FINALLY A FUN WOLFENSTEIN 3D
Twenty years after the release of Wolfenstein 3D comes a fantastic, free, and fan-made first person shooter that takes the basic idea and amps it up into true 3D in Super Wolfenstein HD. The game itself is short, but there are so many fresh, interesting, silly, and enjoyable mechanics here that it demands a longer experience.
A SIMPLE OBJECTIVE
The objective is simple, get to the stairwell to end each level through a gauntlet of dangerous foes. Before each level you’ll get psyched for the next as the game loads. These levels are short and sweet, the game never overstays its welcome like the original Wolfenstein 3D. There’s never any new textures or diverse locales, it’s all basic, but it looks excellent. Each room is either filled with foes or valuable ammunition and health.
WALL BREAKING GAMEPLAY
The brilliantly blue walls from the original game are here, but now the walls are destructible. Gunfire or any weapon attack will chip away the giant blue bricks, often revealing secret rooms with ammunition and health. It’s a fresh take on finding secrets. Enemies can shoot holes through walls, especially close to doorways. There are breakable cell doors to go through, even if the solid metal doors are indestructible.
THREE EFFECTIVE WEAPONS
You start out with a standard knife, but here’s the first twist, because knives aren’t for stabbing, they’re for throwing. If a knife hits a wall, it bounces off and you can use it again, but if it sticks in an enemy, that’s it, you’ve used it.
Pistols and ammunition feel a bit more rare to come by. Most of the ammunition is hidden in walls. The pistol itself is a dangerous weapon that you can fire off an entire clip in mere seconds. To round out the weapons, you’ll find a shovel toward the later levels. The shovel works as a melee weapon not just for battering foes to death, but it’s a better tool to dig through walls to find more secrets.
DERPY FOES
These enemies look amazing with how unrealistic they are. They’re so much fun to shoot and so dangerous. The foes are blocky, silly, derpy, and dangerous.
The basic enemy is a standard soldier with a goofy, yet angry face. Shooting them down is easy enough, but killing them takes some effort. When your attacks impact them, they’ll fly backward, fall down, and flail their arms with bullets flying everywhere. Hitting them in the helmet will send it flying from their head. Once they’re down, you need to evaluate if they’re still moving or not. If they’re moving, they’ll take their time to pop up when your back is turned. If they’re still moving, you’ll need to put them out of your misery with a knife or a bullet to the head.
You’ll face dogs that chase after you, but take a merciful knife or two. There are white clad soldiers with dual pistols. Blue boss soldiers with twin Gatling guns that have a difficult time shooting straight at you. I’d often see this character floating around as he blasted the ground, before I’d have to shovel him to death.
DEATH
You never have that much health, but it’s enough to take a few hits from anything with a gun. There are health packs here and there, which gets away from the turkey leg health pick-ups of the original game. Each death will restart you on the level you were at and there are infinite lives.
ONE OF THE BEST QUICK EXPERIENCES
Since it is a game jam game, it is a quick experience with only a few levels that might run you fifteen minutes, but it’s super enjoyable. I would pay money for a longer game, even if it doesn’t use the Wolfenstein name. With that said, without the Wolfenstein name, I may have never played it. Since the game was made from the studio that made Broforce, there’s potential in this team turning it into a grander game. In a way this felt like a good advertisement for the team and its other games.
Games That I Play 