so easily finds your sound card, and works so smoothly on slower computers as well that it was a sin not to play it. Not to mention how great were soldiers' sounds and yikings, lol. I did once take a look at the source code, and it was rather okay done (not that I understood it that much), no matter ID guys said they did it rather silly back in time. Hey, everyone has to start with something silly to achieve the top place. Heck, Brett W. Sperry and Louis Castle started in a garage, and look at them now, their Westwood Studios is one of the best gaming industry on the globe. Well, I seem to skip this game's topic somehow, so I'll try and say something nice about this game, while I'm stil awake ;)

It gives you four different weapons, a knife, a luger pistol, machine gun, and something Arnold Shwarzenegger used when chasing predator, a painful one, hehe. That was a big gun to carry through the nazi halls, but most rewarding and bullets-eating as well. You have six mission in total, or which every of them consists from about 6-9 levels/floors that are more or less well guarded, depending the toughness level you choose to play in. At the end of every mission is a leader that, of course, must be shot down in order to complete the mission. You should read the text after missions, hehe, it might be funny sometimes, lol. As for the enemy AI, I didn't notice it, and that speaks for itself. Only thing on tougher level is that they hit you even if they shoot on 90 degrees west from you, lol, but that's only the sprite error, right? :)

Here we have german shepherds, that are hard targets, but nice to practice from afar. They mostly protect their rations, so you can get a few health percentages somewhere near them. Nazi soldiers are the most thing you'll find for starters, and they have a luger or such pistol, even though when on hard it seems like they have Colt .45 :) There are also SS troops that are equipped with machine guns, as well as mutants made by some doc's exercises, and you should be careful with both of the mentioned. Officers have a luger as well, but they're pretty fast and extremely hard to shot with only a gun for example. Beside these, there are six different bosses, differently but heavily shielded and armed. Also, I forgot to mention that music in this game is really great. Even greater then from game's add-on pack, "Spear of Destiny", but more or less the same ones. Of course, I cannot say music in IDs games is worth something, but this one definitely is.

The Bad
I'm trying to think of something but can't do ;) However, that mutants thingy could maybe be better developed or used something else instead. But with such colors, and the thing that it's the mother of all 1st person shooters, I like this game pretty much. Especially first mission.

The Bottom Line
Nothing new, but rather old for today's shooters, but I'm sure this game kept many of gamers tight to their chairs for a long long time. With possibility of rotating for 360 dgrees and shooting all around the nazi halls, great sounds, voices, and ouchs, accompanied by dynamic music, I say this is a definite game for every one of us while we were back in time. Also, it's probably easier then these newer games, especially in a navigation sence of way, hehe.