Wolfenstein 3D – id Software - 1994 - First time playing?: Yes!

Nazis are dicks. Let's kill a few hundred thousand, shall we? Allies spy BJ Blazkowics has been thrown into a prison cell deep within the dungeons of Hitler's Castle Wolfenstein and it's up to you to kick some ass and tear your way to freedom. While you're here, might as well also destroy the entire Nazi regime from the inside too, right?

Wolfenstein 3D is an absolute classic that defined the legendary id Software. While not the first of its kind, even id had made some FPS games prior to Wolf 3D, but this game's smooth fast paced action, speed and accessibility made it a defining game in the first person genre. It set a standard and resulted in the genre getting properly kickstarted and widespread as one of the most beloved in gaming.

As for the Mac version? It is a very weird port. It swings back and forward between being a definitive version of the game but also being more of a reimagining of the original than a direct port with a lot of the game playing very differently. It's exactly that strangeness that makes it worth looking at however. It's a fun unique take on familiar territory with some quality of life improvements and new content making for a fresher experience.

Right as you start up the commercial Mac version you’re presented with an interesting choice. You can play all 60 levels of the original DOS version of the game, or you can play another campaign called “Second Encounter”. This is the set of levels that were used in the Super Nintendo version, where due to hardware and size limitations the SNES campaign was abridged into 30 levels, all based off of the DOS levels but simplified and smaller in size. Earlier shareware versions of the Mac port only include the Second Encounter campaign, so make sure to seek out the retail release if you’re looking to play this yourself, to ensure you get the full package. There’s definitely value in an abridged version of Wolfenstein 3D however. One of the most common criticisms against the DOS game is that its levels are massive and maze-like and with 60 levels the game well outstays its welcome due to the repetition and simplicity of the game’s mechanics, so playing Second Encounter instead can help combat that monotony. Regardless, I set out to play the full game and powered through all 60 of the DOS levels for this review, secret levels included.

Starting in your prison cell, now unlocked with a dead guard at your feet, it’s time to start fighting your way through Castle Wolfenstein with only a pistol and 16 bullets on your person. Immediately the controls may take some getting used to if you’ve been spoiled by modern mouse and keyboard FPS controls. You can move forward and backwards, turn left and right and strafe left and right as is standard, however you can’t turn and strafe at the same time, meaning that circle strafing is impossible. Aside from muscle memory tripping you up however, this doesn’t hinder gameplay much in Wolfenstein 3D’s case. This isn’t a game where circle strafing is really a viable solution, even in modern ports that allow for it. Learning to strafe in and out of cover is far more important. Every enemy in Wolfenstein 3D uses hitscan attacks, which means that they’re not actually shooting a visible projectile at you which can be dodged, instead if they have a direct line of sight towards you when they draw their gun to fire at you, you’ll take damage instantly. Either run and hide behind a wall once you see them draw their guns, or instead play on the offence and keep continuous fire on them, staggering them and preventing them from getting a chance to get a hit in.

Wolfenstein can’t really be played like Doom or Quake, but honestly on playing through it fully for the first time for this review, that’s kind of what I liked about it. You can’t use the same techniques you’d use in those games, giving the gameplay a unique feel beyond just “Doom but not quite as fleshed out yet” that helps it stand on its own. It’s generally a more cautious and slower-paced game, with those moments of hectic running and gunning serving as satisfying power trips in the midst of more tense situations where you’re low on health and desperately looking for any medkits while also knowing that a single shot from an alerted guard you didn’t notice in time could finish you off. Doom and Quake have those moments too, but it’s amplified here in Wolfenstein where a single common enemy can drop your health from 100% to 0 with only three shots. As you play more, you’ll come to understand the ways the game tries to lead you to demise, noticing the choke points where SS officers could ambush you from, or realising that just because you can’t see any enemies in the room through the doorway, doesn’t mean there couldn’t be a guard up against the wall just out of your field of view. Due to the limitations of Wolfenstein 3D’s mechanics there aren’t too many ways the game can pull nasty gotchas on you.

Right, on those limitations. Wolfenstein levels are made up entirely of square tiles on a single plane, no elevated heights or diagonal walls or anything like that. In addition there’s very few textures and nothing in the way of stage hazards requiring dextrous navigation. Wolfenstein is purely made up of a bunch of square rooms with the same repeated scenery which have enemies in them as the only hazard. Not counting bosses or special enemies that only appear for a single stage, there’s only five different enemies in the game, one of which only appears in episode 2. Also unlike Doom, in which the demons are varied and require different strategies, nearly all of the enemies in Wolfenstein 3D are just “the same as the last one but stronger and faster”. This is not helped by the weaponry you have access to being limited in the DOS version to just a near useless knife and three guns. You start with the pistol, then you get the machine gun which is just the pistol but faster, then you get the gatling gun which is just the machine gun but faster. There is an interesting element in that all of those three guns use the same ammo, so there’s an element of strategy in deciding if it’s better to get through this section with the pistol alone since it burns through less ammo than the rapid-fire machine gun, but it also does highlight how samey all of these weapons are. All of these elements combined result in a lot of players getting burned out before finishing the game in full.

However, there’s a reason why I specified that it’s the DOS version that only has three guns. The Mac version features an extra two weapons to help shake things up, these being a flamethrower and a rocket launcher. Both of these weapons are very powerful and as a result typically very well hidden and rare, only being found in secret rooms. The flamethrower behaves more or less how you’d expect, large fiery shots dealing fast and high damage. The rocket launcher is a bit odd though. It behaves more like a railgun, its primary strength being that if the rocket hits an enemy, instead of just, like, exploding, like a rocket would, it just pierces them and keeps on flying forward until it hits a solid wall, allowing you to hit multiple enemies with a single rocket. It doesn’t even do much noticeable splash damage. On the other hand, this does mean that you won’t take damage from the explosion even if you shoot a rocket at a wall at point blank range. Once you understand how it works, the rocket launcher is still a very powerful weapon with a lot of good usages.

Getting into other changes now, one of the best features added to the Super Nintendo port was a map function, which has been carried over to the Mac port as well. DOS Wolfenstein had no way to view a map of the level, which in addition to every room looking the same and the levels being massive mazes made navigating the DOS version a nightmare. In the Mac version, with a single keystroke you can bring up a detailed map whenever you need it, showing you everywhere you have explored, a huge boost to Wolfenstein’s accessibility. All of the sprites and textures have also been overhauled here, redrawn in a much higher resolution with much more detail. The soundtrack and sound effects are also brand new, but there’s a part of me that kind of misses the old upbeat DOS midi tracks, versus this compressed militaristic rock soundtrack.

Unfortunately however, there’s also a significant amount of less immediately apparent details from the DOS version completely missing in the Mac port. The most major omissions are tied to the enemy AI. Even having barely played the DOS original I was able to tell something was off with the way enemies behaved in the Mac port. As a holdover from the cutback Super Nintendo port, enemies only have front facing sprites, meaning that no matter where you are, you can never get behind them and they’ll always be looking in your direction, the only thing blocking them from spotting you being solid walls. This changes a lot of the game, making some parts harder and other parts easier. One of the secret levels is completely broken as a result of this change. In the DOS version you are intended to sneak past the officers by following the walls marked by a splash of blood, which lead you through a route where the officers won’t spot you. This doesn’t work in the Mac version at all, the splashes of blood are still there but even if you follow them you’ll still be detected nearly instantly, requiring you to fight your way through.

On the other hand, the enemy AI also seems a lot dumber and less competent in many ways. In the DOS original, if you fired a weapon all nearby guards would be alerted to your presence as they hear the gunfire. This doesn’t happen at all in the Mac version, to the extent that you can shoot a guard to death in front of other guards and they will still not be alerted to your presence unless they can see you directly. This does however mean that a common DOS strategy of luring enemies out of a room by firing your gun to alert them, isn’t a viable option here in the Mac version, with the second best option being running into a room and then immediately backpedalling out again. In the DOS version this isn’t a great idea as if you shoot an enemy to stagger them there’s nothing stopping their friend behind them from gunning you down instead. In the Mac version however, enemies won’t fire at you if another enemy blocks their line of sight, meaning that if you lure a horde of Nazis into a narrow corridor you can blast through them one by one with ease, or even tear through them all at once with the rocket launcher.

There’s other notable omissions that are more aesthetic and trivial but still missed. Some of the wall textures from the DOS version haven't been redrawn for the Mac port, resulting in the levels feeling even more repetitive as levels that had unique textures originally are instead using the same scenery you've been seeing since episode 1. Also in the DOS version there was an obscure mechanic where if you were at less than 10% health you could drink blood splatters on the floor to regain 1% health. Not very useful gameplay wise but a neat touch that is missing here as none of those drinkable blood splatters appear anywhere in the whole game. The HUD also saw a cut with the icon of BJ’s face. In the DOS version it gets gradually bloodier as you take more damage, but in the Mac version it only changes once you’re below 25% health, so rather than that gradual animation you only have “perfectly healthy” and “on the verge of death” depicted. As a tradeoff however, there are additional animation frames of BJ flinching when he takes damage. Some of the bosses are swapped out for new ones but that didn’t really faze me much at all since all of the bosses more or less play out the same anyway. All of the cutscenes and story text was completely cut too, which isn’t much but still is missed. The biggest disappointment for me however was the omission of the Wizard Hitlers from the final level. For those who don’t know, in the DOS version’s final level there’s these floating t-posing mannequins of Hitler dressed up as magicians that shoot fireballs at you which appear only in the final level. They’re hilariously absurd and completely cut from this port, being the only enemy that’s completely missing. They only appear in a single level so it’s not a huge loss gameplay-wise, but it’s unusual given that the Pac-Man ghosts which also only appear in a single level still got ported over, plus just having the same ordinary officers in the final level takes away some of the uniqueness that made the final level in the DOS version feel special and like a proper finale.

Having played through Wolfenstein 3D to completion for the first time now, I still kind of feel like I haven't really beaten the original Wolfenstein 3D. The changes to the gameplay are subtle enough that they may not be apparent at first glance, but they really do drastically change how the game plays out and specifically the strategies and approaches you need to make in each level, while the flamethrower and rocket launcher also drastically shake up the balancing. None of these things are inherently bad however, "unfaithful" does not inherently mean "worse" and Wolfenstein on Mac is refreshing just for how radically different it is, in addition to being less tedious thanks to quality of life features. Currently I feel that I should still play through the DOS version at some point, but if you are the opposite of this doll and played the DOS version but never touched the Mac port, I'd absolutely recommend it! I had a really good time with Wolfenstein 3D and I'm happy to put it up there with the Mac exclusive FPS greats.

- Page written by MSX_POCKY, 19th March 2023