Topic: 2008/07: Wolfenstein 3-D (PC) - DarkWolf

[JonLeung]

Wolfenstein 3-D

For this month's "Maps of the Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to DarkWolf's Wolfenstein 3-D (PC) maps.



It's World War II, and you are B.J. Blazkowicz, "the Allies' bad boy of espionage and terminal action seeker".  In six episodes, you will fight through German castles and take down Nazi forces, including a version of Adolf Hitler in mechanized armour!  Though historically inaccurate, this game should at least be in the history books of video games, by being one of the first first-person shooters.  Certainly the first really popular FPS to really start up the genre, at least.



While running around shooting Nazis, B.J. may find secret passageways, leading to rooms filled with treasure, or ammo, or guns!  But how will you find all of these secrets, when it's hard enough to find your way at all?  DarkWolf's got you covered!  Mapper/hacker DarkWolf brings us all sixty maps of this timeless classic.  Not only should the game be recognized as being one of the first FPSes, but here on VGMaps, Wolfenstein 3-D is among the first 3-D games to be successfully mapped!  By extracting the map data from the game, and applying that to an isometric perspective, DarkWolf gives us exciting maps that are both accurate and aesthetically pleasing!  (Also see his Blake Stone: Aliens Of Gold maps, mapped using the same technique.)



So to recognize the effort put into applying new techniques to a timeless classic, DarkWolf's Wolfenstein 3-D maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps of the Month for July 2008.

[DarkWolf]

Thanks!

[JonLeung]

This was a long time coming.  I guess everyone's talked about it enough when it was first done.  

[Eggz]

Man this brings back some memories. It was one of the first games I played ever, and it's always had a close place in my heart. I have to say DarkWolf, these are more than impressive. I must have been way behind the bandwagon when these originally got posted, but you more than deserve the recognition here. Congrats.

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This looks like a job for Science!

[TerraEsperZ]

Wolfenstein 3D was the first VGA game I ever saw on a computer, and the first one I had when I got my first computer (my dead uncle's). It was incredibly tough to complete all six episodes at that young age, before I learn the I+L+M cheat.



I really wish DarkWolf would also map the commercial sequel, Spear Of Destiny. It's mostly more of the same, but I'd really like to see that last level with the Angel Of Death in all its glory. It used to put me quite on edge back in the days, with the sinister music and all the spectres everywhere.



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Current projects: Ristar-The Shooting Star (Gen), Sonic The Hedgehog (Gen), Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES), Bucky O'Hare (NES)

[Will]

I'm not fond of Wolf 3D with those fatties Hans Grosse (Grosse is the German word for fat), Schabbs and so on. If you see some quality adventure in an enchanced Wolf 3D style go to www.areyep.com to download the best ever fan made sequels of Spear of Destiny, "Spear Resurrection" and "Spear: End of Destiny". What I do hate about Wolf 3D is that objects always turn with you, no matter where you face you always see bodies and decorations in front of you, which is grossly unrealistic, the same applies for Blake Stone, Corridor 7 and The Dark Forces. I'm sure you'll enjoy every minute of Areyep's fan games, even maps are readily provided on the website.

[DarkWolf]

Most early FPS games had static objects sprites that always faced you due to space limitations.  Games like Wolf 3d and even Doom were originally distributed on floppy disk, and hard drives used to measure in megabytes, not gigabytes.  I'm sure deadlines fall into place as well, to get even semi-realistic you have to draw the same thing from five or eight different angles.



Also the idea / ability to use "mouse look" wasn't made popular until Quake I, so it wasn't as noticeable anyway.



Not trying to flame you for noting liking Wolf, or anything, just explaining why the graphics are like they are.

[Maxim]

They could have put in a few more frames for viewing from different angles, but it would then require keeping track of the angle between the camera and the object's "front". The enemy sprites have this feature, for example. They might have chosen not to do this for speed or memory reasons; if the game had to run in less than 1MB of memory, and all graphics have to be in RAM, you really can't use very many of them. Some ports of the game don't allow enemies to face away from you for similar reasons.



Thus they often chose instead to make round objects (eg. barrels, vases, columns) which look the same from all angles anyway. This persisted throughout the 2.5D generation until the true 3D of Quake.