RetroAhoy: Wolfenstein 3D

PC gaming has not always been so glorious there was a time before 3d acceleration before affordable components when arcades and home consoles ruled the roost and the IBM compatibles really were just expensive spreadsheet machines slowly but surely the prices came down and clock rates soared and this newfound processing power proved the genesis for a new breed of game Wolfenstein 3d is the grandfather of all first-person shooters and while it might appear primitive compared to more recent games much is owed to its legacy so how exactly was the FPS genre born what separates Wolfenstein from earlier attempts and as the franchise still hold up today war is thrilling dramatic and dangerous so it's no surprise that popular culture of the late 20th century is full of tales of derring-do during world war ii the most compelling don't focus on the main fronts but tell a more personal tale Colditz where Eagles dare the Great Escape a microcosm of war tales of prisoners with a cunning plan for freedom Castle Wolfenstein is an early 8-bit game that takes heavy influence from such films a blend of stealth and action amidst a Nazi fortress one of the first ever games to be set in world war ii it's also where the Wolfenstein name began the game's creator Silas Warner was inspired by a 1980 arcade game called berserk in which you the humanoid must traverse room after room of robot threats it's impressive digitized speech and randomized room by room gameplay made for some tense moments and Castle Wolfenstein transposition of this gameplay into a realistic wartime setting made it a must-have title for the early 8-bit machines a sequel beyond Castle Wolfenstein added some new gameplay elements such as passes and bribes along with a new objective the assassination of Adolf Hitler in his bunker by planting a bomb the rapidly changing home computer market meant that developer and publisher mu software declared bankruptcy in 1985 and eventually closed its doors in 1987 the stone walls of the Nazi Castle forgotten for now it begins with a tale of two John's John Romero was an accomplished all-rounder with a passion for games and a wide pallet of skills within game design John Carmack was a socially awkward yet brilliant programmer and as it turns out the perfect catalyst for Romero's passion both cut their teeth programming games for 8-bit machines but the call of more powerful Hardware saw them translate their skills to the IBM PC together they made quite a team under a publisher named soft disk they put out a string of classic early PC titles month after month but working for someone else was starting to dampen their potential their talent in demand with no shortage of ideas from the deep in 1991 EADS software was founded whining trait was their technical prowess John Carmack had the uncanny ability to push boundaries and achieve what was previously thought impossible one such threshold was the quest for smooth scrolling on the PC while the consoles on arcades managed such feats with aplomb such as with Super Mario Brothers on the NES PC hardware at the time just wasn't equipped to redraw large amounts of screen data the trick then is massive optimization adaptive tile refresh with plain color backgrounds so that for any given frame only a fraction of the screen needs to be redrawn the result was an efficient engine firing on all cylinders its performance turbo charged as a proof-of-concept it were able to recreate the first level of Super Mario Brothers 3 as a tech demo and even sent it to Nintendo as a prospective PC port of course Nintendo politely refused then much like today they were only interested in their own Hardware not wanting to put a perfectly good engine to waste it decided to make their own platformer one that would eventually be known as Commander Keen released as sure we're in an episodic format for the first release in late 1990 in the absence of Mario & Sonic the adventures of Billy plays as Commander Keen are a well remembered favorite of early PC gaming but over the next few years smooth scrolling became quite passe the next frontier play in the third dimension fast-paced 3d action was the holy grail of early games there was an invariable trade-off between graphical fidelity and framerate Mays war is possibly the first-ever first-person shooter emerging from MIT in 1974 its level design was simple a grid based map with all walls perpendicular this greatly simplified drawing the virtual viewpoint with no expensive floating-point maths required to calculate angles such shortcuts would prove essential to early FPS games simplified architecture with no verticality flat color surfaces in lieu of texture mapping and a drawing method known as ray casting games like MIDI maze on the Atari ST made liberal use of these techniques eking out what mega power the machine had to construct a virtual maze essentially pac-man with a violent twist the game's name comes from its support for up to 16 players over the STS built-in MIDI interface a very early example of multiplayer deathmatch ahead of its time the game was even ported to the original Gameboy in 1991 as faceball 2000 notable for being the only Gameboy game to support 16 simultaneous players although this did to require the connection of seven 4-way link cable adapters something was missing from these early attempts crude graphics with terrible frame rates clunky controls and the lack of a compelling single-player its first attempt at an FPS was hovertank 3d a chance to test the viability of a ray casting engine on PC and a primitive stroke on an otherwise blank gaming canvas it weren't the only developers thinking about a first-person perspective the Ultima series had long been a favorite of PC gamers and in 1989 a new perspective on the top-down RPG was conceived Ultima Underworld the Stygian abyss was first demonstrated in 1990 where it caught the eye of John Carmack impressed upon seeing its texture mapped a renderer he resolved to make a faster one the original catacomb games were essentially home computer versions of an Atari arcade game named gauntlet a top-down two-dimensional dungeon crawler with a focus on action this core gameplay cycle from gauntlet would persist becoming a part of the classic FPS formula clear room after room of enemies a food to regain health unfocus and find the exit catacomb 3d was its first texture map game with the flat colors of hovertank replaced with more realistic bricks and stone the walls and ceilings remained plain but given the limited computing power and importance of a playable framerate it was an acceptable concession also notable was the inclusion of an on-screen weapon the player's hand visible as you cast magic missiles although its EGA graphics were crude nearly all the essential elements were in place texture mapped walls fast-paced arcade action and hordes of monsters to shoot with every year the past pcs became more powerful the first 486 hit the market in 1989 and when paired with 256 color vga graphics and a 16-bit sound card nothing else could compare to such multimedia might of course this power didn't come cheap but the inexorable march of moore's law meant such machines will become increasingly affordable and increasingly common we were on the cusp of something great originally intended as a reimagining of the apec games new software's bankruptcy and lapsed trademark and that its next game could adopt the name of its inspiration get psyched in May 1992 the world was ready for whorfin Stein 3d the first episode was released to shareware 10 levels for free with the remainder purchasable via mail order it was a solid model for sales in a pre-internet world with shower copies freely spread on disc leading to greater exposure and thus smaller overall sales those first ten levels were enough to wet the palate but not for a greater hunger whorfin Stein's action was instant but its appeal enduring you start the game at the critical moment of escape the first guard slain is weapon yours now there's no going back your only hope is to press forward to find a way out with each door the trundles open there's the potential for surprise guards ammo treasure maybe an ambush perhaps a dead end enemies announce their presence with a brief shout but their calls are quickly followed by gunfire so a rapid response is demanded restore health with med packs hot meals or even dog food and replenish dwindling ammo supplies from dead guards or hidden cash one chamber cleared time for the next bloodied adrenaline-pumping pockets full of treasure and a pile of corpses behind you you spy an elevator and exit the satisfying clunk of its knifes which offers only a brief reprieve however a greater threat awaits on the next level what a thrill the graphics the digitized sound the intuitive action it's almost hard to imagine compared to today but in a world dominated by derivative platformers the first-person shooter was novel exciting spectacular of course old habits die hard and while Wolfenstein served up a taste of the future there are some rather more regressive design choices some elements betray the games arcade influences limited lives a point tally and high score table today most FPS won't bother keeping track of your score and regenerating health and infinite retries are the norm less challenging perhaps but at least some of these changes are for the better some aspects of early fps do perch on frustration more often than reward for instance orphan Stein's level design can only be described as labyrinth then it's easy to become disoriented amidst the countless chambers and winding corridors and some of the levels were intentionally designed as maze like getting lost is no fun nor is backtracking through previous parts of a level to hunt for a misplaced key necessary to progress conversely some aspects of the game are deliberately obscured and can provide delight when discovered the castle is littered with secret posh walls a gentle press in the right spot can reveal a new hidden location beyond can live vital supplies treasure shortcuts or even secret levels one such hidden floor is a tribute to pac-man a classic arcade game with a similarly maze-like layout the ghosts are invulnerable can quickly drain your health and escaping their clutches is made all the more difficult by the lack of a top-down view a first-person perspective does wonders for a game's ability to immerse the player in its world but for all it grants it robs the player of a sense of the character they inhabit an animated portrait in the HUD attempts to restore this link in Wolfenstein furtive glances left and right as you traverse the castle a maniacal grin when you find a chain gun a bloody nose as you start to take damage deteriorating into a mangled mess as you approach death the portrait is dual-role and not only does it indicate your health much as it did in catacomb 3d but it also helps to reinforce a connection to the character you play it's a small touch but a relatively effective one a human face for the hero of the story William Joseph BJ PLAs covets a mountain of a man blue-eyed fair-skinned a shock of light brown hair and a jaw line to die for he represents everything the Nazis idolized a perfect Orion specimen but for the fact that he's the American son of a Polish Jew the irony makes the action a little more delicious there the Nazis very own aspiration would ultimately destroy them the Third Reich make for some pretty good bad guys and they have been a very popular choice for some reason since world war ii human targets without too much moral opposition perhaps the product of Allied propaganda who dare express sympathy for the greatest enemy of the 20th century who could condone their monstrous acts from the lowly guards to the better arms shoot staefel and highly mobile officers the digitized screens as enemies collapse of delightful in a grotesque sort of way what sound more satisfying and the cry of dying Nazis the shooting aspect of orphan Stein draws from the gung-ho coin ops that emerged in the late 80s like on games like operation wolf Roland rails would offer a similar first-person view point down the barrel of an automatic weapon arcades were a big deal in the 1980s the best graphics and sound without compromising on gameplay it's hardly surprising the games for systems attempted to emulate them they were also notoriously difficult after all their aim was to suck as many coins out of your pockets as possible computer and console games could afford to be more flexible offering a choice of difficulty levels and wolfenstein options are quite memorable from the mildly insulting can I play daddy to the meek plea of don't hurt me the more confident bring him on to the ultimate challenge of I am death incarnate these idiosyncratic labels are a cute affectation popular in early PC gaming along with variations on the are you sure you want to quit exit dialog one of the most important things to get right in a first-person shooter is the weapon selection and while Wolfenstein only has a handful there is a distinct hierarchy that influenced later FPS games the knife is your fallback weapon no ammo required but only effective in very close quarters against single enemies it can suffice but attempting to assault a roomful of SS troopers will not end so well you start with the pistol by default a slow firing option the one capable of dispatching most distant guards with just a few shots the machine gun is the first upgrade you find carried by the blue uniformed SS an automatic weapon that can more effectively tackle multiple enemies at once the chain gun is the most powerful offering rapidly spewing lead towards all and sundry tearing through crowds in short order all the bullet firing weapons draw from the same ammo pool and the optimum weapon choice revolves around the ammunition economy the more powerful weapons kill quickly but are less efficient so the chain gun is best saved for the largest groups of enemies and the bosses each episode culminates in a final showdown an adversary much tougher than usual and packing more firepower normally in the form of multiple chain guns you'll need to stock up an ammo and health before you proceed and a more cautious tack is essential especially on the less forgiving difficulties your reward for slaying the best opponents the Nazis can muster a slow-motion instant replay and an invitation to tackle the next episode the original trilogy culminates in a face-off against the ultimate evil Adolphe Hitler complete with mecha-suit he's deceptively nimble and packs for chain guns worth of firepower still enough bullets and even the toughest foe will succumb first the destruction of his armored carapace and then a fight on fairer terms slay him and the game is over at last freedom awaits an escape from Castle Wolfenstein leaving behind only Hitler's bloody corpse and his final lament Ava Alfreda saying Wolfenstein 3d would outsell all of its previous games with the shareware model proving effective in both marketing the game by word of mouth and reducing distribution overheads critically the game reviewed well and sowed the seed for its future success Wolfenstein was ported to a wide number of platforms with the earliest being the Super Nintendo in 1993 however with Nintendo's focus on family-friendly titles they did insist on some changes for instance the guard speak English instead of German all Nazi symbols have been removed including Hitler's mustache and the guard dogs are replaced with giant rats the graphics are also lower resolution as the 16-bit consoles couldn't quite handle texture mapping without sacrificing frame rate by the time later consoles came out such as the Atari Jaguar and 3do Wolfenstein had already been replaced by newer more exciting FPS the source code for the game was released in 1995 which means that the game has since been ported to a wide variety of platforms with Wolfenstein zz2 design levels and episodic structure an expansion was inevitable and the prequel mission pack spear of destiny followed just five months after the original release with new levels new bosses and a new storyline in which BJ has to recover the holy Lance lest the Nazis use it for some occult purpose these levels were later bolstered with two additional mission packs collectively known as The Lost episodes these featured new art textures reskin twenties and new sound effects otherwise it was essentially more of the same the Wolfenstein 3d engine saw limited use in other titles as it was quickly replaced by more advanced tech Blake stone aliens of gold was published in a similar shareware fashion by Apogee a took a distinctly science fiction ton with ray guns and aliens but otherwise the gameplay is quite familiar capstone software released two titles with the engine corridor seven alien invasion and operation body count neither particularly successful bizarrely the Super Nintendo version saw a new lease of life in the unlicensed Super 3d Noah's Ark a non-violent Christian game where the objective is to feed animals on the ark in order to pacify them an official sequel was planned but ultimately rejected by it they had bigger and better plans what might have been whorfin stein 3d - was instead released as rise of the Triad by Apogee in 1994 based on the Wolfenstein engine it did feature quite a few enhancements over its intended prequel dynamic lighting more reactive levels jump ads and pistols akimbo its later games stole the limelight and Wolfenstein entered a state of dormancy the franchise given a quiet death in the shadow of doom nearly a decade after Wolfenstein 3ds original release it was time for a sequel a reboot a Return to Castle Wolfenstein a studio named gray matter interactive were behind the game single player known previously for FPS titles such as redneck rampage and kingpin life of crime and ultimately merged into Treyarch best known for their contributions to the Call of Duty franchise it is an accomplished FPS of its era a modernization of some of the ideas in whorfin Stein 3d with technology permitting more lavish architecture atmosphere and character a smoothing over of the originals primitive form and an effective marriage between the realistic tones of the Nazi fortress and the more fantastic themes of occultism and supernatural power the game was ported to both the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in the years that had passed console Hardware had become more capable of handling 3d scenes and the success of the PlayStation brand made for a broader console market now games like halo combat Evolved were driving the sales of console hardware and the FPS genre no longer belonged to the home computer originally planned as an expansion pack wolfenstein enemy territory was instead released as a freeware multiplayer only game in 2003 a far better fate than outright cancellation it built on Return to Castle Wolfenstein multiplayer using the same engine and with similar objective led team focused gameplay the emergence of mobile gaming and smartphones prompted the release of Wolfenstein RPG in 2008 a phone game in the vein of the earlier doom RPG more amuse-bouche than main course it served as a means to raise awareness for the series in anticipation of blaskowitz his next adventure in 2009 developed by Raven Software a studio long involved with FBS development with titles like heretic Hexen and soldier of fortune under their belt weary of looking like another world war ii shooter the occult aspects of Nazism with a major focus mystical artifacts a ticket to another dimension with limitless green glowing power lurking behind the veil unfortunately the game was given a relatively lukewarm reception written off as a generic fps in a market awash with them the franchise might have kick-started the genre but its name alone grants no immunity from mediocrity there is a knife age to tread when trading on an Old Glory a fine balance between evoking the memory and feel of the establishing titles and still remaining modern innovative and enjoyable with the tired state of modern FPS rekindling the thrill of the franchise that started it all is more difficult than ever the Wolfenstein the new order did a pretty good job developed by a newly formed studio headed by former members of Starbreeze best known for the Chronicles of Riddick games and the darkness the new order manages to evoke the originals action and yet still feels novel and exciting deftly constructed and remarkably well paced as well as riveting action and stealth tension the game does not spare you the more poignant moments a quiet chance to reflect on events and to anticipate the path ahead a deconstruction of masculinity and the strong silent stereotype an explanation of what makes blaskowitz strong and what makes him silent whorfin Stein is a franchise that straddles the majority of gaming's history from the originals in 1981 its 3d interpretation in 1992 and the most recent entries today it has been and will remain a definitive title it's software showed the world what the IBM compatibles could do boring spreadsheet machines no more the home PC was a new center for arcade action and boasted a game but consoles envied today the franchise abides and PC gaming is in ruda health than ever Wolfenstein 3d exists at the perfect intersection technology passion and sheer accomplishment but the most remarkable thing what it did next was better thank you for watching and until next time farewell

Channel: Ahoy

Views: 1,427,541

Rating: 4.9369197 out of 5

Keywords: xboxahoy, Wolfenstein 3D (Video Game), Shooter Game (Media Genre)

Id: BSb87DC-PtA

Length: 28min 2sec (1682 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 13 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/Shosray]

Not the first, though. He's also done a video on Half-Life. The RetroAhoy series has also covered a lot of other non-fps games. Some of the most well-made, informative gaming content out there, imo.

[u/Shalashaska315]

The New Order was such a fantastic game. If you've not played it yet, do yourself a favor and don't put it off any longer.

[u/megaapple]

What was amazing about the 8-bit Wolfenstien sequel is, you can kill guards, take their cloths and slip past most guards unnoticed. Like agent 47.

[u/BornIn1142]

Wolfenstein 3D was possibly my first exposure to computer games. I distinctly remember my father bringing in a borrowed copy and putting it to use on my mother's office computer. I think if I got to play at all, I died rather quickly, but I was plastered to the screen while my dad was hunting Nazis himself anyway.

[u/[deleted]]

Ahoy mentioned Berzerk and its intense moments. Well it WAS intense:

Berzerk is the first video game known to have coincided with the death of players. In January 1981, Jeff Dailey made the Berzerk top-ten list after posting a high score of 16,660 points and suddenly died of a heart attack at age 19 a few seconds after the game was over.[citation needed] One year later in October 1982, Peter Burkowski made the Berzerk top-ten list twice in fifteen minutes, just a few seconds before dying of a heart attack at age 18. His high scores are unknown.[12]

[u/SzyjeCzapki]

This dude's voice is legendary. His CoD weapon reviews were super fun to watch with all the information and effort he put into them 8)

[u/kebab4you]

I've seen multiple videos that covers the early 3d era for PC and every time Maze War comes up they never show any gameplay from it, how come?

[u/bitbot]

Wolfenstein 3D is one of the few games that has ever made me feel motion sick. Didn't stop me from playing it all the time though. And yep, even 20 years later I'm still feeling a little queasy after watching this video. I think it has something to do with the speed of movement and the fact that there is no camera bobbing.

[u/TheParrotBae]

if you like this kinda thing, look into masters of doom