Retro PC: Wolfenstein 3D

Wolfenstein 3d (or Wolf3d) was the game that popularized First-Person-Shooters, and evolved the gaming industry into what it is today. It was inspired by a 1980s game made by Muse Software called Castle Wolfenstein. The full game consisted of 60 levels, with 10 levels per episode; the shareware version only included the 1^st episode. I bought the shareware disk for $1.07 about 15 years ago. 3 years after I bought it, my old computer crashed and took my saved games with it. As I was looking through my old computer disks, I luckily found the disk and decided to buy the full version. I downloaded DOSBox and mounted my games directory. I selected my difficulty level as ‘Bring ‘em on’ and began my new game. I know I should have gone for it with ‘I am death incarnate’ but it’s been a while. 

In the 1^st episode – Escape from Castle Wolfenstein, you find yourself in a room with a dead guard and you have a knife and pistol in your inventory. You walk out and notice you’re in the prison area with 4 other doors leading to who knows where. Suddenly, you’re getting shot and realize there was a guard behind you. The guards usually let out an alert whenever they spot you but this one was just being sneaky. From there, you navigate through the corridors, seeking treasure, ammo and access to the next levels. Throughout your search you encounter dogs, Nazi guards, and officers with machine guns protecting the skeletons of their former prisoners and treasure. Unfortunately, there is no real sense of aiming, so no head shots; insert sad face here. Some rooms are littered with treasure and others with health boosts like a full turkey meal or dog food. Secret rooms with health kits, ammo, and new weapons are scattered throughout the levels. In several levels, you are required to search for a key in order to continue onto the next part of the level. I liked the idea of secret rooms but I didn’t really see much reason for a locked door that did not contain a secret stash or an exit. I had to resort to using the arrow keys instead of my mouse because it was a bit too sensitive for me.

Each level increases in difficulty, and the corridors seem to become endless, with labyrinthine traps scattered along the path. I found that the majority of the time I was walking along the walls pressing the space bar to see if I could open a secret room. I was successful about 20% of the time and banked when I found the chaingun. During the last level of the 1^st episode, you find the boss, Hans Grosse, waiting with his dual chainguns. It took me at least 40 or 50 shots to take him down, but I had to leave to go get health and ammo every 20 shots. It was pretty annoying having to go back and forth, returning only to run around, attempting to get the last shot in. I found out about the strategy of staying back and shooting your chaingun about 3 or 4 deaths in; luckily I saved before the big boss battle, and so I just reloaded and began again. I’m the kind of person who likes to take the front line and direct fire, but I forgot that this is Wolf3d and not Army of Two. By the way, you get to reuse that strategy when you meet the female version in one of the later episodes.

Overall, I had a great time playing this old game again, if only to see how the FPS genre started, and to be able to put into context its continued evolution. I’m sure at least 85% of you have played Wolf3d at least once, most likely due to the dreaded red-ring-of-death, as it went for me. This game was awesome when it came out and it’s now available on the iPhone; the iPhone version includes all 6 episodes, along with Spear of Destiny.

Tags: Crystal R. Retro wolf3d