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"Not the Same" is a moron

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 20 / 22
Date: December 20, 2001
Author: Amazon User

(...) I formally urge any serious buyers (of anything) to do your homework before wasting money on something you don't want. To set the record strait, id Software (original deviser of both games) is NOT trying to confuse you. Buyers have been buying this game since 1991. It has been in various packs and combinations. It was the first widespread sucessful shooter. id Software simply re-released the game (again) because the buyers who missed out on the whole shooter craze (1991-1997) want to own BOTH games. I assure you, this game is the classic, and should not be confused with it's offspring.

To cap it off, this classic is worth the ten buck for people who like doom, etc. The graphics are pretty corny, but for it's day that was top of the line. This is the original ...-kicking, ...-hating, 3-D revolutionizing game. The child of this game, Return To Castle Wolfenstein, has awesome graphics, and I urge you to buy them both. The games are well worth your time and, for the last time, look before you buy.

Great for your laptop too!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 16
Date: May 04, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This particular release of this classic game was re-done to run under the Windows 95 environment when it first appeared. I have since got it running successfully under Win 98 and XP. The great thing is, the CD is not required to play, so this is a natural for laptop gamers wanting to experience a piece of history. I think this game dates back to 1992 or 93. The fact that it runs nicely on modern PCs makes it kind of a unique experience.
For those of you unfamiliar with this game, it is considered the granddaddy of first-person shooters. There were others before this, but this was the most fun with the simplest controls.
If you are used to playing modern games, don't expect to be blown away. But if you're looking for a simple time-killer in great environments, this is a classic. No 3D accelerator required!
Also, this release includes the complete 'Spear of Destiny' add-on, so you won't be running out of gameplay for a long time. It's just a blast to play. My favorite weapon is the chaingun, with (for its time) fantastic sound effects. The game's music is great too. Again keep in mind I'm not measuring any of this by today's standards.
I also recommend the reworked-for-Windows "Doom" collection for the same reasons I've listed here. "Doom" was also made by id software, and is a much superior game to this, although the argument could be made that I'm comparing apples to oranges between the two games. In my opinion, both games are must-plays. Experience some gaming history, and have fun at the same time!

You Gotta Love the Classics

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: December 02, 2001
Author: Amazon User

You gotta love the classics. When you look back on such games as DOOM, Secret of Monkey Island, Zork, Wolfenstein 3D... huh? Wolfenstein 3D?

Yes, that's right: the game with the title that's a mixture of programming language and poor German is a classic.

While not many outside of the gaming world (and a few newbies in the gaming world) know about Wolfenstein 3D, we owe a lot to it. This simple, short, brainless shooter from id Software is the forerunner to games like Quake, Half-Life, and yes, DOOM. I am not exaggerating when I say that none of these games would exist without Wolf 3D - it literally invented the first-person shooter genre.

"You crouch over the guard's body, hoping that the others didn't hear his muffled scream..."

With (approximately) these words, the game opens up in the bowels of the ominous Castle Wolfenstein where you, B. J. Blaskowitz, have been imprisoned. You were searching for evidence of Operation Eisenfaust, a rumored Nazi project involving horrifying experiments on human beings in an effort to create an army of supersoldiers. Now, your only goal is to get out of the prison and save your[self] in the process. Believable? No way, but it is a somewhat interesting beginning (albeit in text form only). Then the game truly begins, and all pretenses of this being a story-driven game go straight to heck.

You start out with a pistol, a clip of ammunition, and a knife, and this is all that you have for a while in order to make it through eight different levels. On the "Can I play, Daddy?" difficulty setting, you run into a few guards, kill them, take their ammo, and maybe tirelessly run up and down using your USE button on the walls in hopes of finding a secret area. This is where Wolf's main fault kicks in - the enjoyment of the game depends far too much on the difficulty setting. While the amount of adrenaline in your body shoots through the (seven) roofs on the highest difficulty setting (appropiately named "I am death incarnate!") due to the increased amount of enemies, you have far too few on the easier settings. Here's an example: on easy setting, you bust (er, open the door) into a room and stand around shooting at the two German grunts, kill them far too easily, pick up the key, and saunter leisurely out. On hard setting, you open the door, charge into the room and maneuver around trying to not get shot into oblivion by the ten or so Germans, frantically grab the key while avoiding the other Germans that are pouring into the room through another door, and make your escape.

Another problem occurs after you kill most of the Germans on a level. Having nothing to do, you start looking around every single room in hopes of finding the one key that you need because you're stuck at a locked door. This might not be so bad except for the fact that the levels contain many small rooms and are very maze-like in nature.

The array of weapons you have is very small as well; you have four weapons at your disposal in the entire game. Most of these are basically the same, differing only in the rate of fire and how much ammunition they [use] up.

One last strike against the game is the anticlimatic ending. You'd think after eight levels of extreme carnage you'd be able to fight your way to the exit among veritable thousands of Nazis and, finally reaching it with more baddies on your tail, be relieved by Allied forces who really take the fight to the Nazis. No such luck. Instead, you have to simply open the door for big ugly with dual chainguns to come out. You'd even think that there would be some kind of complex AI for the endboss, but no luck there either: he just stands there, guns blazing. Sure, he'll follow you if you run away, but there's no big trick to it: just load up the chaingun and give him everything you've got. Then, you're treated to a five second cut-scene of B. J. punching the air as he leaps out of the castle to freedom. The text that sums up the aftermath is nice, but I'd expect a bit more.

Still, despite these basic faults, Wolfenstein has a lot going for it. The graphics engine was incredible for the day, featuring real-time battles with a lot of carnage, and the invention of a genre was no small feat.

In the end, Wolfenstein deserves a look. It's not as much fun as games like DOOM or Half-Life, but it's a nice, short diversion.

PROS: The birth of a genre; superb, adrenaline pumping action on higher difficulty settings; nicely done text.

CONS: It can quickly degrade to searching for a certain key; little variety among weapons; lack of enemies on easier settings; extremely short and anticlimatic ending.

BOTTOM LINE: It won't make you drop your Half-Life or Halo fix, but Wolfenstein 3D is a good buy for anybody that thinks the market is too low on action games.

Wolfenstein 3D

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: December 19, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Wolf3D is the first FPS game. The first real 3D game and one of the most important game in history. Without this game the gaming world would look very different with no half-life, quake ect, I dont think even DirectX or 3D cards would be made. In the game you play B.J.Blaskowitz a soldier imprisoned in a nazi castle wolfenstein and you have to escape from there. The gameplay is very good. The controls are very easy to get use to. If you have not played Wolf3D get the game it is a classic FPS. Dont worry if you have not played an FPS before or know what FPS means, Almost every FPS gamer started from this game.

What a piece of junk

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: August 20, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Why do they list "windows ME/XP" as a valid OS on the box? I called tech support after the sounds didn't work and the guy says it was NOT DESIGNED to work on ME/XP even though it says so on the box. Under Windows 95 the game freezes, and under MS-DOS mode in Win95 there is no sound whatsoever. If you have an old 486 with DOS it might work... oh wait you need to have Windows 95 to install it. To make a long story short they took an old DOS version and did NOTHING WHATSOEVER to change,re-program, or do anything. Why didn't they try to modify the game like on the Mac? we will never know.

The Dawning Of A New Era.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: May 17, 2003
Author: Amazon User

In 1992, little-known development house ID Software released what would be one of the most influential action games of the 90s. That game was not DOOM but Wolfenstein 3D. Although primitive by today's standards, Wolfenstein 3D was revolutionary when it was released, and was indeed the obvious precurser to such greats as Doom, Half Life, and System Shock 2.

Graphics - 2/5: What was incredible back in 1992 is pretty lame 11 years later. There is only a handful of wall-textures (not even any outdoor environments), the enemies are really just flat 2D sprites, and the weapons don't look at all convincing. Still, when the game was released, this was about as good as 256 color VGA graphics got. That's worth a few points right there.

Sound - 2/5: Sound doesn't play a very important role in Wolfenstein 3D, with the exception of the occasional low-quality sound sample of a guard giving orders. The gunshots are pretty boring, and the music (while well composed) is repetitive.

Control and Gameplay - 3/5: There really isn't much to the control other than shooting Nazis, walking around, shooting Nazis, picking up items, and shooting Nazis. There's no jumping or crouching (due to the game's 2 1/2-D nature), no special "action" key, etc. The levels (consisting of a slew of rooms) are well designed but very maze-like and you'll eventually grow tired of their repetitive nature after about 30 levels. Once again, the game's age is its excuse for such shortcomings.

Overall - 4/5: This score is a bit of a stretch since Wolfenstein 3D definitely does not hold a candle to games like Half Life, No One Lives Forever, or even DOOM. But considering its historical significance, and mostly solid (if repetitive) gameplay, it gets a 4 star rating from me. If you can still find the old shareware version and are looking for a nice trip down memory lane, I'd say Wolfenstein 3D is definitely worth a look. Just don't expect anything that hasn't already been done with countless other FPSs.

The best game of it's time, and best today

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: November 26, 2001
Author: Amazon User

When Wolfenstein came out for the Atari Jaguar, I was interested in it, and so I bought it(also for windows, after I sold my Atari Jaguar). I had no idea of how much fun was pakced inside. Evan today, I am never board of playing Wolfenstein. It's that much fun. I was astonished at first by the idea of a first person shooting game. This idea has been lost today, and replaced with games like Goldeneye, which are fun, but very difficult to control.

Overall, Wolfenstein is a very fun, easy to control, and original game. If you like games such as Doom, or Resident Evil, Wolfenstein will make a phenomenal edition to your collection.

The Black Sabbath of first person shooters

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: July 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Barring a few less popular (and less good) 3D action games before Wolf3D like the Catacombs series, this is the first FPS ever to grace the PC, which was release in like December 1991 or something like that. Its graphics suck for today's standards, and the gameplay is repetitive, but in 1992 it was pretty much the equivalent of what Half-Life was to gamers in 1998 and Far Cry is now, groundbreaking. You can get the shareware version free on Apogee1.com and probably the full version on abandonware or something. Also its really easy, I've heard people say that it's harder than Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold (a very unknown and underrated 1993 FPS with the Wolf3D engine), but that's a bunch of bull. The SS (and the rest of the enemies) can't fire their machine guns if you continually pelt them with the pistol but machine gun toters in Blake Stone will continually shoot even if they're getting hit, making for some ultratense shootouts that rarely existed in Wolf3D. Also, let it be known that once you get the chaingun, you are virtually unstoppable (and you can get it on Floor 2...."if ya know where ta go!")

Having said all that, this game is good fun and also good for those who want to see where the seeds of such games as Half-Life were planted, but let it be known, that shooters in years following like Blake Stone and DOOM are much more challenging.....and funner.

****Also, this game shouldn't be rated Mature. The blood is very minimal and unrealistic, the rating is probably for all the Nazi swastikas and Hitler portraits on the castle walls.

Classic FPS. Just needs some work to run.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: August 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

What can you expect from a game that came out 15 years ago? A lot of fun if you are willing to take the time to get it to run.

Wolfenstien 3D was released in May of 1992 and set the standard for what a sucessful FPS needed to be. The basic elements of Wolf 3D can be found in one form or another in every FPS since.

However the game has become rather difficult to get running on todays computers. Being built for dos, it is hard to bring it into a dosless enviroment. There are some excellent emulators that have been released, one being Dosbox, and with Wolf's recent release on Steam it makes it easier than ever to play this classic game.

Noplex

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: December 20, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Wolfenstien is always fun, and the coming of the new game just makes it better to play. I can still remember playing it on my old 90mhz computer =\ those were the days.

And for the person who posted above, Duke Nukem 3D works fine in Windows ME, Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows XP, just go out to the store and buy it... including the many paks =\

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