I first played Castle Wolfenstein in the early 1980's with my nephew who played every video game that existed at that time. I didn’t like video games all that much, but when he showed me Castle Wolfenstein, I was hooked! The game play was revolutionary for the time. Pacman and Space Invaders were the big games of the day and they were just too limiting in scope. In Castle Wolfenstein it seemed that we could roam around the castle forever. We had a lot of fun moving about the maps from level-to-level.
I first played Castle Wolfenstein in the early 1980's with my nephew who played every video game that existed at that time. I didn’t like video games all that much, but when he showed me Castle Wolfenstein, I was hooked! The game play was revolutionary for the time. Pacman and Space Invaders were the big games of the day and they were just too limiting in scope. In Castle Wolfenstein it seemed that we could roam around the castle forever. We had a lot of fun moving about the maps from level-to-level. Around every turn could be a door, or a cache of weapons. We even got out some graph paper and tried to keep track of our movements through the castle.
This
beat Pacman by a mile. The "scary part" was when you would round a corner and hear the dreaded "Achtung" from a German guard. The most fun I had was throwing a grenade at a trunk full of grenades, blowing the whole thing up!
Obviously computer graphics has come a long way from simple blocks on a screen. And along with the realistic graphics come blood splatter and the like. That sort of realism does not really add that much to a game. At the time, computer graphics beyond "Pong" was amazing. In comparison, Wolfenstein 3D was light-years ahead on graphics, but I never enjoyed 3D quite as much. The game play hadn’t changed significantly for me to really care about playing that game.
Years later, my nephew bought me “Return to Castle Wolfenstein”. Since I hadn’t played any video games for a long time, my computer simply could not handle the graphics requirement. We ended up buying a new computer with a very fast graphics card. While the VISUALS had improved dramatically, the game play of the original could still not be beat. The basic concept has not changed in 20-plus years and I often try to recall the fun we had in the “good old days.’
Now my 12-year-old son has joined the Wolfenstein family. He wants to experience the original version. But the closest we have come is to get a copy of Wolfenstein 3D and I was never really a fan of that version. My son seems to like it, but it isn’t the original. And it is hard to explain how such a seemingly simple game can retain fans for 20-plus years. So we are on the hunt for the original and if writing this review gives us the keys-to-the-kingdom then it will be worth it.
