Operation: Arctic Wolf Special Edition

Operation Arctic Wolf is one of two Wolfendoom mapsets that people actually like, the other being the Rheingold one, and here it's easy to see why. Laz managed to kick ass with the dehacked work, allowing for loads of shootable things, which not only includes enemies, but coffee mugs, water coolers, explosive fire extinguishers, barrels, canisters, all this makes the whole experience feel not just WolfenDoom-y, but Duke 3D like. the setting is admirable too, what else can you expect from a title like that, having Blaskowicz streamline through very nice-looking Arctic landscapes.

 

...or so you'd think.

 

you're probably wondering, why the 1 star. simple. the gameplay is atrocious. now, I'm basing this off of NightFright's ZDoom compatibility pk3 for this wad, so this review may be a bit off. anyways, you're already expecting hitscanner-heavy combat when you play just about anything involving Wolfendoom, but this takes things to a whole unholy level. it's a problem when the basic enemies are difficult to even kill, and by that, I mean the SS. for much of the beginning of the game. and these SS have far too much health than they should. they can even survive a rocket to the face at times. combine this with a lack of good supplies, little health and BARELY any armor, and lack of worthwhile weapons to plow through the SS, and you're already making things worse. see, from MAP09 up to MAP17, you're best choices of weapons are dual pistols and the shotgun replacement (which only fires slightly faster), and a good amount of enemies are gonna be those SS troopers. combine that with a few boss enemies in the dam level (MAP15-16), and it's just grinding. as far as weapons go, the SSG replacement is supposed to be really overpowered, but of course you get it so late when it could have really been used, while the other weapons are...pretty standard. the boss enemies tend to either be souped-up hitscan, flamethrower (similar to arachnotron) or rocket (the most common, similar to the mancubus and somehow also firing translucent rockets which are difficult to see). with the hitscanner-heavy combat, open fields are unbearable to survive in, some of the enemies are just out of autoaim reach too. and the main bosses are fought in rather tight spaces, having a shit-ton of health as well.

 

that's not leaving out the other reason Arctic Wolf is so bad. Laz did great with the dehacked work, but not only is the gameplay bad, so are the level layouts. the second and third maps (MAP10-11) are back to back canyons which are boring to look at and FILLED with SS's, a true grindfest. MAP13 is gonna have you key hunting and backtracking loads of times, and the next map does the same thing. keys are often hidden in very conspicuous places, and progressing to the next door will take minutes. also switches where you gotta backtrack are just as annoying. levels will take much longer than you'd be expecting, maybe it's fine for explorers, but trying to find where you need to go next is always important, and not always obvious here. might as well break out the automap markers on this one. the worst part is most of Laz's other Wolfendoom maps have similar design patterns focused around loads of backtracking in large areas.

 

so yes, Arctic Wolf, lauded for Dehacked work and premise, atrocious gameplay-wise and layout-wise.

Kinda reminds me a little to much of Duke Nukem 3d, and its a bit difficult. But i still like it

Epic TC, certainly very best Wolf TC for Doom and still one of the best overall. It's really glitchy if run with zdoom or gzdoom so be warned if that is your source port of choice. Shame we dont get more Wolfenstein mods for Doom. I can only imagine what would be possible with modern source ports.

By far the best Wolf 3D inspired conversion for Doom. Bit frustrating at times and needlessly complicated to run, but those are really minor complaints.

all the pretty custom graphics and clever dehacked trickery in the world cannot save this from being rendered utterly unplayable by the billions of hitscan enemies sniping you from miles away on practically every single level

To be honest, I found this wad enjoyable... at times. It could have used a bit of custom music to be honest.

I didn't need Legacy to enjoy this or the original, oldschool all the way baby. 5/5 -Infurnus

Las Rojas as the magic touch.

Decided to play this gem again since new Wolfenstein game is coming out this year and it's still amazing. Las Rojas's masterpiece!

This is my fauvourte wad!!!

This is quite a bit hard on Skill 3. That and there isn't much health scattered around, anyway. However, I do like it nonetheless. --MechWarrior Jake Pryde

Hey Laz,your other TC sucks but this one kicks ass. I can't stop playing this one. I used Zdoom 1.22 to play it and works fine. 5 stars for this baby.

I reinstalled Doom just to play this again. Great stuff, Laz. -w@velength

Agreed, a bit too difficult. Still one of the best Doom TC's though. -- 5/5

This is a must play for any Wolfensein fan! Kinda sad: this TC is around ten years old, and in that time we've got two AAA Wolfenstein games but ambitious WolfenDoom projects seemingly died once Rojas left Doom mapping. Well, at least both him and WolfenDoom TC's of this caliber left with a bang. Arctic Wolf is closest thing to Doom engine Wolf sequel we have never got.

The definitive Wolfenstein TC.

looks and sounds great. too goddamn hard though

Even if there is almost no health and it's too hard with those enemies in far distances, I preety enjoyed this one. It's the best wolfenstein scenario TC I have played, although I don't remember to have played others. It's funny to see those destructable objects, underwater scenes, nice and simple level design, though running too far to use one key in order to get another one. Too long corridors. Kinda wolfenstein gameplay though, cool!

Well said! I don't like much than that those too long roads, very linear. Great textures and sprites, but no design (with those gigantic opened areas) and no gameplay, at least for the first 4 levels, and I stopped playing it by lack of interest. I felt it very boring! Thus, I think that a revision of the gameplay could make it very very good. Keep up your good work, and I'll revise my vote - 2/5 - Jive

Once Laz started to work on Arctic Wolf he had finnaly learned what he could do with DeHacked. This special edition shows how his skills with WAD editing and DeHacked has evolved even further. Good stuff, but it kind of bugs me how the whole thing is split into two separate WADs and DEHs and i just hate, hate "switch games" (you hit a switch and spend 10 minutes walking around to find out what it did, and once you do you need to hit another similar switch)