Flashback Friday: Wolfenstein 3D

When you think of First Person Shooters, several games come to mind: Doom, Call of Duty, Halo, Battlefield, Bioshock, the list could go on for miles. The FPS genre is a very packed market with more games being added to it on a seemingly weekly basis.

But before we had Master Chief, Soap MacTavish, Booker DeWitt, and even before the Doom Marine, we had William "B.J." Blazkowicz and the topic of this week's "Flashback Friday", the Grandfather of First Person Shooters: Wolfenstein 3D.

Ugh, he waved his stinky foot at me.

Wolfenstein 3D was originally released on May 5th, 1992 as a DOS game and was inspired by Castle Wolfenstein and Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, which were 1980's stealth/action games for the Apple II, Atari PC's and the Commodore 64. It was developed by id Software, who at the time were a relative newcomer in the video game landscape, being founded in 1991 with the help of 2 of the biggest names in the industry: John Romero and John Carmack.

The initial commercial release came with 3 "episodes", each with 9 levels. In the first episode, Blazkowicz (an American spy of Polish decent) must escape from Castle Wolfenstein, which he is imprisoned in thanks to the SS. This is your now-basic run-and-gun episode, where you run from starting room to ending elevator, killing Nazis and finding treasures and secret rooms along the way.

The reason why Blazkowicz is imprisoned is because he was trying to find the plans for "Operation Iron Fist" (Eisenfaust), which is episode 2. B.J. discovers that the threat is real and the Nazis are creating an army of undead mutants. Grab your chain gun and get to killing.

Episode 3, entitled "Die, Führer, Die!", well that's maybe all the description you need. You go through another level and then kill Adolf Hitler, who by the way has a robot suit and 4 chainguns, because why not?

IN THE FACE!

3 more episodes were released shortly after, dubbed "The Nocturnal Missions" which was a prequel explaining the idea of chemical warfare by the Nazis.

Needless to say, despite the presence of Hitler and the Nazis and the historical setting, this is a pretty fantastical idea. This allowed id to add outlandish things, like say a Mecha-Hitler, or secret areas with secret easter eggs. This would set the stage for future ridiculously awesome shooters such as Doom and, of course, Duke Nukem 3D.

Of course, any game that would feature the Nazis, Hitler, and a liberal use of swastikas is going to create quite a storm. You can imagine how this may not be Germany's favorite game, so much so that it was taken off shelves, and, in the case of the Atari Jaguar version, confiscated.

Also, we know Nintendo is a family-first type company, so the SNES version was HEAVILY edited. Any reference to the Nazis, or any swastikas (and even Hitler's mustache) were removed. The blood was replaced with sweat and, in the German SNES version, was green!? They also replaced the dogs in the game with large mutant rats. So shooting people is fine, but dogs? Hell no! You can't tell me that's a PETA thing because, last time I checked, rats are animals too (and sometimes people).

Do I feel lucky? Well do ya? Zunderholz.

This started the wave of First Person Shooters and began the string of games id produced while evolving the engine, Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem, and their respective sequals helped make id (and, by association, Carmack and Romero) a household name and be regarded as the company that invented the First Person Shooter.

Wolfenstein 3D has won several awards and has been featured on many "Top games of all time" lists from companies such as IGN and G4, and helped invent and define the genre. Many (if not every) FPS game owes something to Wolfenstein, including one based off the bible. Wait, what? 

So why talk about 3D? Well, here in about 4 days (Tuesday), Wolfenstein: The New Order will hit shelves for just about every home console (including Xbox One and Playstation 4), so you can see "B.J." Blazkowicz in all his next-gen glory.