Where's the Wolfenstein love?

[magicsofa]

I'd totally play Wolf2D

[Maes]

Yes, Wolf3D at least introduced an element of arcade-like fluidity in its gameplay, that earlier 3D titles (especially vehicular simulators) totally lacked. The closest you could find were maybe some arcade rail shooters like Beast Busters:

 

 

[Woolie Wool]

Yeah, and that was absolutely essential to the future of PC gaming at the time, and vastly expanded the potential audience. Back then it was commonly accepted that consoles kicked the PC's ass for action and always would--and here comes a game with decent framerates, responsive controls, deadly combat, digitized sound, and speech (well...sort of), and it wasn't some bloated Origin Systems extravaganza that cost $80, ran on a $5000 machine, and took days to reconfigure DOS to get running.

[Doomkid]

I love the hell out of wolf3D. Patrolling enemies is one awesome thing it has that doom doesn't, but it also has distance-based damage, so 6 bullets far away barely does what 1 does up close.

 

Between the patrolling and the distance-based damage you could have these awesome "sneak up behind them and get the surprise kill" moments that are basically nonexistent in Doom, since everything stands in place boringly.

 

Obviously the level design is less interesting than Doom, but I think the color choices for all the walls and items are still really pleasant. Those who find this boring would die of sensory deprivation in front of an NES or Atari.

 

One thing I will say is the Automap in ECwolf that functions more or less like the SNES port is excellent. I still really liked the game in it's vanilla form with no maps and pretty crappy control options, but I will say I hated getting lost. I used to use Automaps from the internet that had been recreated in ASCII to make my way through the games, but ECwolf means I don't have to do that garbage anymore (plus I can use WSDA, yay)

 

Long story short, Wolf3D/SOD is a great game. I'll never mod it though and probably won't ever play mods for it either. Doom completely usurps it in every meaningful way from a modding perspective, especially with DECORATE and modern ports. On it's own though? Fantastic FPS campaign.

[magicsofa]

Those sneak up moments are great, but don't happen very often. The whole patrol thing was cool but they didn't make that much use of it. It kinda makes sense because they planned to have more stealth elements, such as dragging bodies and stealing uniforms, which were scrapped. Patrols seemed like a leftover feature, which do make the game seem more alive, but are under utilized. It would be awesome to see more aggressive use of this in a mod, like a situation where you'll get creamed unless you sneak past the guards to find the ammo cache or whatever. It also was disappointing that the knife was totally useless against anything other than brownie guards

[magicsofa]

12 hours ago, SaladBadger said:

I need to double check the hint manual at some point, but I vaguely remember reading that one was made by Bobby Prince.

 

[seed]

4 hours ago, Get Phobo said:

secret areas getting visible via a pickup item, like in Doom.

 

I disagree here. In a game like Doom that can work because secrets can be hidden in a million ways, but in Wolf3D it would just kill the charm in addition to being completely pointless - all secrets are ever going to be found via wall humping in this game...

[Get Phobo]

29 minutes ago, seed said:

 

I disagree here. In a game like Doom that can work because secrets can be hidden in a million ways, but in Wolf3D it would just kill the charm in addition to being completely pointless - all secrets are ever going to be found via wall humping in this game...

If you hid the secrets map in a secret area, you would eventually get both. Plus, looking for such areas would then make even more sense. But I guess that's all just a matter of taste.

[magicsofa]

It could help with those ones that you can mess up and block the entrance forever...

[Pokemanic33]

10 hours ago, magicsofa said:

I'd totally play Wolf2D

 

Oh boy, have I got news for you

[Aaron Blain]

I am deeply fond of ROTT, but Wolf3d has much better gameplay. The missile weapons are great but you spend so much time standing in the open shooting every baddie an absurd number of times.

 

What hasn't been talked about much yet in this thread is Wolfenstein's lethality. When I first played Doom I was actually disappointed by its floatiness and lack of tension. In my young mind, zombiemen were the scifi reskin of nazi brownshirts, now made very slow and harmless. Wolfenstein is a game of careful room-sweeping.

 

Once you get the hang of mouse-gesture-strafing in and out of cover (an incredibly responsive and satisfying mechanic I've never seen in another game), Wolf takes on an almost Tom Clancy-like feel.

 

Again, the retail levels are quite poor overall but the core mechanics are great. Playing through the original maps feels like popping bubble wrap or playing minesweeper. I didn't really get excited about Wolf3d (as a modern discriminating gamer rather than a child in 1992 craving novelty) until I played Spear: Resurrection.

[magicsofa]

54 minutes ago, Pokemanic33 said:

 

Oh boy, have I got news for you

Yeah yeah, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEANT

[Maximum Matt]

9 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I love the hell out of wolf3D. Patrolling enemies is one awesome thing it has that doom doesn't, but it also has distance-based damage, so 6 bullets far away barely does what 1 does up close.

I forgot about that, opening a door and getting capped immediately by a guard and jumping in your seat

 

9 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Between the patrolling and the distance-based damage you could have these awesome "sneak up behind them and get the surprise kill" moments that are basically nonexistent in Doom, since everything stands in place boringly.

No, they're doing the Dormant State Two-Step

 

1 hour ago, Pokemanic33 said:

Oh boy, have I got news for you

Whoa..... '81?!

[Maximum Matt]

On 6/22/2020 at 6:21 PM, Maes said:

And if you were thinking of Doom-Wolf3D crossovers....man, those were SO dead already in the 1990s, thanks in no small part to the "efforts" of George F1ffy (aka King ReOL) and his WolfenDoom.

Dude I just fired that one up again (REOLWOLF.wad) to refresh my memory and man, FUCK the first level and the bullshit backtracking.  It gets a little bit better once it goes beyond the square prison aesthetic (the cave/river part of map03, the start of map07 that looks like Suburbs, map08 has a Chasm/Living End thing going on, map09 has the outdoor slaught, map31 starts like Circle Of Death) but is way too grind-y for my taste.  

[Scypek2]

18 hours ago, Aaron Blain said:

Once you get the hang of mouse-gesture-strafing in and out of cover (an incredibly responsive and satisfying mechanic I've never seen in another game), Wolf takes on an almost Tom Clancy-like feel.

 

Hell yeah. This explains why I never felt the need to have two dedicated strafe left and right keys in Wolfenstein! Without twenty fireball-throwing enemies attacking me at once, there's no need to strafe for miles in one direction. To be fair, no strafe left and right keys means you can't turn and strafe at the same key, but strafe left and right keys can't move as smooth as a mouse. Maybe the uber-optimal wolf3d control scheme is actually two mice and no keyboard.

[magicsofa]

18 minutes ago, Scypek2 said:

 

two mice and no keyboard.

 

*Mind explodes*

 

I think you have just discovered the next big development in video game control schemes...

[Get Phobo]

1 hour ago, Scypek2 said:

Hell yeah. This explains why I never felt the need to have two dedicated strafe left and right keys in Wolfenstein! Without twenty fireball-throwing enemies attacking me at once, there's no need to strafe for miles in one direction. To be fair, no strafe left and right keys means you can't turn and strafe at the same key, but strafe left and right keys can't move as smooth as a mouse. Maybe the uber-optimal wolf3d control scheme is actually two mice and no keyboard.

I use reverse turn keys since you don't really need normal turn keys anyway if you play with a mouse. The effect of mouse turning combined with reverse turn keys is similar to using a mouse and dedicated strafe keys.

[Devalaous]

I finished Spear of Destiny for the first time tonight. It was quite a bit more memorable than Wolfenstein 3D with a clear sense of progression, and levels that often felt distinct to each other. The Castle levels in particular really pulled out the stops, with that asshole 'gauntlet' map, and the absolutely ridiculous Ubermutant level, where the boss was the EASIEST part of it! In Comparison, base Wolf-3D was clearly them getting their feet wet, the maps are basically just maps for maps sake, unless it was a secret level; then they usually got a bit more creative.

 

Mutants were the bane of my life in every level they were in; the 'no wind up to shoot' thing is WAY too overpowered. Lost count of the times I opened a door, only to be dead before even seeing the mutant. I also died more to mutants than I did to the Death Knight.

 

The final level was really neat, a clear precursor to Doom, with a ton of Doom-like sprites. Was pretty funny hearing Doom 2's Map31 theme there though.

[CorianderCastor]

On 6/23/2020 at 1:08 PM, magicsofa said:

It also was disappointing that the knife was totally useless against anything other than brownie guards

Stun-lock the SS!

[unerxai]

I still enjoy playing some Wolf too from time to time. The mazyness never bothered me too much. The randomness of the secrets used to bother me a bit but now I play without caring so much about them.

[magicsofa]

1 hour ago, PaquoCastor said:

Stun-lock the SS!

True, true. It takes like thirty stabs though

[Vermil]

The knife is also good for dogs. Killing them without using any ammo.

[magicsofa]

But .... but ... IT SOUNDS LIKE TEARING PAPER

[unerxai]

48 minutes ago, Vermil said:

The knife is also good for dogs. Killing them without using any ammo.

This reminds me I hate having to kill the dogs in Wolf3D.

[Nevander]

I love me some Wolf3D. Thanks to ECWolf, it becomes an enjoyable experience because an automap exists.

 

Combine that with some good floor maps like these:

https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/PC/index.htm#Wolfenstein3D

[magicsofa]

25 minutes ago, unerxai said:

This reminds me I hate having to kill the dogs in Wolf3D.

 

Me too... Poor pups :(

 

There should be a bone item, which makes them become friendly and attack Nazis!

[Chip]

Hey, interesting discovery! searching up Wolfenstein 3D Shareware brought me to this page where I could play every single episode of Wolfenstein for free on Internet Archive! this is a screenshot I took of E1M3. pretty cool and fun! Also, the game saves, so you can get off your PC, then come back to it to kick some more Nazi ass! and also, this is the first game I played where I did not start on the easiest difficulty. I'm the man, Steve! 

[magicsofa]

I don't think I've ever seen the bottom of the machine gun sprite like that :/

[Get Phobo]

It has square pixels, though, so it look worst than the original DOS version.

[Foebane72]

I HATE Wolf3D. I played it back in the day, around 1991-2 when it launched, and I knew my beloved Amiga platform was safe, nothing could touch it. Wolf3D just looked so primitive and simple, and to this day, I cannot figure out why it is claimed IT started the whole FPS ball rolling, especially when I found out that John Carmack already wrote two Wolf3D-style games before it, with exactly the same FPS principles! I guess it won people over because it was VGA and had gore (even if only a little).

 

I tried to play Wolf3D back then, and when I finally got the sampled sound to work, it was so weak and tinny. Why was that? The Amiga had big, booming soundtracks in its games, and yet the PC couldn't achieve the same thing. Same with the gunshots from the Nazis, I swear I could hear a sort of echo effect, which I don't know if it was intentional or not. Wall hugging sucked, the textures were only on the walls and the 3D didn't look right when you turned on the spot by them, and the complete lack of perspective texture detail on floors and ceilings was inexcusable, as such an effect can be achieved very easily with little processing power. Doom did it later on, why couldn't Wolf3D?

 

I also sucked at the game, but the weapons sucked, and I wasn't that keen on continuing. I then played Return to Castle Wolfenstein and didn't like that either, and I haven't touched the franchise since.

 

But the day I saw Doom on my friend's PC (I still had an Amiga 1200) was the day I knew the Amiga was fucked: even if the Amiga by then could replicate VGA identically or even surpass it, the way the graphics layout in memory worked required extra processing power, and the A1200, unexpanded, lacked that already. Doom would appear on the Amiga, but unofficially (after the source code was released) and years later. Even Quake made it to the Amiga, however.

 

Wolf3D was nothing special to me, but Doom absolutely. BLEW. ME. AWAY.