Game Debate #38: Wolfenstein 3D

[Reed Rothchild | 9,522]

[Webhead123 | 675]

5/10

In a world where Doom does not exist, Wolf 3D would have a little bit more to offer in terms of appeal. Unfortunately, Wolf 3D ended up being just a stepping stone (albeit an important one) toward the real-deal FPS experience and, in hindsight, feels positively anemic by comparison.

Don't get me wrong...I like Wolf 3D. I actually play it via source port occasionally. It is fun. It's just not a fraction as fun, inspired or polished as Doom.

[mbd39 | 2,020]

It would be a 10 in terms of historical significance and influence. But it gets a 6 in terms of playing it now.

 

[SilverspoonGaming | 332]

I respect this game, and think its awesome, but the bulk of my experience with it was when they brought it to the PS store on PS3, and I could never play it for long because it always gave me motion sickness, so I never finished it.

[noiseredux | 232]

I went 7/10, as I'm basing it on how I feel about the game in 2021. When I was in junior high and me and my friends installed the shareware copy on the computer lab's PC's, it was a 10/10 game. So I can't really undersell its importance, at least to me. But obviously Doom, Quake and everything else has eclipsed it as a FPS experience over the years. That said, it is fun to go back to once in a while, and I still think that the core gameplay is solid for the time/tech.

[sp1nz | 611]

I'm pretty sure Wolfenstein 3D was my first FPS experience. I was visiting one of my cousins and he had it for his PC. It was very fun at the time to roam the blue hallways, blast some nazis and find secrets, and I didn't want to stop playing. Nowadays I would say the level design is mazey and samey but the gameplay is pretty tight still. Wolfenstein 3D is to Doom what Donkey Kong is to Super Mario Bros.: grandfather of a genre and thus it didn't have it in the cards to be the best for all time, well for most people anyway.

7/10

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

It's a pretty good game, but I liked Doom better. 6/10.

[AstralSoul | 502]

I absolutely loved this game back in the day and it was the first FPS I ever played. While people were playing Doom, I was playing Wolfenstein. Easily would've given it a 9 or better in the early 90s. Now though? Not so much. I find it boring and a chore to play nowadays. I gave it a 6 because of the fun I used to have with it back then, so I have the good memories of it but it deserves a lower score than what I gave it. It's not fun to play these days, unlike Doom. 

[JamesRobot | 5,800]

I'd give it a 6 and bump it up to a 7 for historical significance to ruffle Reed's feathers.  Prefer DOOM but they're both great franchises.  I think I missed the last 2 Wolfensteins but I'm only one game behind on DOOM at the moment.

[Sumez | 2,950]

Was a pretty cool achievement at the time, but honestly not as special as people maybe want you to think.

Playing it back then, it got super old super fast, as well as it does nowadays.  Doom 1 was a quantum leap over this one.

3/10

Edited February 25, 2021 by Sumez

[Sumer | 221]

9, with only Doom being the 10.

Played Wolfenstein 3D right before Doom hit and was enthralled by it.  This was at a time that I was mostly a console gamer, but had a 386 SX(yep, the crappy 386) for school work as I was in junior high at the time.  Seeing Wolfenstein play on the 386 was my first "glimpse" of the so-called "PC Master Race."    I know Wolf3D came out for consoles later, but by that time, as you all know, Doom had taken us by storm followed by Doom 2 and Quake.

Doom took it to another level and just blew me away.  Quake may be a 9.5.

[DefaultGen | 5,401]

8/10.

I played the shareware a lot as a kid. I thought I was so cool because it was rated PC-13 and I wasn't 13. It's also one of the only games my dad ever played along with Atari 2600 games. I only ever beat all 6 episodes when the PSN port came out.

I hate most 2D maze games like Pac-man but for whatever reason I love 3D maze games. I could play games like Wolfenstein 3D or Doom all day if you took the shooting aspect out of the game. I just like exploring 3D mazes man. It's like that Windows 95 maze screensaver but you could actually play it! So good.

[Link | 2,709]

19 minutes ago, DefaultGen said:

I could play games like Wolfenstein 3D or Doom all day if you took the shooting aspect out of the game. I just like exploring 3D mazes man. It's like that Windows 95 maze screensaver but you could actually play it!

You’ve played Ken’s Labyrinth, right?

[DefaultGen | 5,401]

5 minutes ago, Link said:

You’ve played Ken’s Labyrinth, right?

Nope but it looks rad. It has working water fountains!

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

32 minutes ago, DefaultGen said:

8/10.

I played the shareware a lot as a kid. I thought I was so cool because it was rated PC-13 and I wasn't 13. It's also one of the only games my dad ever played along with Atari 2600 games. I only ever beat all 6 episodes when the PSN port came out.

I hate most 2D maze games like Pac-man but for whatever reason I love 3D maze games. I could play games like Wolfenstein 3D or Doom all day if you took the shooting aspect out of the game. I just like exploring 3D mazes man. It's like that Windows 95 maze screensaver but you could actually play it! So good.

Curse of the Catacombs was a fun fantasy spin on Wolf3D (sort of like what Hexen was to Doom).

 

For Wolfenstein 3D -- I remember being amazed when I went to someone's house in middle school and found out that they actually had the full version of the game and not just the shareware.  

Edited February 25, 2021 by arch_8ngel

[DefaultGen | 5,401]

To be honest once I got a hold of Doom, I sure didn't go back to older PC maze games, I was all aboard the bleeding edge of FPS technology at all times train. I got back into 3D mazes with turn based first person RPGs. Might and Magic III, Legacy on Palm OS, Doom RPG, Orcs & Elves, that kind of thing.

[Tanooki | 4,933]

I know for a fact seeing the spread currently I don't even have to read others to bet pretty good chance i'm going to carbon copy my next comment.

If Wolfenstein is the 9 I gave it, then it would take Doom to be the 10 to it.  Wolfenstein 3D was nearly perfect at the time, but it had some acknowledged shortcomings, and not entirely just due to the engine, but perhaps oversight.  But even despite that, I mean hell...who didn't want to just utterly kill the 20th century scum of humanity and draw some gaming level pleasure from it who found a copy?  Getting even with nazis with hot digital lead or a good stabby point made millions of peoples day, passively here and there if not aggressively so.  And so aggressively so it gave us a sequel, and then the birth of the path into Doom.

Spear of Destiny gave us that fix to the one big oversight, a map.  I get being captured and lost in the first of six chapters, but hey, we didn't know where the hell we were in SoD or Doom either...it was a progressive automap, not a pre-rendered one as that would be a cheat.  Wolfenstein gave us so much adventure, intrigue, treasure hunting, and well revenge.  In a way it was the GTA of the day, take out your bad day on a kraut instead of some random city schlub with a club.

To think how much it pulled off on such mediocre hardware too.  Clean clear digital music, sound effects, and spoken german quotes from all the nazis.  They holler and sound brave, warn others, yet rewardingly die screaming when you're finished.  And yeah...oh yeah, DEATHCAM(tm)... melting Hitler into a warm gooey pile of gibs was just epic in the day, still is.  It's sad to think, most games since, have been sad (although prettier) continuations that just never set a good of a bar, though the PS3/PC single player titles were pretty admirable at least.

 

A little bonus, I'm sure some here know it, but I wonder how many were aware that catchy title theme was the nazi national anthem?  I still can remember it having played that game so much.

Edited February 25, 2021 by Tanooki

[mbd39 | 2,020]

Doom came out the year after Wolfenstein 3D. That's sort of like Super Mario World coming out right after SMB.

 

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

11 minutes ago, DefaultGen said:

To be honest once I got a hold of Doom, I sure didn't go back to older PC maze games, I was all aboard the bleeding edge of FPS technology at all times train. I got back into 3D mazes with turn based first person RPGs. Might and Magic III, Legacy on Palm OS, Doom RPG, Orcs & Elves, that kind of thing.

PalmOS was a great reboot of that genre.

Redshift keeps their games from that era updated in Android.

[TDIRunner | 2,735]

It's a great game, but it gets old quickly when compared to Doom.  I respect it for its place in history, but I don't have much desire to play it these days outside of an occasional short 10 minute play.  

[Inzoreno | 102]

7/10 It was a significant step towards standardizing FPS games, but it just doesn't hold up that well anymore compared to even it's immediate successor Doom. 

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

I keep my Jaguar around just for this game.  It's pretty repetitive and simple in retrospect, but the nostalgia-hit is off the charts for me, so I usually end up playing through it once every year or two...

[Tanooki | 4,933]

I'm surprised no one has attempted to hack or homebrew a fresh one for GBA.  Those cheapskates at BAM! when they did it on there, they didn't want to pay up and cut out all the music from the game to fit it to a smaller chip.  Visually it's 100%, sound effects and voices too, just no music which kind of blows.

[OptOut | 8,883]

I played it on my Super Famicom before that died. Played it all the way through, it's a great game! It's a really special experience to play a FPS on a Super Nintendo, I can tell ya!

[fox | 1,667]

Wolf3d is the granddaddy of fps games.  Really fun back in the day, though almost immediately blown out of the water by Doom.  Still fun to play in short bursts.

Wolfenstein: The New Order is one of my fav games of the last generation.  It has all the crazy stuff like being able to dual wield sniper rifles while eating dog food, but also as really does a great job of giving BJ a lot of character as a PTSD soldier, and showing the true horror of the Nazi Eugenics better than as other media.