Retro Wildlands #69 - Wolfenstein 3D

[00:00:20] Greetings fellow travelers, vagrants, explorers, wildlanders, and welcome to episode 69, Nice, of The Retro Wildlands. My name is Nomad and this is my gaming podcast where I like to share my thoughts and experiences with a video game that I have discovered or rediscovered while roaming the gaming wildlands. Thank you very much for tuning into the show today.

[00:00:46] Our expedition continues to explore vast new locations and it's all so much more enjoyable when you're able to join us. Dee Dee, our canine expedition leader, is always glad to see you. See, over there? Here he comes running at you right now over that ridge. Hey there boy! Where have you been? You were... what? Captured?

[00:01:12] Held prisoner? At Castle Wolfenstein? Am I hearing that right? Wow, sounds like you've had one hell of an experience, boy. Why don't you take our listeners over by the campfire and relax a little bit? This time I'll be the one to gather up some drinks and I'll make sure that the fire is nice and toasty. By the sounds of it, we've got some stories to tell this time around, that is for sure.

[00:01:39] I am very curious about this castle, who held you prisoner, and how you ended up escaping. You know, now that I think about it, it all sort of reminds me of a video game that I played in the early 90s. On today's episode, we're checking out a video game that quite literally laid the foundation for an entire genre. It's widely regarded as the grandfather of the first-person shooter.

[00:02:07] It's a fast-paced, real-time, 3D action experience that gave us 3D action-focused gameplay, maze-like level design, and other odds and ends like weapon swapping. I know, that's very specific, but the success of this game helped lay the groundwork for future games in the series like Quake and Doom. With the creation of these games, the direction of video game development itself was shaped into what we see today.

[00:02:37] And it's arguably thanks to the first-person shooter that started it all. Wolfenstein 3D Wolfenstein 3D is a game that I've really looked forward to talking about and showcasing on the podcast with you all. I have a lot of fond memories playing this game way back when, and it was mostly thanks to my best friend Chris that I even played this game at all.

[00:03:03] I remember sleeping over his place, and he and I would cram next to each other in front of his family's computer, well into the early morning playing all sorts of games. Wolfenstein was one of those games, and I'll never forget how much fun we had roaming the hallways of the castle, mowing down Nazis with a machine gun, while we looked for secrets, treasures, and ultimately the level's exit. Playing Wolfenstein wasn't really about the subject matter per se.

[00:03:33] While it's always enjoyable mowing down Nazi scum in any sort of game, for us, it was all about the balance that the game struck. There were plenty of things to shoot, of course, but we had a lot of fun exploring in hopes of finding score-boosting treasures and more ammunition for our weapons. There was nothing more satisfying than pushing against a wall and hearing it slide along the floor as it moved out of the way to reveal something hidden.

[00:04:03] We didn't just want to escape Castle Wolfenstein, we wanted to conquer it. We had no idea that during our adventures we would see first-person shooters evolve into what they are today. In the moment, looking back, it was all very simple. No verticality, no complicated enemy designs, no convoluted stories. And we loved Wolfenstein 3D for this.

[00:04:29] However, the question of whether or not this game is still as fun today as it was back then has been kind of gnawing at me a little. Earlier in the year, I was fortunate enough to be invited on the 3DO Experience podcast, where hosts Bill, Thrak, and myself talked about Wolfenstein 3D on the 3DO, as well as some of its other iterations. I ended up downloading the game off Steam and playing through it a bit to prepare myself for that conversation.

[00:04:59] And after putting some time into the game and letting all of those nostalgic feelings overtake me once again, I felt compelled to complete this game again and really put it through its paces as an adult. So, is Wolfenstein 3D just as fun to play today as it was back then? Or did it only exist to serve as a launching pad for other first-person shooters? Well, my friends, we're going to boot this game up on the show today

[00:05:28] and figure out the answer to that question once and for all. Now, if you're new to the show, I'd like to kick things off first by chatting it up with you all and give you all a peek behind the scenes here in the Retro Wildlands. Depending on what's on my mind, I like to share what's going on with the show itself, what games I might be playing, what projects I might be planning, what I might have going on in my personal life, or whatever else I feel like tossing into this here microphone.

[00:05:57] I'll also take some time during this upcoming section to read and respond to any comments I received about Wolfenstein 3D from our Retro Wildlands social media pages in an effort to give the community a moment in the spotlight. Now, if none of that interests you and you're just here for the Wolfenstein experience, no worries. You can skip ahead about, eh, let's say about 15, maybe 20 minutes and you should get into the game talk. That is an estimate, of course,

[00:06:27] so what I always like to do is put timestamps in the show notes so you can see exactly where you need to go if you don't want to stick around. But, as always, I do encourage you to stick around by the fire, my friends. We're going to be talking a bit of video games and your fellow wildlanders will get a chance to sound off their thoughts to the rest of us. And I can't think of a better way to get our expedition ready to escape Castle Wolfenstein.

[00:06:53] So, without further ado, let's get into our opening segment that I like to call Campfire Ketchup. I feel like in most of our ketchup segments lately, I tend to start off with how busy I am with the podcast,

[00:07:23] my personal life, and especially my day job. And, well, that really hasn't changed much lately. Things at my day job continue to be busy and time-consuming, and a lot of that has to do with some of the restructuring in the department I work in. Also, my job has an annual trade show of sorts, which just happened to be a few weeks ago at the time of this recording. There's a decent amount of time that goes into planning the show, the week of the show itself,

[00:07:50] and then we get pretty busy for a few weeks after the show is over. I wish my job didn't consume so much of my time, but I know I should be grateful to be able to pay the bills, and it's nice knowing that the kids are well taken care of. Plus, I need a way to feed my gaming hobby, so I guess it's not all bad. This year, our annual trade show was in Nashville, Tennessee, which was nice because I've never been to Nashville before.

[00:08:17] I flew in on a Friday and had most of the day to myself. I didn't really explore too much of Nashville, but anytime I do go out of town, I try my best to find any local retro gaming stores if possible. There wasn't really anything near me where I was staying in Nashville, though, but I did find a GameStop and ended up grabbing a couple modern games while I was out there. They're all pretty cool, I think, so I just kind of wanted to share a few of them.

[00:08:45] First game I saw that I was wanting to try was Squirrel with a Gun. On the off chance you haven't heard of this one, it's described as a quote-unquote nutty sandbox shooter and puzzle platformer. This indie game was developed by DD Creations, which has no affiliation with DD, our canine expedition leader, and it was also published by Maximum Entertainment. Apparently, this game is exactly what it sounds like.

[00:09:13] You are a squirrel, and you have a gun. I've always wanted to give this game a try because, I don't know, squirrel with a gun? What's not to love? So I was pleasantly surprised to see a physical version of this game out in the wild. I also picked up a copy of a game called The Silent Swan. Described online as a first-person narrative journey, I have no idea beyond that what the hell this game is about.

[00:09:42] I've never heard of it, and I've not seen or heard anyone talk about this game in the few gaming circles that I frequent. It looks like a story-driven walking simulator of sorts, which seems interesting enough. It has a very dark and foreboding atmosphere, which is always something I gravitate towards. Kind of goes without saying, but this was a complete blind buy for me, and I am not sure when I'm going to get to it,

[00:10:10] but I am looking forward to it when I finally do. Now, the last game that I picked up was actually a PlayStation 4 VR demo disc. Demo disc number three, to be exact. Why in the hell would I grab a demo disc? Well, of all the games and experiences on this disc, this particular demo disc has a little experience on it called The Kitchen.

[00:10:38] Yes, I'll bet at least one of you is going, ooh, I know exactly what that is. The Kitchen demo was a very early Resident Evil 7 demo that came out in 2015, I think it was. It's a VR experience that acts as a prequel of sorts to the main Resident Evil 7 experience. I had no idea this was tied to Resident Evil when I first experienced it, but I will never forget the first time I played this demo.

[00:11:08] My stepdad was a very early adopter of the PSVR on the PlayStation 4, and I remember him having me over, and he had me play through this demo disc with absolutely no context. In the kitchen demo specifically, you are tied to a chair and stuck in a kitchen. There's another man in the room with you that's unconscious, and someone is roaming the halls. It was a very tense and very scary experience,

[00:11:36] and I loved every single second of it. So when I saw this demo disc when I was in Nashville, I absolutely had to grab it so I could one day experience this all over again. So yeah, I didn't find any retro games on my work trip this year, but I did come home with a few more modern games to add to the game room. Which, using that as a segue, since we last spoke, I have completed another handful of games, and my backlog got just a little bit smaller.

[00:12:07] I ended up taking my Switch with me on my work trip, and decided I was going to spend what little downtime I had going through Super Mario Odyssey. Mario Odyssey came out, I don't know what, seven or so years ago? I know people have 100%ed this game multiple times at this point, and I've only played it a handful of times with Justine. I've always wanted to play this game start to finish,

[00:12:33] and see how many of the elusive Power Moons that I could find on my own. I ended up completing the game, and after some post-credits gameplay, I think I accumulated around 350 Power Moons. Just for the sake of time, I don't know if I'll go back for more, but I will say, I absolutely enjoyed my time with this game, and I'm glad I finally played through it. I don't know what there is to say about Mario Odyssey that hasn't already been said over the last seven years,

[00:13:02] but Odyssey is far and away my favorite Mario experience at present. It's one thing to have a game where you're collecting a bunch of items across multiple levels and worlds, but Odyssey makes finding every single thing fun and enjoyable. It was a great time searching the world and discovering new things, and 3D Mario games may have followed a similar formula over the years, but it's a formula that works. So, all that said,

[00:13:31] Mario Odyssey is officially off the backlog, and honestly, it has a decent run at my top 10 games played in 2025. Another game I finished and got the coveted platinum trophy on the PlayStation was a game that I had no idea existed until I happened to stumble on a YouTube video that just happened to mention it. Terminator Resistance has the potential of being my sleeper hit of the year,

[00:14:00] and my god, I am so glad I discovered this game. I have a huge love for the original Terminator movies, and when I came across this first-person shooter that was originally released in 2019, I was immediately intrigued. There's plenty of Terminator games out there, but this one looked the most promising to me. It's set in the future after Judgment Day, and you play as a private in the Human Resistance.

[00:14:29] The setup seemed basic, but once I started playing it, I was immediately sucked into this game. You can tell this is not a big-budget AAA release because the graphics are a little rough around the edges, and the voice acting is hit or miss at best. But the level of appreciation and care for the franchise is very evident. But what I liked most about this game was the gameplay.

[00:14:54] You generally find yourself thrown into an area that has multiple objectives and side missions to complete, but it's not all about shooting Terminators and other robots. This game takes place after the world has endured a nuclear holocaust. Resources in this world are scarce, and you're oftentimes exploring ruined buildings and areas for supplies. It's in these quieter moments that I found myself really getting drawn into this experience.

[00:15:25] Plus, without spoiling the story, the events of Terminator Resistance set up the first two movies in a really cool way that I thought was the icing on the cake. I've already earned the Platinum Trophy on the PlayStation 5's Enhanced Edition of this game, but I have already got my hands on the original PlayStation 4 release, and I'm running through the game again. Again, this game is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination,

[00:15:53] but if you're a first-person shooter fan, I think you'll like what this game has to offer. And if you're at all a fan of the Terminator franchise, especially the original two movies, I think that you'll really like Terminator Resistance. So if you happen to see it somewhere, take a chance on it. I think you could do worse. There's a few more games that I've played since we spoke last, but these are the main two that I wanted to call out today.

[00:16:20] If you are at all curious about the games that I'm playing for the show, or you are just curious about what I'm playing for my own amusement, I'll sometimes post about them over on our social media pages. Which is another great segue into reminding you all to check out the Retro Wildlands on social media if you want to follow what it is that I'm up to, or you just want to add a little gaming spice to your timelines and feeds. The Retro Wildlands can be found over on Facebook,

[00:16:49] Instagram, Threads, and Blue Sky if you're interested, but also be sure to check out Channel3.gg, a gaming-centric social media platform that I've been spending a lot of time at lately. Channel3 has found some unique ways to gamify social media, and it's been very fun to hang out and interact with new people and meet some fellow gamers, but I've also been dropping a lot of mini-written reviews of some of the games that I've been playing over there, too.

[00:17:18] If any of that sounds interesting to you, definitely check out Channel3.gg. They have a website, but there's also a mobile app, too, if you're interested. It has been a ton of fun, so definitely take a look. Oh, and the Retro Wildlands is still over on the old YouTube, so if you want to listen to the podcast over there, or check out the few videos and shorts that I have up over there, go ahead and take a look there, too. I will say, at the time of this recording,

[00:17:48] we have 99 subscribers on YouTube. Do you want to be the 100th subscriber? Head on over and hit that subscribe button. Your prize for doing so is just going to be the fact that you get to know that you're the 100th subscriber, so I guess that's not really much of an incentive, but either way, I would love to have you, so head on over to YouTube and subscribe if you got a chance. As far as anything else going on, I think that's all I really wanted to bring up this episode.

[00:18:18] I say it is time to transition to the reason that you are all here today. It is time, my friends, to talk about Wolfenstein 3D. We had a few members of the community offer up their thoughts on Wolfenstein 3D, so I wanted to read their comments and set the stage for the carnage to come. All of our comments came into our Blue Sky page, so let's head on over there and start off with Poppy the Keaton, who said,

[00:18:47] I remember walking through a store and being captivated by it on a computer screen. It looked awesome. I'll bet it looked awesome, and I cannot imagine seeing this game on a screen in a store given the game's subject matter. I'm sure I had a similar experience when I saw the game for the first time myself, though. While I've been a gamer since the cradle for the most part, it wasn't really until the PlayStation that I really started to dive headfirst into gaming,

[00:19:15] and that didn't launch until another three years after Wolfenstein 3D. A lot of different things caught my attention, but nothing was quite like this game at the time. I do wonder what it was that caught your eye mostly. Was it the visuals? Was it the gameplay? Or perhaps it was the subject matter? For me, it was all three of these things, and while I understand this game maybe hasn't aged like a fine wine or anything, it's still a fun experience to imbibe in now and again.

[00:19:45] Our next comment came from our friends over at the Retro Hangover podcast. Perhaps it was Chris writing in, or maybe Shane, or maybe both. Either way, here's what they had to say. No doubt how influential and important it was, but it lives in Doom's shadow despite coming before it, and for good reason. Wolfenstein 3D walked so Doom could run. Today, it's just okay with really shitty music,

[00:20:14] but it could have held up worse. I 100% agree with that notion, Chris and or Shane. Wolfenstein 3D was essentially the prototype FPS. It established core game mechanics like the maze-like levels, fast-paced gunplay, and even the idea of a quote-unquote gun at the bottom of the screen that became genre staples. Doom just took that skeleton, added some muscle, killer soundtrack,

[00:20:42] and sprinkled in some demons from hell. Wolfenstein 3D feels clunky now, sure, and the music's basically a war crime at this point, though I do love the first level's music for what it is. Its historical value is rock solid, kind of like appreciating cave paintings before Renaissance art. And while there are better games out there that see you taking the fight to Nazi scum, they largely have Wolfenstein 3D to thank for their existence.

[00:21:12] Our last comment comes from Jamie Taylor, one host of the Waffling Taylors podcast, as well as the Modern.net show. Jamie had a fun story to share with us by the fire today. He said, First time I ever played Wolf 3D was on a PC at a used PC store when I was about seven. I couldn't figure out how to play it in the ten minutes we were in the store. It'll sound like I was a moron, and I was,

[00:21:41] but the super colorful graphics took away from the idea of gunning down Nazis. Next time I played, it was in the Atari Jaguar that my dad bought. I remember getting to the levels with the undead, getting creeped out, and stopping playing it. It took me another ten or so years before I retried Wolf 3D. It has its issues with level design, but it's one of the granddaddy of boomer shooters and used as a great example

[00:22:08] of a 3D dungeon crawler action game for a reason. Here's to BJ Blazkowicz and his stupid cheesy grin and down with the Nazis. Haha, I feel this so hard, my friend. Wolf 3D was and still is like a fever dream of pixelated walls, weird colors, and suddenly you're fighting Nazi zombies and questioning your seven-year-old life choices. The game may have aged like milk in some ways,

[00:22:38] but it is still a legend. The zombies never really scared me when I was younger, per se, but they always put me on edge knowing that they could take me out without hesitation if I wasn't on my A-game. Oh, and BJ's grin alone deserves a place in the FPS Hall of Fame. Kinda cringy, little cheesy, but historically vital. A face only a mother could love, I'm sure. A huge thank you to Jamie, Poppy the Keaton,

[00:23:08] and Chris and or Shane from the Retro Hangover Podcast for submitting your thoughts and stories for the show today. If you, dear listener, want to drop a comment on the game or topic that I'll be covering on an upcoming show, you can do that by following us on our social media platforms and keeping out for when I post a call-out. I will also put that call-out in the Superpod Lounge Discord server where I occasionally lurk around in, and I'll be sure to put a link to that Discord server in the show notes.

[00:23:38] As far as social platforms go, we're on all the major ones, so if you search the Retro Wildlands, you should find us, or if you just want to head over to our link tree at linktr.ee forward slash retro wildlands, you can find all of our social platforms listed out in one place. Originally released for MS-DOS on May 5th, 1992, and eventually ported to systems like the Atari Jaguar, the 3DO, the Super Nintendo,

[00:24:08] Game Boy Advance, and more, Wolfenstein 3D is a first-person shooter developed by id Software where players take control of BJ Blazkowicz, an American spy taken captive by the Nazis during World War II. It's a journey of survival, determination, and grit, and it's up to you as the player to ensure BJ gets out of the castle alive. And it's up to you to make sure every single Nazi you come across

[00:24:38] gets what's coming to them. More than just a fast-paced shooter, Wolfenstein 3D was a bold statement in gaming history. It put players face-to-face with evil and demanded that they fight back to survive. Can we survive Castle Wolfenstein? Or are we destined to become another victim to the Nazi war machine and doomed to rot inside the castle walls? Well, my friends,

[00:25:07] that is going to be completely up to us. So let's gear up, Wildlanders, grab your pistol, your combat knife, and grit your teeth. The odds are absolutely against us and we are going to need to dig deep in order to come out of this one alive. But even the most insurmountable odds can be overcome so long as we have a few bullets left.

[00:26:22] One of my favorite things about the video games that I've played throughout my life is how looking back on some of them reminds me of either a specific memory or a general time frame. When I was growing up, I didn't have too many friends. I was generally a quiet kid and kept to myself and while I got along with most people, there were only really a few that I really bonded with. Those few were my core group of nerd friends as I like to call them today. We did a lot of stuff together, but what always

[00:26:52] comes to mind before anything else were the times that I would stay over my buddy Chris's place. Both of us loved games and we'd play video games as well as board games and card games consistently. Some standout video games were Resident Evil 2 and 3 on the original PlayStation as well as some PC games like Star Wars TIE Fighter. One of these days I have to go back to TIE Fighter now that I say that game out loud. I remember Chris had a flight stick and we would trade off who controlled

[00:27:22] the TIE Fighter and who worked the keyboard. It was your classic pilot co-pilot setup even though I'm sure there's one of you Star Wars nerds out there going Ah well, the TIE Fighter, the twin ion engine craft, was only a one seater and not big enough for two people. You are not wrong fellow nerd, but flying an Imperial TIE Fighter while chasing down and destroying rebel scum is so much more fun with a pal. But beyond TIE Fighter, another PC game we would play

[00:27:51] was Wolfenstein 3D, a first person shooter that puts us in the role of an American prisoner captured by Nazis during World War 2 and working to escape the castle that he was imprisoned in. Chris and I spent hours and hours mowing down Nazis, exploring the castle for secrets, and stealing treasure to boost our score. We had a fantastic time playing this game and it's one that sometimes comes up in conversation to this day, even if we just make a joke about how some of the enemies sounded in

[00:28:21] the game. It wasn't until recently that I really dove into the development history of Wolfenstein 3D. I'm not going to dive deep into the specifics here, but some of the things I learned were pretty cool that some of you may not know. For starters, this game as we know it was developed by id Software and saw the light of day in 1992. Wolfenstein 3D came from the minds of John Carmack and John Romero, and they drew inspiration from

[00:28:50] the original Wolfenstein game Castle Wolfenstein. Castle Wolfenstein came out in 1981 on the Apple II, and it was one of the earliest games to use stealth and sneaking mechanics. It was a 2D game played from the top-down perspective with players taking control of an allied spy who attempts to escape the aforementioned castle after being captured by Nazis. It was a fairly slow-paced experience as the player made their way through a procedurally generated castle

[00:29:20] with around 60 possible room layouts. I believe it was John Romero who originally took a liking to this game and wanted to create a 3D version of it, though he didn't have the rights to Wolfenstein to properly do it. That didn't last long, though, because as John and the rest of the team tried to come up with their own name and intellectual property, they just decided to buy the rights. As they started work on Wolfenstein 3D, a more fast-paced approach was taken and a lot of the stealth

[00:29:50] elements were ultimately left behind. In the original game, you could drag fallen soldiers and hide them, for instance, but features like this were abandoned so that the new 3D experience could be more focused on action and quick movements. With CarMax's revolutionary ray-casting engine, players were eventually gifted a pseudo-3D world that made blasting pixelated Nazis both immersive and, in my opinion, pretty damn satisfying. The development

[00:30:19] process was a caffeine-fueled blur of crunch, code, and creative chaos. Id Software as a whole was still a scrappy, ambitious team working out of a rented lake house, and everybody worked themselves to the bone. Artist Adrian Carmack, no relation to John, I don't think, handled the game's gory visuals, ensuring that every splatter of blood looked like a visual masterpiece. When it finally launched, Wolfenstein 3D

[00:30:48] ended up turning some heads, certainly raised a few eyebrows, and it ruffled some moral feathers. But as a kid playing this game with my best friend, it was all about the gameplay experience for us. Sure, Wolfenstein 3D was pretty violent and bloody at the time, and depending on who you talked to, a game that seemingly glorifies war and conflict probably isn't one your children should partake in, but for us, it was all about the complete package. You were a

[00:31:18] hero captured by the enemy. There was no help coming, and it was up way with a gatling gun, that was just icing on the cake. Wolfenstein 3D, when it was originally released, comprised six episodes. The first and most popular episode was called Escape from Castle Wolfenstein, and that was released as shareware, meaning people were able to play it for free, and if they liked, they would pay money to have the

[00:31:48] other episodes shipped to them. I can't remember who it was that pwned it up the dough, I assume my friend Chris, but eventually we got our hands on all six episodes of the game. I didn't realize this until I was much older, but the developers also made a prequel episode called The Spear of Destiny. In this episode, Adolf Hitler seems to want to master some occult powers and leans into the supernatural a bit. Hitler secures the Spear of Destiny, which is the name given to the

[00:32:17] lance that pierces Jesus' side in John's account of Jesus' crucifixion. I can't really speak to this particular episode as I haven't played through it yet, but it apparently has some small improvements and upgrades over the original game. The version of Wolfenstein 3D I bought off Steam has the Spear of Destiny baked into it, so one of these days I will absolutely partake in this adventure. Okay, so with a little development knowledge dropped on you all, I think we've more than set up what it

[00:32:47] is that we're going to be working with here. I am very excited to play a little bit of this game with you today and have you take up arms with me as we try our hands at Wolfenstein 3D and see how it holds up today. Back in the day, I think Chris and I used three and a half inch floppy disks to load and play this game on his computer. Today, however, we are making things simple and we're just going to play this using Steam. Okay, let's see here. No need to load anything physical this time around,

[00:33:17] which is kind of a bummer for a physical game collector like myself, but it's all good. Just two clicks of the mouse as I hover over the icon on my desktop, and we're in. When the game loads up, it checks our PC to make sure everything is in order before the game gets going. I never really understood what it was that I was looking at here as a kid, and I understand it less as an adult. On the left, the game seems to be doing a memory check, and on the

[00:33:47] right, it checks to see if you have a mouse or joystick attached. It's also checking for, I assume, your computer's soundcard to make sure that the game has the capacity to pour music and the sound of gunfire and death screams through your speakers. Everything looks good, so let's press a key on the keyboard to move forward. On screen, everything goes in almost light blue. In the lower right-hand

[00:34:16] side of the screen, we see that, while mandated game ratings weren't really a thing yet, id Software voluntarily rates this game a PC-13, PC being short for profound carnage. Haha, nice. The screen fades and we're taken to the game's main title screen. The image on screen shows a long blue brick hallway with a single Nazi guard in a tan uniform walking towards us. From a corner on the

[00:34:46] left, we'll see the game's main character, BJ Blazkowicz, with his back pressed against the wall and a pistol in his hand. He lies in wait, a look of fierce determination on his face as the guard heads his direction. At the top of the screen in a slick metallic font with a red accent is the game's logo, Wolfenstein 3D. It never mattered for me if I was playing this game for the first time or just another time recently.

[00:35:15] This simple opening is always enough to put me in the right mood for some action. Oh, and here's a fun fact. The music that you're listening to now? I didn't learn until recently that this music is the actual Nazi party anthem. Die Pharao or Horst Vassalide, which translates to or close to Raise the Flag. Certainly a nice bit of authenticity, but I did find myself going a little white

[00:35:44] remembering back to the times that I would hum this theme to myself at school or out and about after I played a long session of the game. Yikes, I know. Anyway, let's keep moving. When we press another key on the keyboard, we're taken to the game's main menu. The main menu is pretty straightforward for what it is. We can start a new game or load a previously saved one.

[00:36:13] We can check out a listing of high scores. And we can also tweak our sound settings and controls. I generally don't play PC games all that much. And when I do, I try to use an actual controller since it's the most comfortable way for me to play. I am a console gamer after all. When I think back to playing this game back in the day, I could swear that I used the actual arrow keys on the right hand side of the keyboard to move around in this game. But when I booted up the Steam version of Wolfenstein 3D, it had

[00:36:43] the W, A, S, and D keys queued up for movement. I'm sure that is the preferred control scheme for first person shooters nowadays, but I tried it and I just couldn't do it. I ended up having to change the movement to the arrow keys. And when I did, it was like sliding into a hot tub at the perfect temperature. It was just all so right for me. I think you can incorporate your mouse into the game as a way to help with movement even further, but I wanted to play this game like I remembered it back in the

[00:37:12] day, and that was with the keyboard only. But you do whatever makes you happy, dear listener. And I'll thank you for not judging how I choose to play this game. Beyond the standard left, right, front, and backwards movements, there's four other controls that you'll need to keep in mind, but we'll explore some of those once were actually in the game. Okay, let's head back to the main menu. Oh, wait, that reminds me. If you need to quit the game for whatever reason, you can do that

[00:37:41] with the menu choice at the very bottom, or you can hit the escape key on your keyboard. I wanted to bring this up before we moved on because the messages that pop up when you do try to quit the game are pretty amazing. The developers had no issues calling you a pussy if you even thought about leaving the experience. Here's some of my favorite examples. Go ahead and press escape. Press N for more carnage. Press Y to be a weenie.

[00:38:11] Here's another one. Press N if you are brave. Press Y to cower in shame. Okay, here's one more. For guns and glory, press N. For work and worry, press Y. I always make sure to quit the game only when I have to and pray that I get one of the messages that doesn't quite cut so deep. A message like,

[00:38:39] Dost thou wish to leave with such hasty abandon? Alright, getting back on track. It's time for a new game, so let's select it. On screen now is a list of all the episodes available to us. Most any way you play this game today, especially if you purchase the game off steam like I did, you'll have access to all six episodes. The very first one, Escape from Castle Wolfenstein, was the one that I'm sure most people probably remember the most.

[00:39:09] As back in the day, this was the free episode via shareware. Just prior to the first episode, our hero, BJ, gets himself captured by Nazi forces and is taken to the lowest levels of Castle Wolfenstein. The main objective of the episode is to escape the castle, and that's really all the story setup that we need. We'll touch on the other episodes near the end of this podcast episode, so for now, let's select episode one.

[00:39:37] Alright, we have one more decision that we need to make before getting into the game. We need to decide how tough we are. On screen, we are literally asked, how tough are you? And we have four options, which are basically difficulty settings for the game. The setting, bring em on, is the game's default setting, and it'll provide a pretty decent challenge. I always try and play games on the default setting in order to experience the game

[00:40:05] as the developers intended for regular gamers like myself. Enemies deal normal damage, and the amount of enemies is standard. You're not going to see waves of enemies, but you're not going to be walking empty halls for too long either. Now, if you want to scale it back a little, there's the don't hurt me setting. Or, if you can get past all the insults to your skills, there's the beginner setting, can I play daddy? This is the easiest setting, and in order to select it,

[00:40:34] you're going to have to take the sting of embarrassment as you select it, and you get to see a pixelated face of our hero with a baby bonnet on and a pacifier in his mouth. Absolutely brutal. But if you think you've got the chops, and you are a true one-man Nazi-killing machine, the hardest difficulty setting, I am death incarnate, awaits you at the bottom. Enemies hit much harder, and there are many more of them in this game mode.

[00:41:03] I promise there is no judgment from me with regards to what you select, but for today, we're sticking with the default setting. So go ahead and select Bring'em On, and let's make our escape from Castle Wolfenstein. After the screen goes black, the game needs to load the level. When it does that, you see a progress bar right above the words, Get Psyched. Alright, my friends, are we ready to do this? There is no turning back now.

[00:41:34] When the game begins, we're in the shoes of BJ Blazkowicz, looking through his eyes. We're in a small prison cell lined with blue brick walls. At our feet is the bloody body of a prison guard. In our hands, a pistol. The game doesn't outright tell us this, but we have overpowered the guard and took his handgun. Now, it's on us to make our escape. Now, before we do, we have a decent amount of information

[00:42:03] at the bottom of the screen, so let's go over that first really quick and get our bearings before we exit our cell and venture into the unknown. Okay, first up, looking at the lower left, we can see what floor we're on. We start on floor one and there are ten levels in the castle. We're going to be heading up towards the top as we go. Next, we can see our score. You'll increase your score mainly by killing the bad guys, but you'll also increase your score by finding hidden treasure.

[00:42:33] If I recall correctly, every 40,000 points will give you an extra life, which takes me to the next thing on screen, your life counter. You start with three lives and every time you die, you lose one. Lose them all and it's game over. If you do end up dying, you'll lose all of your weapons, all of your ammo and be sent back to the beginning of the level and you'll have to go through everything all over again. Kind of goes without saying, but definitely do not die

[00:43:02] if you can help it and we'll talk about some survival strategies here soon. Speaking of staying alive, as we move our eyes to the right-hand side of the screen, there's an area where you can see your total health displayed as a percentage. You start with 100%, but as I'm sure you've surmised, that number goes down as you take damage. BJ's pixelated face is in the very center of the screen at the bottom and he'll get more bloody and injured as your health goes down in case you need

[00:43:32] an extra indicator as to your status. The character portrait serving as a health indicator will be carried forward when id Software eventually makes Doom. It's one of my favorite things on screen and I wish more games would incorporate it if I'm being honest. Moving right along, we have an ammo count as we keep looking to the right here. We have 8 bullets right now, but we can carry as many as 99. We'll get into some other weapons the game has to offer,

[00:44:01] but the nice thing is ammo persists across all of them and none of the weapons that we're going to be using will require reloading. Reloading animations won't come for a few more years and it's to our benefit. A little further to the right of the ammo count are two little empty boxes. These spots, they're pretty nondescript, but they're reserved for keys when you find them. There's a blue key and a gold key in some of the levels

[00:44:31] that you're going to run through and finding them will sometimes be necessary to progress forward. Now the last thing on screen to the very right is a blackened silhouette of our equipped weapon, which in this case is the pistol. If it's not evident what kind of weapon you're carrying by looking down at the bottom of your screen and seeing what's in your actual hands, this silhouette kind of serves as that purpose and lets you know what you have in your hands by giving you an icon indicator. Now I'm no firearms expert,

[00:45:00] but the pistol in this game looks a lot like the Walther P38, a gun that was carried by the Nazis during most of the Second World War. We also have a combat knife on us and we can switch to it by pressing the number one on our keyboard. The knife is very close range, obviously, and it's not very strong. You really shouldn't be in a situation where you need to use the knife, but if you find yourself in a situation where it's all that you have, well, good luck to you.

[00:45:32] Okay, that should cover the basics. Let's not hang out in our cell any longer, no telling if any other guards heard us take down the guard at our feet. Move forward using whatever control scheme you set yourself up with and put yourself in front of the door in front of you. Unless you change that particular control scheme, the space bar is what you'll want to use here to open doors. Press the space bar now, and let's open up the door in front of us. Okay, here we go.

[00:46:03] As we pass through, let's turn right. Up ahead, we can see some cages embedded into the wall and a plate of food on the floor. We can see a skeleton of a man on the ground holding the bars. Makes me wonder if the Nazis put his food just out of reach, those bastards. Food like this will restore some of our health, but we don't need any health right now, so let's just ignore the food. But, I will say, make a mental note of its location. You never know

[00:46:32] if we'll be injured later and need to backtrack in order to grab it. We should probably keep moving anyway, no telling if there are other guards close by. Uh-oh, I spoke too soon. Quick, turn to the left. A little ways down the hall is a Nazi prison guard. He just spotted us, and he's making his way towards us. Okay, there won't be much time to react here, but we need to take him down and the pistol in our hands is more than up to the task. We just have to

[00:47:02] aim true and fire quickly. Position the front of the pistol towards the guard. There you go. Now, quickly pull the trigger with the left control key. Nice. You can tell you hit the guard because he reels back in pain. He doesn't go down, though. You're going to need to put a few more bullets in him. There you go. That is one less Nazi to worry about. The guard falls back

[00:47:31] motionless to the concrete floor. On his way down, you can see that he drops something blue. This item is an ammo magazine, and walking over it will add four to your total ammo count. I don't think I need to tell you what to do next here, so why don't you go ahead and claim those bullets. Easy enough. Most enemies will drop ammo when you take them out, so be sure to collect them anytime you're able. Sometimes the enemies will fall in such a way

[00:48:00] that you won't actually see the ammunition underneath them, so just be sure to walk over any freshly made corpses whenever you can. Ooh, look over there. There's another ammo magazine against the wall. May as well grab that one, too. Anytime you see ammo that's already laid out for you, it'll add eight to your overall ammo count. Enemies only drop four, so keep that in mind. Ammo is usually pretty plentiful in this game,

[00:48:29] but that does not mean you can go all Rambo with your bullets. You can run out if you aren't careful, and it is not fun trying to take out a squad of Nazis with just a combat knife, believe me. Alright, I think this area is clear. Let's head back the way we came. There's other doors in this room that'll take you into some of the other prison cells, but there's no need to check those right now. Let's head out of the cell block by way of the door in front of us. Head towards it, and when you get

[00:48:59] right up against it, just like last time, press the space bar to open it. Through the door, we're facing a long hallway with a door on the opposite end of us. There's nothing else in here, so let's just keep pressing forward. As you do, depending on how fast you are, you may hear the door we just passed through close behind us. This is an important little detail for a few reasons. First, we now know that the doors

[00:49:28] do not remain open forever. They will close after a little bit of time passes. Second, they make noise when they do, and that noise can be useful if you're at all interested in keeping any semblance of spatial awareness, which I might add could save your life. While some prison guards and other enemies are stationary just waiting for you to come across them, others do patrol the halls, and some can move from room to room, so keep your ears open. Anyway,

[00:49:58] go through the door at the end of the hall now. When we step into the next open area, we can see that the walls here are a bit different. Up ahead of us is another door, but it's flanked with wood-paneled walls. On either side of the door is a rather lavish-looking Nazi eagle insignia. The developers had no issues putting full-on Nazi imagery in Wolfenstein 3D, though some future iterations would see some of this stuff removed,

[00:50:29] especially in the Super Nintendo port and versions of the games that would be shipped to Germany itself. The way these insignias are placed, though, makes it seem like that door in front of us between them leads somewhere important, so let's just keep that door in mind for later. When we look to our left, we'll see another Nazi guard patrolling around the room. Depending on when you entered the room, there's a small chance that this guard here may have its back turned to us, like it is right now.

[00:50:58] It may be less honorable to some to shoot a man in the back, but if there's one piece of advice you take from me, let it be this. If you see the back of a Nazi, shoot him in it and do it quickly. You'd do much more damage to the enemy when their back is turned and depending on how close you are, you have the potential to kill regular enemies in one shot. So that being said, no more talk, I am absolutely wasting your time here. Go ahead and angle your gun towards the guard and shoot him

[00:51:28] before he turns around. Excellent. Only one bullet used and now we have another guard we don't have to worry about. Excellent work. Turning back around, we'll see another door in this room that we can take. The door is surrounded by blue bricks, just like the area that we came from, so we can surmise that this is another block of prison cells. Let's head that way first, shall we? As we pass through, we have another door across from us,

[00:51:57] but a hallway to our right. Now, whenever I play any sort of shooter game, first person or otherwise, I try my best to make sure I clear a room before I move on to the next. Going off of that mentality, let's take a right at the hallway here and explore the rest of this particular space. Oh, and it's a good thing we did because we have company at the end of the next hallway. The guard is really far away, so it's going to be much harder lining up the front of our pistol before firing.

[00:52:28] Do your best, and when you have the guard in your sights, let him have it. Damn, I don't think we hit him at all. I didn't see him flinch. It kind of goes without saying, but your accuracy as well as your damage goes down at longer distances. You can try to lob more potshots off, but I'd recommend getting closer to the enemy whenever you can. Though, you have to be careful. The last couple guards that we took out, we had the opportunity to put them down quickly.

[00:52:57] With this much distance and time, the enemy will have an opportunity to fire back at us. Which, it looks like they're about to do right now, so watch out. When the normal guards are about to fire on you, they stop movement for just a moment to take aim before they finally pull out their pistol and fire it at you. Ah, damn, they hit us. The screen flashes red quickly and our overall health goes down a smidge. The only good thing about taking a bullet from longer range

[00:53:27] is damage to you isn't too bad. In this instance, we only took a 10% hit and now we're down to 90 overall health. I don't know about you, but I don't feel like taking any more bullets today, so it's time to take this asshole down. Start moving forward to close the distance gap. Nope, watch out, he's firing again. We didn't take any damage this time, but I don't think we should give him a third shot. We're close enough now, so go ahead and fire.

[00:53:59] Yeah, that'll teach you. Nice work. You probably noticed that taking this particular enemy out cost us a lot more bullets than the first few guards that we took out. Distance absolutely matters in this game, so keep that in mind when you're engaging the enemy. It's usually better getting closer to the enemy where possible since your accuracy and damage will increase, but there's always the risk that you'll take hits as you get closer, and the enemy can do considerable damage to you at closer ranges, so just be mindful.

[00:54:30] Let's keep moving, but before we go too far, make sure you collect the ammo off that fallen Nazi. He's not gonna need it anymore. There's another door to our left as we go to the end of the hall, so let's check that out. Oh, shit! Two attack dogs are heading right towards us. Quick, shoot! That's one, now get the other. Whew, that was close. While I take absolutely

[00:54:59] no pleasure in killing the dogs, the attack dogs in this game can easily overwhelm you if you don't put them down fast enough. They deal decent damage when they bite you, and you can imagine how much of a pain they can be when they're mixed in with other enemies. Make it a point to prioritize them when you can. In another bit of interesting Nintendo censorship, the dogs in the Super Nintendo version were actually changed to giant rats instead. I always thought that was a little weird, but it's Nintendo,

[00:55:29] and Nintendo does not want little kids snuffing out dogs, so I get it. Anywho, let's check inside the dog's kennel area here and see if there's anything that we can use since the dogs didn't drop any ammo. Which, by the way, is a completely normal thing to expect. And, just like you would expect to see in a dog kennel, there is dog food on the ground. You can actually pick this up and eat it, and it'll restore 4% of your health. Now, I know, this sounds like an awful idea, but this is war.

[00:55:59] We should do anything we can to survive, and if that means doing some pretty questionable things, then, well, we should probably consider doing that thing. So speaking of, go ahead and collect that dog food bowl. Every single health point is going to count. Good job. And see there? We're just a little bit healthier now. Oh, and here's some fun facts about the dog food while we're on the topic. The source code of the game calls the food bowl

[00:56:27] BO underscore ALPO, meaning ALPO is the brand of food, which can be accurate as ALPO did exist during the war. Also, the dog food itself does not exist in the SNES version of the game. Instead of dog food, you have cheese to match the rats. Neat, huh? Alright, there's nothing more here, so let's go back to the area with the Nazi insignias on the walls. There's another door in this immediate area to check out, but I'll leave that

[00:56:57] for you to discover on your own. Besides, it's about time we upgrade our weaponry, and I know just where we can do that. Okay, back in the insignia room, let's take a right and head through the door. We're now looking down another hallway. The walls here are lined with wooden paneling, making it seem like we're heading out of the cell blocks. At the end of this hallway is another guard. You should know the drill by now.

[00:57:27] Go ahead and take him down. Beautiful. In the middle of this particular hallway, we can see that there is passageways one going to the left and the other one going to the right. Let's check out the one on the left first, but be careful as you round the corner because... Shit. We are practically touching noses with another guard and he already has his pistol pointing at us. We take a bullet

[00:57:57] right to the face and the screen goes red. Compared to the last time we were shot, the red stays on the screen and lingers for just a half a second longer. Which is a neat way to tell us that we just took considerable damage. Looking down at our health, we're actually under 60% of our overall health now. Time doesn't slow down though, so do your best to shake it off and return fire. We cannot take another hit like that.

[00:58:26] Yeesh. That could have gone better. It's not much of a reward, but be sure to scavenge that dead body for the ammo that they dropped. Now, before you turn around and keep moving forward, allow me to show you the very first secret that my buddy Chris and I ever uncovered. Castle Wolfenstein is full of hidden secrets and passageways that are closed behind false walls. You can try to push on a wall just like you would when opening a door, just put your face against it

[00:58:56] and press the space bar. There you go. If the wall is false, it'll move backwards revealing a hidden room or area. The very first one we ever tried was at the end of this particular short hallway. Another Nazi eagle insignia is on the wall and it always looks suspicious to me. Don't ask me why. Something about it just made it seem like this didn't belong. So, speaking of, why don't you go over to it

[00:59:25] and give it a little push? Ha ha! The false wall moves backwards along the concrete and reveals a small passageway to the left. As we move into it, we can see that there's several goodies here. There's a couple of magazines of ammo, so be sure to grab those. There's also two first aid kits on the ground, which, when you pick them up, will heal you for 25% of your health apiece.

[00:59:55] These are going to be great for filling those holes in our face, so be sure to grab those. There we go. Back to 100% and good as new. But by and large, the best prize in this secret room is the machine gun on the ground. Go ahead and walk over top of it so you can pick it up. Oh yeah, now we are cooking. The machine gun, which doesn't really match up to a World War II era machine gun that I know of,

[01:00:24] might be the MP40, which is a fully automatic weapon and makes taking out enemies a breeze. This is the weapon that I personally go out of my way to acquire. The fire rate isn't super fast, making it possible to be strategic with your shots, and maybe it's me, but I always felt like this gun was just a touch more accurate. It can be pretty easy to blow through your ammo, so while you can go full auto by holding down the trigger, I would suggest tapping it

[01:00:53] where possible, especially if your ammunition is low. Anywho, that's all for this secret area, and I think we should test this new weapon out, so let's keep pushing forward. As we move into the next room, we'll find ourselves in a larger room with some tables and chairs. Looks like that's not all that's in this room, though. There's a Nazi prison guard to our left, and then there's another one to our right. We'll need to be quick here, so let's look left

[01:01:23] and take this one out first. Test out your new machine gun. Nice. Now turn around, and be careful, the other guard is shooting at us now. Damn, took some damage, but it was minor. Bite through the pain, and take this other guy out. There we go. Make sure you grab any ammo they dropped before we move on. From the direction we entered the room, we have doors on our left

[01:01:53] and then on our right. Let's try out the one on our right first. Ooh, what do we have here? Looks like some accumulated Nazi treasures are on the ground. We can see a few golden chalices and a couple of golden crosses. Picking these up will add to our overall score. While killing Nazis is sometimes pleasure enough, there's nothing wrong with lining your pockets, so scoop up everything in the room.

[01:02:28] There we go. There is generally treasure hidden in most every level, and while some can be found out in the open like this, you're more than likely going to find treasure behind false walls and in other secret passages. When my buddy Chris and I discovered that very first secret, we honed in on the idea that most secret passages would be behind walls that had something hanging on them, like a Nazi insignia or some type of picture. This can be true, but secret passages

[01:02:57] can be found behind nondescript walls as well. Once Chris and I discovered that secrets can be behind anything, not just a wall that has a picture hanging on it, that made us have to rub our faces up against every single wall that we could. Sometimes it paid off, other times we were just spending tons of time rubbing our faces against brick, but when we did find a secret, it was absolutely worth it. So as to keep the tradition alive,

[01:03:26] while we're in this room, why don't you check these walls out for any secret panels? Nope, nothing there. Nope, nothing there. Ah, nothing. I guess it's time to move on. Isn't searching for secrets fun though? As we keep moving forward, there's a couple cool things I wanted to mention that by today's standards aren't really all that interesting, but back in the day,

[01:03:56] they were kind of big deal, especially to my younger self. While I can't always figure out when this applies, enemies are sensitive to sounds, especially gunshots. There have been times where I've put down an enemy in one room and I'll hear another guard somewhere else cry out, which starts them down a path towards your location. It's a dumb little thing and can be kind of annoying sometimes, but I really like this about the game. Thinking back to the original Castle Wolfenstein,

[01:04:25] it was a stealth-based game. I know the developers originally wanted to make this game a slower-paced, sneaky sort of experience before making it into the fast-paced action adventure it is now, so I have to assume that this was left over when they were putting the game together in the very beginning. I bring this up because in one of the larger rooms coming up, this always seems to happen to me when I shoot the guard that comes into the room. Maybe that's the key, though. The door is usually open when I fire,

[01:04:55] so maybe the door being open lets the sound travel. If that's the case, then bravo developers. Here's another thing I was thinking of when I was replaying the game recently. I think one of the reasons I liked this game so much growing up is how the game is sort of a survival game if you really sit back and look at it. Those of you that have listened to previous episodes of this show may know that one of my favorite game genres is survival horror, but really,

[01:05:23] any survival game is appealing to me. In Wolfenstein 3D, gameplay can be comparable. I mean, think about it. You're alone against a superior force and you have to explore to find ammunition that you can use to take out any threats. Your health does not regenerate, so enemy encounters have an element of risk. If you're injured, you have to scrounge for health items and other items to remain healthy and alive. Can't just run around like a fucking idiot and expect to make it

[01:05:52] out of this experience intact. You have to be somewhat strategic. Now, I'm not trying to kid anyone, there's not really that much strategy to this game, but I hope my point makes sense. Plus, when I put myself in this mental mind space, it just adds to the overall experience of being a one-man army behind enemy lines and it's up to you to make it out alive. It's a tried-and-true approach to storytelling and entertainment, but for some reason, it works.

[01:06:24] Okay, I've rambled enough. How are you doing over there? Oh yeah, you seem to be doing just fine. Oh wait, I know where you're at now. You're at the end of the level, it looks like. How do I know this? Look at that door at the other end of the room you're in. Normal doors are a light blue in color, but this particular door is black. That door there gives us access to the elevator,

[01:06:53] which ends the current level. Oh, wait a moment. Before you do end the level, there's another secret in this room. There's a false wall in here, but I'm not gonna tell you where it is exactly. Why not? Well, because I had to go around pushing on everything to find the secrets that I did, so you're going to have to do the same and earn them yourself. Now, get to pushing.

[01:07:25] Ah, see there? Look what a little bit of effort can accomplish. Nice work. The only thing in this particular secret, though, is a first aid kit, but it's better than nothing, so go ahead and grab it and heal up. Alright, that is that. Go ahead and open up the elevator door. Inside the elevator is a switch against the wall. You probably know what comes next. Go ahead and walk up to it and press the space bar to throw it.

[01:08:03] Alright, floor one is complete. On screen, we see a sort of results screen. Here, we're given some bonus points if we happen to accomplish a few things. First, we have the total time it took us to complete the level, and that's put up against a par time. The par for this level is 1 minute and 30 seconds, and I can guarantee you you will never hit that par time unless you're trying to.

[01:08:31] Personally, I never cared about making the par time, so I largely ignored this. For me, though, and I would like to think for many others playing this game, the meat of the experience is trying to accomplish the tasks that are at the bottom of the results screen. And that is maximizing your kill ratio, your secret ratio, and your treasure ratio. Basically, this is a percentage of the total number of enemies in the level that you killed, a percentage of how many secret passages you found,

[01:09:00] and a percentage of the available treasure that you were able to find in the level. So, all that said, let's see how you did. Nice! 100% kill ratio, which nets you a cool 10,000 points. Of all the things that I tried my absolute hardest to do in each level, I always wanted to kill everyone in each level if I could. I mean, I know the goal here is to escape, but killing Nazis will never not be satisfying.

[01:09:29] Plus, it's a lot easier than running your face along every single wall to find secrets. Speaking of, let's check out your secret ratio. Okay, 40%, not bad. Not great, but not bad for your first run. How about that treasure count? 60% Respectable. It's not true in all levels, but generally, to get 100% treasure, you have to find 100% of the secrets.

[01:09:58] Every 100% in this area of the results screen is going to give you a 10,000 point bonus, so if that matters to you, it is a decent incentive. And if the score itself doesn't matter to you, just remember, roughly every 40,000 points, you get yourself an extra life, so that's something to work towards. When you're done looking at the results screen, press a key on the keyboard, and you'll be taken to the next level.

[01:10:26] The second level is where things open up just a little bit. The level itself is slightly bigger in size, and the music that's playing here is just a little darker, implying that things are getting a little bit more serious now. You and I aren't going to be spending a lot of time in this particular level, but I did want to call out one of my favorite additions to the enemy roster. You find this guy in a room up ahead with another regular prison guard.

[01:10:53] Both enemies have their backs turned to you when you enter this particular room. Now, if you're anything like me at this particular point in the game, you're feeling pretty confident. You will, I'm sure, take a moment to register the new enemy. From the backside, he's a little taller than the regular guard. He's dressed in a dark blue uniform, has blonde hair, and wears a blue cap to match. You'll have probably figured out and remembered that a shot to the back of a regular guard

[01:11:22] has a very high chance of taking him out, so you do just that. And then the other enemy turns around. He announces himself by saying what he is. Shoot Stoffel. If I'm even pronouncing that right. Is more or less the SS, a paramilitary force under Hitler during World War II. This enemy is one of the elite, and if it's not very clear by the sheer size of the enemy,

[01:11:51] it should be abundantly clear when you realize that he is holding a machine gun. I don't think I need to spell this out, but be sure you shoot this guy quickly. If you go up against an SS soldier holding a machine gun, and they open fire on you, there is a great chance your mission to escape the castle is going to come to an abrupt end. Yep, just like that. It's okay. It's okay. Just dust yourself off.

[01:12:22] Hopefully, you manually saved your game recently, but if you didn't, get ready to start level 2 with just your pistol. Bet you're missing that machine gun right now, aren't you? Don't worry, though. If those elite guards are good for anything, they will drop their machine guns if you don't have one. There's nothing more satisfying than killing an elite guard and taking his machine gun, I promise. Actually, you know what? I take that back. Just the act of killing one of these guys is satisfying.

[01:12:52] Their death cry is one of my favorites. Mein Leben! Apparently, Mein Leben roughly translates to My Life in English, which I thought was an interesting death cry. Along with humming the Nazi party anthem in school when I was younger, which I promise I had no idea that's what that was until I found out recently, I would often cry out, Mein Leben! in school as well when digging around with my friends.

[01:13:19] Oh, how young and stupid we were. There's a lot more we could probably explore with regards to Wolfenstein 3D, but I think this is where we're going to start to wind it down. Looking back at my original experience with this game and comparing it to my experience as an adult recently, I can confidently say that this game is still fun to play today. I'm not going to pretend that this experience is a perfect one by any stretch. It is very rough around the edges,

[01:13:49] and it is the first of its kind. But when I think back to the fun factor, it's really the simplicity on offer here, and it's very apparent. But that simplicity is just part of the charm and what makes this game enjoyable compared to some of the more complicated first-person shooters today. One way I tend to describe this game is RAW. It's a simple, adrenaline-fueled experience where the action stays consistent,

[01:14:16] but there's enough low points to give you a needed break in the action while you search for supplies, treasures, and secrets. The maze-like levels, secrets hidden behind push walls, and intense combat make the experience both thrilling and iconic. The game's distinctive art style, sometimes even the soundtrack, and the tight controls created a sense of tension and excitement that's unmatched in its era. If you somehow have not played this game before,

[01:14:45] I think you should give it a try. People should play Wolfenstein 3D not only to appreciate its historical importance to the gaming world, but also because it remains genuinely fun. Its simplicity is a strength, offering a pure form of run-and-gun gameplay that rewards reflexes, memory, and exploration. I didn't mention it before, but there is no map feature in this game, so the reward you get from it sometimes comes from the time you commit

[01:15:13] to learning level layouts and getting good at combat encounters. Which is rewarding in and of itself, especially since there's six episodes to challenge you. The first three episodes, Escape from Castle Wolfenstein, Operation Eisenfaust, and Die für die, are chronologically in order story-wise. Operation Eisenfaust has you going after a Nazi scientist who's found a way to make an army of undead soldiers.

[01:15:43] This introduces a new and very deadly enemy type that adds a fun little twist to the gameplay. In the third episode, you're ultimately taking on Hitler himself, all while battling occult enemies that can shoot you with magic and all sorts of crazy bullshit. The next three episodes, Dark Secret, Trail of the Madman, and Confrontation, are actually prequel chapters happening before episode one.

[01:16:10] Not entirely sure how that came to be, but each episode provides more challenges and larger levels to explore. There's plenty to do, and for what it's worth, I personally did not find myself getting all that fatigued with the game. I'm not gonna lie, there is only so much that you can do with this gaming experience, and the gameplay loop itself does get repetitive after a while, but personally, I had a good time going through the game through and through. I may be a little too generous

[01:16:40] with my final thoughts, I will admit though. Really, the game hasn't aged all that well, and maybe it is a nostalgia thing, but at the end of the day, I am on the Wolf 3D bandwagon for life. Above all else though, my favorite part about this whole experience wasn't just killing Nazis and shooting guns. This game is special to me because it's one that makes me think of my childhood, and it makes me think of my best friend. I really treasure the moments that we shared together,

[01:17:10] and I loved sleeping over his place when we were growing up together. Laughing together as we mowed down the enemy, locking in when we needed to make it out of a harrowing situation alive, and recalling our victories long after the game had ended is something that I will never forget. From the battle cries of the prison guards to the cold greeting of Hans Graus, the final boss at the end of episode one, there isn't a memory I don't cherish in some capacity or another.

[01:17:41] Anytime I think of Wolfenstein 3D, I cannot help but get sight.

[01:17:48] And that brings us to the end

[01:18:25] of another journey into the gaming wildlands, my friends. This has been episode 69 of the Retro Wildlands, Wolfenstein 3D. Thank you very much for tuning into the show today. I feel lucky to have grown up when I did. I got to experience one of the first first-person shooters, and I'm still around to see how the genre has evolved over time. I love first-person shooters, and I generally have fun with them, so it's cool being able to look back

[01:18:54] and see where a lot of shooters today took inspiration from. I'm thankful for a lot of technological advances in gaming, and there's a lot of talented people making games today, but sometimes, it's the simple games that really scratch the itch for me. And what simpler game is there than escaping Castle Wolfenstein while mowing down everything in your path? If you like the show today and you want to show it and myself some support, please consider subscribing to the Retro Wildlands

[01:19:24] on your preferred podcasting platform. One of these days, I'd like to be like all the other awesome gaming podcasts out there and get back to a release schedule and some semblance of consistency around here. But until I do, I'm going to continue to churn out episodes whenever I'm able. Subscribing or following the show on your podcast platform will make sure that you're notified the moment I publish something new. You can also make it a point to join us on your favorite social media platform where I keep everyone informed

[01:19:53] of what's going on around here, especially when new episodes are primed and ready for your ear holes. The Retro Wildlands is also part of the SuperPod Network, home of some awesome gaming podcasts and other gaming content. And you can follow us over there at superpodnetwork.com. Other than this show, you can check out some other awesome shows such as the SuperPod Saga, Bar Silence, a video game music podcast, Friday Night Gamecast, Gaming Together,

[01:20:23] and more. There's blog posts, videos, and tons of other content, so be sure to check all of that out by heading over to superpodnetwork.com. So, what's coming up next? As I post more episodes of the show, I can't help but continue to look back on the first few episodes that I did and, I don't know, cringe a little. It took me a few episodes to fall into a format that I really like, and while those first episodes did help get me there,

[01:20:53] there are a couple that I want to go back and give another crack at now that I have a few years of audio editing under my belt. Plus, it'll give me a chance to replay a few games that deserve to be replayed. There's one game that I can play pretty much any time and always have a blast with it. And, it's a game that's special to a lot of people, so I want to put together a really awesome show about it. So, that being said, next time on the Retro Wildlands, we're going back to the past.

[01:21:24] We're going to be heading back to the land of Hyrule when we re-explore The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past. I am really looking forward to crafting something awesome for all of you, so I hope you'll join us when our expedition heads back to Hyrule and takes up arms in a quest to save the world once again. It's going to be a fantastic time, so I hope I see you all back here soon. Until then, my friends, my name is Nomad,

[01:21:53] and you can find me roaming the Retro Wildlands. Have a great day soon. Bye. Bye.