Wolfenstein 3D

"THIS is a shooter?!"

I had seen Wolfenstein 3D for the PC once, and it looked quite good. Pretty okay and it looked as if it could rival Doom (but definitely not Quake). So I thought, if Wolfenstein 3D makes its debut to the SNES, it would be okay. Everybody would be happy. Right?

Wrong.

While playing this game, I nearly died of anger. There are numerous gaping flaws with this game, ALL of them noticeable. I know this is an early game, but the debut makes it look like a futile first and sloppy effort to make - what? - a first-person shooter. Even the history of graphics at that time cannot forgive the absolute rubbish it delivers to its players.

Graphics (3.5/10) - Sloppy. Very, very pixelated. I hated the graphics on sight. By far, the ONLY thing that's detailed is the hand holding your gun, and that's it. The soldiers look like 2D animations - there is not even a hint of effort at making a pseudo-3D game. The animation looks all wrong, the rooms in a single stage look far too similar, easily confusing even the moist veteran of players. Hitler does NOT have his trademark moustache...well well, that is a violation in itself, isn't it? Hitler without his moustache is like Jim Thorpe without his legs (no offence to national figures here).

Gameplay (5/10) - First-person shooter. No innovation, no nothing. Perhaps a variety of guns? Okay, big monsters? Nah. Nothing much, and the graphics will make the gameplay seem ten times worse. A lot of levels yes, but thank god there's a god mode cheat to level off the monotony, monotony, monotony.

Story (4/10) - Not so bad really. A soldier sent to eliminate a German threat. Could have done better though.

Sound (6.5/10) - Well at least there's some digitized voices, but some sounds like your pistol are just unrealistic. The music is not too bad but gets repetitive.

Replayability (1.5/10) - Beat this game? That's it, unless you want to try for getting everything in this game - which is not much.

Buy or Rent? - Rent! For heaven's sakes, I hate games which don't last you even a week's rental, unless you're a slow player. This game doesn't contain much for you to extract, for sure.

Overall - This is not a good attempt to make a shooter. They say graphics don't make the game, but they make the initial opinion much, much better. This game flops tremendously low in this aspect. At least there's passwords.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 09/07/01, Updated 09/07/01