When it comes to the history of first-person shooters, I've seen people crown Doom as the grandfather of the genre while half-heartedly addressing Wolfenstein 3D with a general sense of "Oh, yeah, that game exists as well". Don't get me wrong, people do pay their respects towards this game and the standards it set for both id Software's demon-themed follow-up and the first-person shooter genre as a whole, but I have not seen nearly as many people talk about Wolfenstein 3D as they've talked about Doom, let alone praise it, and I wanted to see why. Much to my surprise, though, I had a pretty good time with Wolfenstein 3D from start to finish, and while it isn't perfect and has dated quite a bit more than Doom, it's still a fun game that I'd say is worth playing today.
Back when I reviewed Doom in September, I mentioned how a lot of that game's entertainment comes from how simple and direct its immensely gratifying and fast-paced gameplay was, but since Wolfenstein 3D featured an even more stripped-down setup than that, I was interested in seeing what that would feel like. Instead of running at the speed of a cheetah and obliterating hordes of demons with chainsaws, shotguns, and laser rifles, Wolfenstein 3D has you infiltrating Nazi castles and bunkers adorned with countless swastikas and portraits of Adolf Hitler while gunning down handfuls of German forces at a time, and this approach manages to feel tense and enthralling in its own right. It only makes sense that the previous two entries in this series were both top-down stealth games, as having any of the enemies be able to kill you in two or three shots led to me peeking around lots of corners, looking for secret rooms, occasionally avoiding confrontation entirely, and even luring enemies into my line of fire using the sound of my gunshots as I fire at nearby walls. Even with B.J. Blazkowicz's limited arsenal of a Walther P38, an MP40, a chain gun, and the single most ineffective and unsatisfying knife on earth, gunning down Nazis is still very satisfying, and since your movement in the game is very restrictive, the combat becomes less about dodging bullets and more about killing whatever soldier or soldiers are right in front of you before they kill you, and that adds a lot of intensity to the otherwise brief gunfights. This is the same aspect of Wolfenstein 3D that led to me enjoying the game's boss fights, with the iconic battle against Robo-Hitler being especially engaging thanks to the limited health and ammo drops.
Most, if not all of the actual gripes that I had with Wolfenstein 3D can be attributed to both how old this game is and how early of an entry in the first-person shooter genre this was, but despite this, they still ended up affecting my experience with the game somewhat negatively. While the actual layouts for the labyrinthine levels were quite different in terms of both design and escalating difficulty, the art direction made many of the stages look and feel identical to each other, as the entire game is spent looking at the same brick walls, blue doors, and green lamps from the first stage to the last. The sameness of the visuals didn't help the occasionally confusing exploration, as the maze-like hallways were much less easy to navigate or tell apart than the ones in Doom (although these occasional moments aren't nearly as bad as the constant, cryptic nonsense of Doom II). The music tracks in Wolfenstein 3D also felt quite repetitive, and while a few new tracks got added with each episode, most of it just ended up meshing together anyway. Even with all of these flaws, I still enjoyed Wolfenstein 3D a lot more than I thought I would, and not only am I interested in checking out the prequel episodes that weren't included in my version of the game, but I also want to eventually check out some of the reboots and sequels that came out later on, such as Return to Castle Wolfenstein or Wolfenstein: The New Order.
Back when I reviewed Doom in September, I mentioned how a lot of that game's entertainment comes from how simple and direct its immensely gratifying and fast-paced gameplay was, but since Wolfenstein 3D featured an even more stripped-down setup than that, I was interested in seeing what that would feel like. Instead of running at the speed of a cheetah and obliterating hordes of demons with chainsaws, shotguns, and laser rifles, Wolfenstein 3D has you infiltrating Nazi castles and bunkers adorned with countless swastikas and portraits of Adolf Hitler while gunning down handfuls of German forces at a time, and this approach manages to feel tense and enthralling in its own right. It only makes sense that the previous two entries in this series were both top-down stealth games, as having any of the enemies be able to kill you in two or three shots led to me peeking around lots of corners, looking for secret rooms, occasionally avoiding confrontation entirely, and even luring enemies into my line of fire using the sound of my gunshots as I fire at nearby walls. Even with B.J. Blazkowicz's limited arsenal of a Walther P38, an MP40, a chain gun, and the single most ineffective and unsatisfying knife on earth, gunning down Nazis is still very satisfying, and since your movement in the game is very restrictive, the combat becomes less about dodging bullets and more about killing whatever soldier or soldiers are right in front of you before they kill you, and that adds a lot of intensity to the otherwise brief gunfights. This is the same aspect of Wolfenstein 3D that led to me enjoying the game's boss fights, with the iconic battle against Robo-Hitler being especially engaging thanks to the limited health and ammo drops.
Most, if not all of the actual gripes that I had with Wolfenstein 3D can be attributed to both how old this game is and how early of an entry in the first-person shooter genre this was, but despite this, they still ended up affecting my experience with the game somewhat negatively. While the actual layouts for the labyrinthine levels were quite different in terms of both design and escalating difficulty, the art direction made many of the stages look and feel identical to each other, as the entire game is spent looking at the same brick walls, blue doors, and green lamps from the first stage to the last. The sameness of the visuals didn't help the occasionally confusing exploration, as the maze-like hallways were much less easy to navigate or tell apart than the ones in Doom (although these occasional moments aren't nearly as bad as the constant, cryptic nonsense of Doom II). The music tracks in Wolfenstein 3D also felt quite repetitive, and while a few new tracks got added with each episode, most of it just ended up meshing together anyway. Even with all of these flaws, I still enjoyed Wolfenstein 3D a lot more than I thought I would, and not only am I interested in checking out the prequel episodes that weren't included in my version of the game, but I also want to eventually check out some of the reboots and sequels that came out later on, such as Return to Castle Wolfenstein or Wolfenstein: The New Order.
cowboyjosh
4 months ago