Story: B.J. Blazkowicz is in trouble. One of the best spies of the Allies during WWII, he was on a top secret mission to find and bring back the Nazi plans for their newest scheme: Operation Eisenfaust... and he has failed. Now a captured POW, he resides in the infamous Castle Wolfenstein, awaiting his fate. And that fate would smile at him when he would get his chance to stab a careless gaurd to death. Taking the soldier's gun, his chance has come... it is time to ESCAPE!
This is the basic plot that will start your adventures as the renowned spy in his bid for freedom and further efforts to protect the free world from one of the single biggest threats to it has ever known. It will not evolve until you finish the first episode before the ending text will setup your next adventure which I refuse to spoil. While they are all connected, each episode will carry it's own reason for you to be there, revealed when you finish the last and keep it just as simple, but this was very much the style of shareware games of this title's day and it was part of that rather amazing movement of PC gaming. It's nothing special, but is more then sufficient to keep you involved.
6/10
Graphics: If you were playing games in the early 90s, you probably already know how Wolfenstein 3D looks. But for those of you who are younger then I, this is one of the grand-daddy of first person games. You will see the world through the eyes of Mr. Blazkowicz as you run around the castle and 5 other locations, one for each episode. To this end you will have a display that is dominated by this first person view with a bar of stats below to let you track your progress, both in the current level (called floors in this game) and the current overall game.
That first person view is going to look primitive by today's standards, as the world is literally made of a grid with each "space" either being open or a block of wall, resulting in the world being very blocked off with no angles at all that are not 90 degrees. There are no floor or ceiling graphics or even shading to suggest distance you might be looking at things at, further pushing how primitive it looks. Even your own hand is incredibly pixelized like it is a sprite really close to B.J.'s face.
And that would make sense as these sprites are what will populate the world as they make up every enemy and object in the map. The detail here is actually pretty good, but limited to the 256 colors the game had available and sprite work done by hand. Not a bad thing, mind you, cause as I said, the work done on this game is absolutely spectacular. You can just tell the era it's from.
7/10
Sound: Wolf 3D came out in an era when a soundcard of any sort was not assumed, and in fact the most common setup (if you had one) was an adlib midi setup and little else. To that end I have to give iD team a lot of credit in what they did here. The sound effects themselves are fairly basic and seemed to be adapted primarily from what could be done with a PC speaker and you will notice this with the buzz and whooping noises you will hear whenever you pick up anything in the game. Even your knife seems to make noises of this nature.
But all that changes when you fire your pistol for the first time and hear the "bang" of it. Yeah, it's clearly compressed (and considering the available space on hardware at the time or the expected size of the average game, that is to be expected), but the era of PC speaker ended with this game at that moment.
The game even supported having several voice samples with every soldier you run into having both a yell of surprise (and possibly command) when they first realize you are there that is all their own and at least one voice sample when you kill them (the base nazi soldier will have many, including a personal favorite of mine where he doesn't seem upset he was just killed, but disappointed and somehow I always found that funny). A real marvel for a game that fit all 60 levels on one mere 3.5 inch diskette!
Add to this some absolutely solid music and you have one hell of a great sounding game even after all this time!
8/10
Gameplay: Fast gameplay has always been an iD hallmark and this game will be no exception. As noted in the graphical section you will play from a first person perspective as you battle your way through 54 levels (and possibly up to 6 secret levels) of nazi shooting combat. These levels are setup in 6 episodes, 9 levels each with a hidden 10th level if you can find it, and always culminating with a final boss level before a blurb of text and returning you to the main menu where you can pick a new episode to play.
Each of those levels will have the same basic pattern however. You will be required to explore each floor, killing everyone you see (there are no friendlies in this game) and possibly searching for keys to unlock some of the doors in your way to the elevator that will take you to the next level. This may sound simple, but the enemy troops in your way will make it their job to keep it from being easy. And while the AI to do so may be simple by today's standards, the level layouts chosen can make them anything from a joke to straight up sadistic, and the moment you fight your first nazi, you will understand why: anyone, and I mean anyone, can deal out the punishment if they get the drop on you. No joke, if you play on the standard difficulty a lowly basic trooper can take out a 4th of your health if they get the drop on you and fire off a shot at short distance... and that can easily happen due to none of these enemies making a noise except for the shouts when they first wake up or when you kill them... or that gun being fired as they start to wreck your life. The game may be fast paced when the bullets start flying, but caution and attention to detail is going to keep you alive.
And if you think you can dodge the gunfire like you might in some modern action shooters, I have bad news for you. Almost everything in this game uses hitscan aiming. Enemies can miss, it is true, but since the decision is made the same instant the trigger is pulled, it won't be your skill that decides if they do. So you are always better to try to get them first (and at the very least watch for possible ambushes).
But that is not to say the game sends you in with the odds that you are just going to die. It is also littered with items to help you keep alive, from the bullets most (not all) enemies drop when they fall to the extra lives you might find, there are a ton of powerups throughout the game. And finding these items will quickly get you out of a sticky situation if any of the enemies got the drop on you, but didn't finish you off. So leaving a fight with under 10% health or a handful of bullets won't feel good or leave you in a great place, but all hope isn't lost either. The only oddity here are those extra lives. THANKFULLY they seem to fill your health when you collect one, making them very useful that way, but this game came out as one of those longer titles where you get better equipped as you progress, but lose your life and you are back to a few bullets and a pistol with everything in the level reset... in short, you might as well quit or load your last save. Lives are a thing, but at the time when games for the home began to see less and less point to them.
And the levels you will find yourself navigating will also at times, be your enemy as well. This isn't so much the case in the first three episodes (which are the original game) but the second half (also known as the Nocturnal Missions) can get absolutely crazy and I swear the last episode of the entire game was designed by a sadist. Be ready to save early and save often, but it is doable. I can promise you that.
Overall, however, this is an absolutely classic game that, while it clearly shows it's age, can still show you one hell of a good time.
8/10
Story: Before his legendary adventures in Castle Wolfenstein, BJ Blazkowicz had another key mission which would decide how the war would go. At the time there were dire reports that the Nazi regime had reached Versailles and captured the Spear of Destiny: the legendary spear that pierced Jesus' side while he was put on the Cross. With this artifact, Hitler believes himself to be invincible. So in case this is true, it's up to BJ to recapture it. With news that the spear is being held in Castle Nuremberg, the master spy makes his way to begin his infiltration.
This is the plot of the entire game boiled down, but also one you will have to find for yourself as the game never actually tells you any of this. You can guess by the title what your goal is, but everything else was placed in secondary material like the the hint guide not supplied with the game. In fact if you don't see it in the store page where you bought this game, you will have to find it online. But as noted in the section for Wolfenstein 3D itself, this really is secondary to the gameplay and supplies you really with nothing more then a reason to be here. And unlike the original game, it is all one massive episode, so there is no progression at all this time. You are here to get the Spear of Destiny, and you will be looking to get this artifact until the very end. It's basically just enough to give you a reason to be here shooting nazis... no more, and no less.
6/10
Graphics: If you played through the original title, you already know how this game looks. It it the same engine running the same style maps with the same art resources as the original... for the most part. All the old enemies (outside bosses) will make an appearance and feel right at home as part of the same old picture... until the absolute end, there is literally nothing new to see here outside some new ammo box items. You will literally feel like you are just playing an extra long episode while playing this game... not that that is a bad thing.
As I noted before the original game looked pretty good despite it's age and resulting primitivity. It's clean, uses the colors available brilliantly, and really the only complaint I can give the actual art work itself is that BJ's hand and weapon are exceptionally pixelated, likely due to an engine limit making these sprites on the map as well... just sprites that are always in front of your field of view. It all still looks great.
Really the only new things are the bosses which fit into what the original game showed you before with the exception of two. Outside of them, you will get a large human, easily the size of a square space that makes up the maps drawn in the same style of everyone else, even as the bulk makes them look more intense. They even have the classic architypes of "armored guy," "guy with projectile weapon," and "guy in powered armor" to follow through.
But the remaining two are a bit out there, including the mutant abomination to end all mutant abominations and a secret boss who, once you see him, you will understand why I am leaving him out of this review. Both look great, but some things are best witnessed for yourself.
7/10
Sound: Again, much like the graphics, Spear of Destiny borrows almost everything directly out of it's predeceasing game. Every bleep, bloop, gun pop, and scream.. you've heard just about all of it before, well almost. They took the time to revamp the sound when you get the chain gun, and it's a much more chilling tone then it used to be... but in that "oh hell yes" kinda way. But one sound does not change that this game SOUNDS like Wolfenstein 3D, because it just about literally is. However, what is here is still used exceptionally well, just like the first time so it's not likely you will care about this fact.
The music is not quite in the same boat, however. Yes it borrows a lot of the same tracks as the original game, but they did make the effort to mix in a few new scores to the title, all of which fit the mood and mix brilliantly with the rest of the game. It would have been nice to see more variety added to the game in general from the previous title, but what they added here adds nicely to the soundscape to feel a little bit more dire then the last game. Well done.
8/10
Gameplay: Once again, if you played the first game in this two-pack, you already know exactly how this game plays. Being one of the first successful action FPS titles, you are looking at the most distilled version of what you are playing: wander the map, shoot nazis, and survive to reach the next floor. It is a very rinse and repeat affair and everything I said about the first game still applies completely here in the moment to moment game.
The only exception now is the flow of levels. Unlike the original game, there are no episodes this time. You will play a single mission across 18 floors (plus a few potential secret ones) in sequential order and the occasional boss level on the way. There is no having to restart the game after a boss because it's time for a new episode this time, and it will crank up the difficulty from time to time to reflect this. However, most of the time, this works well. The few times it doesn't it's not because of the diabolical designs Episode 6 of the main game featured, but because Spear of Destiny is all about hoards of enemies which will at times pour into the area like you kicked an anthill. It's a fair challenge, but will sometimes require you to rethink your approach or you will fail due to a war of attrition (especially for now much ammo you spend).
8/10
Bugs: I did not run into any bugs in either game itself. However to update the controls to match modern times (and not a time when it was assumed you would use the arrow keys to move, ctrl to shoot, and alt to strafe) I played using an aftermarket engine called ECWolf and that, I found a rather annoying bug in. If you die in game but do not wait for the game to load your next life (because despite it having a life system, you probably should load if you die in these games due to restarting the current level with a few bullets and the pistol only), there is a chance the red box that gets pixelized into your view will not clear, leaving you stuck with this red block blocking your view of the world. If this happens, your only solution is to quit completely to desktop and start again. (Loading will work fine from here.)
Digital Rights Management: Sometimes old-school DOS games win this argument even better then you could expect. There is no edition of this game that uses DRM.
Source: PC Gaming Wiki
Score: I really don't know what I can say that hasn't been said before. These are both classic games for a reason and really anyone with any interest in the history of first person games should absolutely take some time and play them. They are old, they are dated, and while the art style works well, on a tech level they will not stand remotely close to what we have today. But so what? This is where it all began and they still remain fun despite those limitations. And with the ability to use newer engines to get passed the standards of controls back in the day and even use modern resolution options, there is absolutely zero reason to not experience that for yourself! So go do so!
8/10
System Requirements:
- Any CPU running at 1.8 Ghz or better
- 512 MB RAM
- Any GPU that supports Direct X 9.0c
- Windows 10
- 25 MB Hard Drive space
System Specs:
- Ryzen 7 (5700X) 3.4 Ghz
- 32 GB RAM
- AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT (8 GB VRAM)
- Windows 11 (64 Bit)
- ECWolf Custom engine
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