Warning!
This game has been banned in the Federal Republic of Germany due to its depictions of Adolph Hitler and swastikas.
I don't know if it is banned in any other country. It is up to you if you want to honor the laws of your country or not when you try to obtain this game, but it is my job to warn you for that, and I hereby did.

Wolfenstein 3D is one of the true classics every gamer should have played or at least have heard of. The game was based on a top down fighting game called "Wolfenstein". This game follows the same kind of perspective into the eyes of the hero B.J. Blatzkowitch and became the first First Person Shooter having great commercial success.

I must impress the great commercial success as there were many attempts for FPS games before, but none of them got into rich in fame.

Storyline

There are a lot of confusing things about the story line, as the game contains 6 episodes, and an extra 7th episode in a separate game (The Spear of Destiny), but the numbering is not chronologic. This was because the game was originally only meant to have 3 episodes, but as you kill Hitler in episode 3, no more sequels were possible, so when the game became a bit success, they had to come up with prequels in stead.

In chronological order, the extra 7th episode - The Spear of Destiny - comes first, in which Adolph Hitler had hidden a holy spear in Castle Nüremberg. The spear is said to give its wielder special powers. Hitler was said to believe in its power, and that was reason enough for the US Authorities to send their special soldier, specially trained for solo missions, B.J. Blatzcowitch (read: you), to steal the spear. Of course many nazi soldier will try to stop you.
Episode 4 - A Dark Secret - comes next, in which you have to stop a chemical war, the nazis are planning. For that you need to kill the creator of the chemical weapons, Otto Giftmacher (whose name means "Poison maker" in German).
Episode 5 - Trial of the Madman - Although Otto is dead, his weapons are already created and General Fettgesicht (whose name means "Fat Face") will already be able to lead dozens of people into their deaths with the chemical weapons. However, nobody knows where he's hiding. Your mission is to find the maps showing were the general is, and where the war will take place. The maps are however guarded by the fearsome woman Gretel Große. (The only female enemy in the series).
Episode 6 - Confrontation - Will make you face the General himself.

However things went wrong, and you get yourself captured by the nazis and you are in a cell awaiting your execution.
That brings us to
Episode 1 - Escape from Wolfenstein - where you must escape your prison, castle Wolfenstein. The exit is however garded by Hans Große (and nice to to know Hans and Gretel Große are siblings, and clearly name after Hänsel und Gretel, from the fairy tale about two children facing a witch living in a house made of candy).
In Episode 2 - Operation Eisenfaust - You are sent to castle Hollehammer, where Dr. Schabbs is reviving fallen soldiers into undead killing machines. You must kill these undead soldiers and of course, the evil doctor himself.
In Episde 3 - Die, Führer! Die! - You face kill Adolph Hilter himself, and end the second world war.

Controverse

The game was very controversial. The second world war is a very sensitive subject, especially when you take into account that many who survived the war were still alive at the time the game was released. This is not the first game based on a big war, since there are countless games about other wars, like the Roman invasion and many medival wars. You can deem it a bit hypocrite, if you like, but you must take into account these wars are so long ago that nobody remembers those wars and only know about them because of history lessons. The second world war is recent enough to still have survivors alive today. The fact that you are not a nazi yourself in the game, but the "brave hero" fighting them was in the eyes of oposers only a minor detail.

To make the game more realistic there are countless swastikas and protraits of Hilter and other symbols of Nazi Germany. Only a logical step due to the game's chosen theme, but it was deemed offensive, especially by war survivors. This controverse led the game to be banned in Germany.

Another point of controverse was the fact that, the German pronunciation of the stuff the guards yell when they see you or die "Spion", "Eine kleine Amerikaner" or the famous "Mein Leben", was poor at best. This even led to an apology from iD software (the games developing company) to German speaking people for "insulting their language".

Game itself

As a first person shooter you see through the eyes of the hero, and you can move forward, backward, sideways and turn around. With you gun you shoot enemies, and you can open doors, and pick up treasure and that is about it.
The power of the CPUs available at the time was very varying, and therefore the game could run very smooth on one's PC and very slowly on another. It was for this reason you could make the viewscreen smaller in order to cause faster rendering, and this would make slower PCs still able to run the game smoothly. In DOSBox you can run the game fluently with the maximum screen size (and if not you have a very outdated computer for today's standards).

WASD controls were not common at the time, and the game does therefore not support it. Mouse is supported, but the controls do not compare to today's standards. This means that if you are a fan of today's FPS fans you may need some practice with this game to get full mastery over the controls where the cursor keys are used to move and turn around. Alt+arrow keys to move sideways, space to open doors, shift to move faster (running) and Ctrl to fire your gun. Until the release of Quake all FPS games would follow the same controls.

The game comes in 4 difficult modes

• Can I play, daddy? (very extremely easy)

• Don't hurt me! (easy)

• Bring 'em on (medium)

• I am a DEATH incernate! (hard)

With this iD software did follow the same perspective as in the Goodbye Galaxy series of Commander Keen where difficulty modes also exist, and they would keep this on in this game's successors "DOOM" and "Quake". I personally applaud this setup and I think all games should have this setup in order to make the game fun for beginners, but still a challenge for "die hard"-gamers.

The learning curve is easy, but the game can still be challenging.

Playing the game in modern times.

The game needs an emulator like DOSBox. Please note that even though the game is old it is not free of copyrights and thus you will still need to buy it.

Except for Episode 1, that episode is free, and a special "shareware" version only containing episode 1 may be obtained from every source you like.

The game is available on Steam, and also on GOG.COM.

But before you buy this I must alert you (once again) on the ban on this game in Germany (and possibly a few other countries). If you live in a country where the game is banned you should be aware of this!