♪♪
[typing]
Well, it seems as if the next Wolfenstein game is out.
It's quite new. And orderly.
But that's not quite my style.
At least, not for the purposes of this video today.
Let's go ahead and take a look at the Old Order
of Wolfenstein.
And of course, that is the one and only...
Wolfenstein 3D,
developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software in 1992 for MS-DOS PCs.
You'll hear some pronounce it "Wolfen-STEEN,"
but the people behind it stay "Wolfen-STINE,"
so that's what I'm going with.
In fact, it was originally going to be an update of sorts
to the Castle Wolfenstein games by Muse Software,
so the naming goes back a good ways.
Anyway, while it was eventually ported to every capable gaming platform under the sun,
Wolfenstein 3D was originally released as shareware on May 5, 1992.
Shareware meant that you could download the first episode for free
and pay $35 for the remaining two episodes if you liked the first one.
If you were REALLY into the game,
you could pay $50 and get three more episodes on top of that,
named the "Nocturnal Missions,"
which act as prequel episodes to the first three.
And although this was Apogee's first 3D game,
this was not the first 3D game by the guys at Id.
Prior to blowing the PC gaming public away with Wolf 3D,
the same team released a game for Softdisk Publishing
called Hovertank 3D.
It was a first-person 3D game where you controlled a hovering tank,
shooting at weird creatures while trying to rescue hostages,
and was released for Softdisk's bimonthly PC game subscription service, Gamer's Edge.
Hovertank used a very early version of the same game engine
that went on to power Wolfenstein,
but even then, there was still another iteration to come,
used in another game they made for Softdisk
called Catacomb 3-D.
It was important because it not only improved the tech with texture-mapped walls and such,
but it removed the feeling of being inside a vehicle
and placed the gamer directly into the action.
You played from the perspective of a wizard with an outstretched hand,
running around mazes and totally vulnerable
to direct attack by the enemy.
Now while these games were important milestones that pointed towards the future,
they only saw limited distribution and recognition.
However, with Apogee's help,
and the fact that the game was completely awesome,
Wolfenstein 3D was an unprecedented success,
with sales surpassing 100,000 by the end of 1993 worldwide.
Well, pretty much everywhere except Germany,
because this guy just had to go and ruin everything,
resulting in prohibited sales for anything with Nazi imagery.
Id wagered they could sell even more copies if they sold the game in stores,
but Apogee didn't do retail releases.
So in 1993, they teamed up with GT Software and released this version.
It contained the latest six- episode game that Apogee sold,
but in a sleek new box with some extra stuff inside:
It featured a topless Kurt Russell- looking man-dude on the front,
kicking soldiers in the face while shooting down the sky.
And of course, a slew of buzz words and other marketing jargon on the back
to finalize the sale.
And if that didn't grab your attention,
they eventually strapped a shareware version of Doom to the package
to tempt you even further.
Inside the box, you got the game
on two 3½-inch double-density floppy disks,
a manual covering the backstory,
installation details, control scheme,
and way more details on everything in the game than anyone really needed,
and a flyer prodding you to buy Commander Keen: Goodbye, Galaxy!
Obviously, I listened.
You also got the official hint manual for all six episodes,
which was only previously available as a $10 extra from Apogee.
This is freakin' awesome,
containing not only every map, secret, and useful tip you could ask for,
but tons of trivia about the game's development and other assorted quips
from the guys at id Software.
Start the game up and you're greeted with a practically useless,
yet undeniably captivating screen showing your PC specs.
Really just geek fodder for showing off your RAM and sound card capabilities.
And after a self-imposed rating of "Profound Carnage 13,"
you get the title screen,
featuring an AdLib rendition of the Horst-Wessel-Lied Nazi party theme,
plus the protagonist doing something you can't do in the game at all.
But who cares? He looks BAMF!
A very red main menu is next,
featuring all sorts of options that menus mainly feature.
And when you try to quit the game,
you get the now-classic Id game taunts
belittling you into continuing to play the game,
as if they were payed by how many hours you spent playing or something.
You also get an interactive story book of sorts
where it's revealed that you're Captain William J. "B.J." Blazkowicz.
World War II is at its peak,
and you've just escaped from a cell in a Nazi dungeon.
You were on a recon mission nearby,
but it turns out you sucked at it,
got captured by the enemy,
and thrown into the prison of a massive fortress known as Wolfenstein.
It's up to you to stop suckin',
kill some Nazis
and escape with the plans for something important that really doesn't matter
because this is an FPS from 1992.
Start a new game and choose from any one of these six episodes,
keeping in mind that 4 through 6 are prequels to the main prison break story.
Really doesn't matter, though, except for a screen or two at the end of each episode,
so just choose your level of wimpiness
and GET PSYCHED!
["Get Them!" MIDI drumbeat]
[steel door opens]
"Achtung!" (Alert!)
[gunshots]
In Wolfestein 3D,
you run around and shoot dudes
until you find a door that lets you exit the level. the end.
Okay, so the basic gameplay is absurdly simple
and could be called clichéd nowadays,
but there's a reason for that.
This is often referred to as the granddaddy of first-person shooters,
because this is where that clichéd gameplay
and all those first-person shooter conventions started.
And while the core structure of what makes a typical FPS nowadays
was refined and set in stone with the later game Doom,
Wolfenstein 3D set up all the notable core framework.
You're a badass alpha male character,
starting off with basically nothing.
Just a pistol with a bit of ammo and your melee attack,
in this case a knife.
Wander around opening doors and collecting anything useful
while shooting anything that moves in the meantime.
You can walk, run, strafe, shoot and interact,
but there's no need to jump because,
there is no height variance in the levels.
And even though this stuff was done due to technical limitations,
come to think of it, it's not very different from the campaigns of many modern shooters.
Except for one big difference,
and that is that the levels here are straight up mazes.
No corridor shooting in sight.
Each level is seemingly more complex and sprawling than the last.
Honestly, it's my biggest complaint about the game,
because it's just so darned easy to get lost
because of the lack of texture variety,
and the fact that everything is built from tiles at a 90-degree angle!
It leads to a crapload of backtracking,
if you've not yet memorized the layout,
and get insanely tedious
way before the game's sixty levels are through.
While you can finish an entire episode in five to ten minutes
if you've played it endlessly and just memorized everything,
it often takes that long just to finish a single level the first few times around.
And seeing as the exact same formula applies to
just about every level in the game,
this gets old fast.
Granted, as a kid, I didn't care at all.
Because that's because I was a kid
and this whole concept of first-person action and exploration was new.
Going back and playing it now, it really shows its age
and I rarely play more than a handful of levels at a time.
Then again, maybe it was just designed
for this mastery through memorization and repetition.
Seeing as it features a scoring and lives system
just like an arcade game.
Plus, it's often brutally difficult
and even completely unforgiving on the higher difficulties.
Nazi soldiers, attack dogs,
SS officers and even mutants will pop out from behind corners
and chase you don't if they so much as hear a peep
from your general direction.
And thankfully, killing is constantly satisfying.
Seriously, you just get into a trance-like state of mind,
mowing down dude after dude,
anticipating their hiding spots,
outrunning their aim and taking them down
with increasing firepower.
You may start off with a pistol,
but if you look in the right places, you'll soon find
an automatic machine gun
and one freakin' powerful chain gun,
both of which are deeply satisfying dealers of death.
They're all hitscan guns, though,
meaning that they deal damage as soon as they shoot,
so it does feel a bit cheap
when an enemy locks onto you and takes you down from the opposite side of the map,
making your face bleed all over the place for no good reason.
But, man, it feels good when the tables are turned
and you're making THEM scream for their life instead.
[gunshots] [SS] (My life!)
There are craploads of secrets to discover as well,
with most of them lying behind pushable walls,
hiding away things like guns, ammo and Nazi gold
that makes oddly cheery sound effects when you pick them up.
[1-up dinging]
Other times, they'll take you to an entirely secret level,
where things are a lot more purple
and other times, they're a lot more Pac-Man.
Not kidding. There's a Pac-Man level in the original game.
Perhaps a reference to the maze-like level design.
Or maybe Blinky, Inky, Pinky and Clyde
were actually Nazis,
and in that case, Pac-Man just took on a whole new meaning?
Then there was the infamous "Aardwolf" sign
hidden in the eighth floor of Episode 2.
The sign was originally meant for a contest Apogee had planned,
but due to people hacking the game early on and finding all the secrets,
they decided it wasn't a very fair contest.
Nevertheless, the sign was left in the game
and they ended up receiving "Aardwolf" phone calls for years.
Once you've reached the end of an episode,
you're... promptly killed off by a boss.
So make sure you save your game beforehand
because you lose all your weapons when you die.
Ugh, these guys are a huge pain,
especially because of that whole hitscan weapons thing.
But of course, there's some kind of pattern to figure out
as far as when they attack and how often,
so just keep track of that and move quickly
in and out of cover and you'll get 'em eventually.
Hans Grosse, Dr. Schabbs and Otto Giftmacher
are no match for a well-timed BJ attack.
Even freakin' Adolf Hitler tries to kill you by the end.
Uh, make that Mecha-Hitler,
complete with robo-suit and overpowered machine gun arms
because this game is marvelously ridiculous.
[foot stomping]
[BJ] Yeah!
Now as for which version is best to play, that depends on what you're looking for.
The original game is really where you should start,
so either the DOS PC version
or the more recent console ports
are great starting points.
There are also source ports, like ECWolf,
which enhances the PC game with higher resolutions
and additional custom control schemes,
the latter of which makes it easier to strafe with a mouse and keyboard
or a gamepad on the PC,
and makes the game far more playable in my book.
And there are some notable classic ports,
like the one for the Apple Macintosh,
which featured enhanced graphics, new music and sound effects,
more levels and weapons, and a slightly smug attitude
from thinking different.
Finally, there are conversions with other fascinating things going on,
like the Super Nintendo version
which features different level designs,
an in-game overhead map,
new weapons and censorship of things,
like blood, gore, dogs replaced with giant rats
and removal of religious and Nazi themes,
because Nintendo.
And even MORE finally, there's the sequel/prequel Spear of Destiny,
developed by Id and published by FormGen in September of 1992.
This was only released in stores, foregoing the shareware model,
and was meant to be a retail companion to Wolfenstein 3D,
before GT Software started selling it in stores the following year.
While it doesn't feature nearly as many levels,
it does feature a little bit new in just about every notable area,
other than gameplay, which is exactly the same.
It also received two mission packs
which added even more to experience.
So, yeah, if you really like the Wolfenstein formula,
there is no shortage of games to choose from out there.
But whichever version you choose to seek out,
just keep in mind its repetitious nature
and the fact that it's from the early '90s,
and it could still be fun to go and mow down some pixelated Nazis.
Yeah, it hasn't aged well,
and personally, I'd rather play Doom any day of the week,
but Wolfenstein 3D is a landmark game
and it's worth playing at least once
just to see where this all began.
In fact, I'd say the historical aspect is the single-biggest reason to check it out.
So if you haven't in a while, or somehow never have,
it's time to pay some respect to your gaming elders
and play some Wolf 3D!
["Wondering About My Loved Ones" MIDI music]
And if you got some enjoyment out of watching me talk about killing Nazis in virtual form,
you might enjoy watching me talk about other games in video form.
I do more of them every week,
so subscribing is not only appreciated and a bit of an ego boost,
but it's also useful to you if you want to get notified of when I do more junk.
And you can always follow me on Twitter, Facebook and do Patreon things on Patreon.
Also, a big thanks to Dosgamert on YouTube
for hooking me up with some late game footage
when mine completely crapped out and would have ruined everything!
Check his channel out in the description.
And as always, thank you for watching.