Wolfenstein 3D turns 16

Source: Joystiq

I’m a bit late with this piece of news. Wolf3d’s sweet sixteenth was actually yesterday. But this is too big a story to fall through the cracks.

Feeding into the popular theory that kids are heavily exposed to violent media their whole lives, I was 9-10 years old when I first played Wolfenstein 3D (the shareware version, likely) on my friend’s brand new PC. At the time, I didn’t know what the point of the game was, that the enemies were Nazis, or even what ‘Nazis’ were. I was just flying down corridors, in a fully 3D environment, blasting any guy that moved and watching him land in a puddle of his own blood. I was opening secret passages and collecting treasure. Most importantly, I was doing things on a computer that the dusty old Apple IIGS at our house could never do.

Eventually we got a PC of our own, with a CD drive no less, and I acquired my own copy of Wolfenstein 3D— the shareware version first, and then the full six-episode package later. I spent many months mowing down Nazis (I knew who I was fighting at this point) stalking Hitler, having my throat attacked by menacing guard dogs, and using a chaingun to rain down an orgy of destruction on my enemies. I was also having the living hell scared out of me at every opportunity; to this day, Wolf3D tops my list of ‘Most Frightening Games’. To have an enemy silently sneak up behind you and open fire is terrifying.

It’s hard to believe that very game has turned sixteen. It makes me feel a whole lot older than my 23 years, and saddened as well. As fun and engaging as games are these days, they had a certain charm back in the early 90s that can never be replicated. Waxing poetic about all these memories is making me feel so nostalgic that I’m tempted to spend the entire day playing either Wolfenstein or Star Wars: Dark Forces.

To celebrate Wolf3D’s birthday, here are some fun facts:

• It was released before the ESRB was established, and was rated with a self-applied ‘PC-13’ (The ‘PC’ stood for ‘Profound Carnage’)
• The full game came with a thick hint manual that had every level and every secret explicitly mapped out. The book also featured a behind-the-scenes guide to id Software’s operation, which is especially interesting if you’ve read the book Masters of Doom. It remains in my bottom drawer intact, although the front cover is long gone.
• Every episode had a secret level. Episode Three’s was modeled after the classic Pac-Man maze, with all the Nazi enemies replaced by ghosts.
• The end boss of Episode Three is Adolf Hitler. He first appears in a mech-suit wielding four chainguns, then as himself wielding two. To reach him, you must first fight through a small army of robotic ‘fake’ Hitlers.
• Hitler has the goriest death in the entire game. After his body crumbles to bloody pieces, you get to watch a slow-motion replay of the event.
• The Super Nintendo version was heavily edited and censored. Later on, an unlicensed game from Wisdom Tree called Super Noah’s Ark 3D appeared, which blatantly redecorated Wolfenstein’s maps. Rumor has it that id Software was upset with Nintendo for sanitizing their game, and gave Wisdom Tree the go-ahead.

NES Game Review: Gun.Smoke (1989)

The current generation of video games is made up of 100+ hour RPGs, thousand dollar HDTV monitors, ginormous hard drives, and tons of assorted peripherals. With all the technology and sophistication of modern-day interactive entertainment, sometimes it’s easy to forget that simplicity can make for the best kinds of games. Gun.Smoke, an old arcade hit from Capcom ported to the NES in 1989, is a great example of this.

The year is 1848, and California is in the midst of the Gold Rush. The hardworking folk of ‘Hicksville’ have fallen under siege by a gang of evil bandits known as the Wingates, who killed the sheriff and regularly drop in to rob the city coffers. Enter your character, Billie Bob. Riding into town with a ten-gallon hat and “the sunset behind him”, he vows to gun his way to the gang leaders and free the populace.

The gameplay is easy enough to pick up. You control Billie Bob from a top-down perspective through six scrolling stages. The direction pad moves him around the screen while the A and B buttons are used to fire left and right (or forward if you hold both of them down). Enemies come at you frequently and in increasingly large groups, and the object is to shoot them down as quickly as possible before they hit you. A single shot means instant death. There’s a final boss at the end of each stage, but you must find a wanted poster in order for him to show up; otherwise the level repeats itself over and over.

To keep the restless hordes at bay, you’ll need something to outwit them. Your walking speed and firing distance are increased by acquiring boots and rifles that appear on the map; shooting barrels uncovers these essential items. In an interesting twist, your total score double as currency. You’ll need to spend the points you earn in order to acquire more powerful weapons, and buy things like extra ammo, horses, and the aforementioned wanted poster. All of these things can get pretty pricy, so it’s generally a good idea to get a lot of killing done before making the level’s boss appear.

For extra protection, Bob can uncover (or buy) a horse, which serves as little more than a shield. Ever willing to die for its owner, the horse will take two bullets before dying. It’s useful, albeit expensive and hard to come by.

Other than that, it all falls down to the same basic pattern: shoot, shoot, shoot, hide behind barricades, shoot, shoot, destroy all the enemies on screen with POW icons, shoot, get moneybags and boots, shoot. This type of gameplay sounds mundane and repetitive on paper, but Gun.Smoke can be hopelessly addictive. Those without good time management skills may find themselves spending many hours shooting through the bad guys.

While the graphics aren’t awe-inspiring (this is a pre-90s NES game, after all) they aren’t bad to look at. All the powerups can easily be identified, and enemies are recognizable enough. The six stages are either set in real locations (the Cheyenne River, Fort Wingate) or otherwise successfully capture the look and feel of the Old West. If you’re a fan of the genre, you’re guaranteed a good time here.

There are certain aspects of Gun.Smoke that are either out of place, weird or just plain politically incorrect. I have some reservations in particular about level 3, aptly titled “Comanchi[sic] Village” Here, all your regular enemy sprites are replaced by Native American stereotypes. They hop around, throw tomahawks, try to scalp you, and snipe from teepees. And you, devout Christian and staunch defender of the white womenfolk, have no choice but to blast them all down to headdress feathers. Racking up a body count in a manner akin to genocide doesn’t quite feel right, especially with the level’s choice of background music. It makes me wonder where Nintendo’s censors were the day the cartridge was stamped with the ‘Seal of Quality’ logo.

And then there’s “Death Mountain”, where the Wild West theme takes somewhat of a backseat and you end up… fighting ninjas. Yeah, that’s right. I’m not sure where Feudal Japan fits into the U.S. Gold Rush era, but there you go.

The journey to the finish line is tough and brutal, and Gun.Smoke is likely to put as many calluses on your thumbs as the numbers of enjoyable hours it brings. If you can look past the rather unsavory third level, it’s a fun and rewarding experience.

Final rating: (***) out of (****)

Back from the Front Lines

Sadly, I haven’t been keeping up with the blog as much as I should have. Ever since I hit that one year mark, it’s been a slow, gradual descent into abandonment, and I’ve returned only occasionally to wipe off the accumulated dust and grime.

So where have I been? What excuse do I have this time? I can’t say I’ve busy during the holidays, because Thanksgiving was fairly uneventful. I can’t say I’ve been watching tons of movies and preparing a new Netflix Capsule post, because I’m only sending them back once a week now. New job? Moving? Sick? No, none of those things.

The truth is that I’ve been playing “Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos”. And lots of it. All the free time I had during evenings could have been spent updating this thing, but I’m so obsessed with pushing through the single-player campaign that I’ve ignored everything else. “I’m almost done with the Undead campaign! I’m almost done with the Orc campaign! Just two more missions of Night Elves and I swear I’ll do something productive…”

As a gamer (psuedogamer?) I know I’m supposed to live in the now. “Reign of Chaos” came out in 2002, officially making it old-hat. I should be following the crowd into “Halo 3″ or “Metroid Prime: Corruption” or hell, “World of Warcraft” if we’re talking the same franchise. You want the honest truth though? My computer is now almost four years out of date, with only the wireless and video cards swapped out over the years. And I don’t actually own any new-gen consoles. I can read about them and offer my opinions, I just can’t play them.

So I’m stuck playing old things to entertain myself, until I can get a new computer or a Wii. Since I’ve amassed such a large collection of (still unfinished) games over the years, there’s no point in buying anything new anyway. And it’s a curious addiction that I have to W-III, because I honestly don’t even like the game all the much. Compared to the greatness that was “Warcraft II”, it just doesn’t have the same… feeling.

Last night I finally reached the last mission in the Night Elf arc- the very end of the core game (I’ll be moving onto the expansion pack after this). From the look of things, it’s going to take at least three days to get it right before I can even attempt victory. It seems impossible, but wouldn’t that be appropriate for the final map? So maybe I’ll post new updates during bouts of frustration.

Weekend Links

Steve Urkel once guest-starred on “Full House”. The pain. The pain! (poeTV)

The UK battle over “Manhunt 2” continues. (Gamepolitics)

Microsoft is cracking down on profane gamer mottos. (Joystiq)

The Angry Video Game Nerd posted a review of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” Atari 2600 game. Possibly NSFW due to language. (Gametrailers)

Saw V is scheduled for an October 2008 release. Enough already! (ComingSoon.net)

Filthy tears apart The Heartbreak Kid. NSFW, language. (The Filthy Critic)

Nintendo Vice President: No Wii Price cut soon. (Game Revolution)

Classic “South Park”. I’m tired of these language warnings, go for it. (poeTV)

TurboGrafx-16 CD Games Added to Wii Virtual Console

When I was a kid, TurboGrafx-16 was one of those consoles that I wanted solely because of the name. I mean, come on. ‘TurboGrafx-16′. It didn’t just have Grafx, it had turbo Grafx, and that ‘16′ suffix made it all the better because it was a number higher than ‘8′. Incidentally, that’s the same reason I wanted an Atari Jaguar (RARRRW!) for about a day and a half.

Alas, I never claimed a TurboGrafx-16 as my own, mostly because I never saw one. The game section (more specifically, ‘corner’) at our local ghetto Wal-Mart was dominated by Sega and Nintendo products, and absolutely nothing else. I grew up assuming that the TG-16 was a fantasy some kids at school had collaborated on for a creative writing assignment.

Evidently it wasn’t though, as the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console has effectively demonstrated. Since the debut of the system and its emulation service nearly a year ago, over a dozen TG-16 titles have been added to the North American menu, allowing me to play the games that didn’t exist in my little closed off Seahaven.

Like a lot of the big ‘we’re totally amazing and awesome’ consoles of the early-to-mid 90s, the TG-16 was given a CD add-on. Although it was the first system to do such a thing, it didn’t have the impact that Nippon Electric Company (NEC) hoped it would.

Two of the TurboCD’s offerings (‘Gate of Thunder’ and (‘Super Air Zonk’) will be added to the Virtual Console, according to Gamespot, although they won’t be on discs and hey, waitaminute- the Wii only has 512 MB of internal memory. How is downloading a 700 MB CD supposed to work out? Obviously a lot of compression has been involved with these downloads.

From what I’m seen of the discussion after the GameSpot story, there’s a lot more history about NEC and their ill-fated CD add-on, so be sure to check it out.

Donkey Kong Jr. Math Added to Virtual Console… Uhh…

Yeah, seriously. I’m drawing a blank here.

The annals of Nintendo history carry a lot of hits and misses. On one hand you’ve got consoles like the NES and SNES, games like “Super Metroid” and “Mario 64″, and the singlehanded revival of home gaming in the mid-1980s. But on the other hand, you’ll find the Virtual Boy, bloodless Mortal Kombat, and in this case, failed experiments in software.

Back in the 80s, these ‘video game’ things were still a relatively new frontier, and as parents watched their kids pump quarters into machines and blast Goombas to oblivion with hails of fireballs, they couldn’t help but wonder: “Is this good for my child?” Nintendo, which was just beginning to invade homes with the NES, had this to say in response: “Why, of course it’s good for your child! We offer games like “Donkey Kong Jr. Math”. See, he’s learning arithmetic and being educated.” Then said parents would nod in approval and walk out of the room.

What a load of cop-out nonsense. Metaphorically speaking, Nintendo was the babysitter who let you watch R-rated movies or do handstands on the roof when your guardians were away, after promising them that you’d have your homework done and be in bed by 7. I’m sure that even back then, kids who had copies of “Donkey Kong Jr. Math” kept the cartridge in the back of the closet while they were busy slaughtering vampires. Nobody wanted a damn game preaching to them about numbers.

So why add it to the Virtual Console list? If no one cared about it in 1985, why would they start now? What’s the point of Nintendo digging this forgettable borefest out of the past? I can’t fathom anyone in their right mind spending Wii Points on this, unless their money is getting too annoying. I swear more people would download Flashing Screen: The Video Game.  I sure played a lot of that when I was younger.

Kids These Days…

You know what a sure sign is that you’re getting up there in age? When you start bitching and complaining about the way things “used to be.”

Case in point: When the above video clip was posted on POETV yesterday, I had a very sincere old man moment. I couldn’t help but shake my head in sorrow at this sorry-ass new generation of kids. Sure, the issue was over video games and not “responsibility” or “drugs” or “the Depression”, but still, I’m feeling rather elderly at the moment.

Watch that thing. These brats have no idea what it’s like to play a real game. Back when I was young, they were a hell of a lot harder You didn’t have frequent autosave points or multiple hits for your characters. The most you ever got was a password at the end of the level, or a handful of continues if you lost all your lives. And once those continues were used up, you had to start the game all over again, REGARDLESS of how far you’d gotten.

The reason Bobby Hill and his friend up there are so shocked that “Super Mario Bros.” is tough is because they’re used to having their hands held. All the post-SNES games they’ve played have offered them easy cakewalks. I swear if this kid tried posting an online ‘review’ of “Contra”, his head would explode.

And another thing: slow the hell down, Excitebike Boy. In an old game like SMB1, it’s not a wise idea to trying blazing through levels at breakneck speed, unless you’re a speedrunner who knows where everything is. You two might as well close your eyes and turn the controller sideways with how reckless you’re playing.

This isn’t the only video the kid has posted. If you go to his Youtube profile (which I’m not linking to) you’ll find tons of videos of him screaming, cursing, and making a general ass out of himself. Evidently his parents never explained the concept of ‘future employers’.

Feedback on “The Worst Game of All Time”- From the Publisher!

I’m not going to exaggerate or embellish the truth. I am but a humble man residing on a very large web. I’m well-aware that Quad’s Corner is not a very popular place on the internet right now. Whenever I post an update, I do so with the knowledge that it’s probably not going to be read by many people. This is a small blog and I rarely receive visitors or get comments.

… Until now. It seems my previous post caught the eye of someone I wasn’t expecting. The publishers of the ill-conceived “Where’s Waldo” on the NES, Bethesda Softworks, heard about my review of their old game. And they read it. And they responded.

The Worst Game of All Time

When asked what the worst video game of all time is, most people are quick to read off a short list of commonly scorned titles. Superman 64. The Matrix. That Mortal Kombat Gameboy Advance cartridge.

Well, they’re all wrong. The worst game of all time is Where’s Waldo? for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It’s so horrible that it made the inside of your NES corrode and rot when it hit the contacts. It’s so astoundingly terrible that it was responsible for fourteen plagues, ninety murderous rampages, and one forgettable children’s cartoon show. It’s so undeniably and marrow-tearing AWFUL that several future filmmakers played it and went insane.

Curse of the Nintendo Handhelds

• I was around six years old when the Nintendo Gameboy first came out, and it was the greatest thing I’d ever heard of in my life. It took me God only knows how long to save up $ 80 for this thing, then longer to actually find one since all the cool kids in town had bought them up. It was bulky, the graphics looked like ass, and a lot of the software was less than sub-par. But I loved it. Oh my, did I love it. I played it so much that the screen eventually died.

• Unable to kick my Gameboy addiction cold turkey, I immediately went out and bought another one. Or my mom did because of Tetris, I don’t remember. And who cares. Little was I aware that the Nintendo overlords had been quietly observing me the whole time, and decided that they needed extra money for a project that involved virtual reality or something.

• So about a week after I replaced my Gameboy, they came out with the Gameboy Pocket. It was compact, and the screen was easier to see because the graphics were no longer booger-green and blurry. I got one of those, and left my old GB model to rot in the junk drawer.

• But I was too late, because Nintendo suddenly came out with the Gameboy Color. Color! Oh boy! And not ‘color’ as in casing variety. I mean literally, COLOR. I saved up, I rushed out, and I bought one… only to discover that ‘color’ meant ‘not black and white’, and little else. See, this time I was expecting some backlighting to go with the package. I was still limited to playing in broad daylight or with a battery-operated attachment. Nintendo is the reason I wear glasses now.

• I was stuck with the Gameboy Color now, which, like its predecessor, had a mixed bag of good and lousy software. At least I had the Super Gameboy to fall back on when I got tired of my retinas being incinerated on a daily basis. I was aware that my masters were hard at work on a new handheld not far from release. Would my dreams finally come true? Would this be the ultimate portable machine?

• Before I knew it, the Gameboy Color was obsolete, another inanimate object to be tossed in with the broken TV remotes. Now the thing to have was the Gameboy Advance. Not only was it supposed to be the most efficient handheld ever, it was something completely new, as opposed to a cheap upgrade like the GBC. I first got mine when I was around 17 (that should give you an idea of how long I’d been falling for this stupid trap). It was fantastic. It was unreal. It was…

• What the hell, Nintendo? They got everything right this time except one very important thing. Once again, they failed to provide backlighting for their product, and soon my prescription eyeglasses had to be swapped out to keep up with the complete lack of visibility the Gameboy Advance had.

• But that’s because I hadn’t learned from the mistake I’d repeated over a hundred times before. I should’ve known by now that it was wise to wait so I wouldn’t end up spending more money. The Gameboy Advance was followed by the Gameboy Advance SP, which, much to the utter frustration of those who had just spent $ 99, was backlit. For another hundred bucks, you could actually see the games and not risk going blind in the process. I went out and blew more cash on the SP, and was happy for a while.

• But it didn’t take Nintendo long to pull their trick yet again. Soon they announced a funky new departure from their long-running franchise: the Nintendo DS. After attempting to rip off people again with the Gameboy Micro (which I skipped over because I’m not a total idiot) the DS was released, and promptly beat the Sony PSP to death.

• I didn’t buy a DS, because I knew what was going to happen if I ever did. For years now, Nintendo had been releasing these handhelds and then upgrading them before anybody had a chance to sit down and turn them on. If I got a DS, there would be another one, and another, and another. The cycle of putting out new successors and charging hundreds for them would never end.

• Sure enough, my hunch paid off. A whole new generation began learning the lesson I had when the DS Lite was released. I got it for Christmas of ‘06, and if it weren’t for the constant ripoffs I’d obtained time and time again over the years, the old DS model would be rotting beside the Pocket, Color, Advance, and Advance SP.

Thank you, Nintendo, for teaching me not to buy things from you right away.