Challenge Show | Wolfenstein 3D
It’s time for the third part of the Challenge Show, to talk about all the possible challenges of Wolfenstein 3D!
Note: This minimal list can only be applied to the DOS version of the game (or any other faithful port), and considers all six episodes as well.
I beat Wolfenstein 3D, with Bring ’em On difficulty (the default one), and here’s what I have to say:
1. Going to the next level, doesn’t fill up your health, and it means that even if your status bar shows “1%” of health at the end of the level, you’ll get this amount of health for the next one.
2. This also happens for the weapons’ ammo, and that’s why the final mission is really hard to beat, even with the use of quick saves at every point.
3. If you die, you start the level with “100%” of health, but all your weapons are gone, except the default ones (a knife and a handgun).
4. And since holding the fire button doesn’t make the default weapons do their job automatically, you have to press the fire button repeatedly.
5. Another problem with getting killed is that, you’ll go back to the start point of the level, and not the last saved point. So you have to manually select the last save state to load it:
6. And there is another problem with beginning the mission from the start point; there are few levels that begin exactly near some enemies, and since you don’t have any type of machine gun, you’ll probably end up killing the enemy while having a low amount of health.
7. There is also a problem with the enemies themselves, as they sometimes lurk somewhere in the labyrinth-like parts of the map to surprise you:
8. And there is another problem with the enemies you face; they can hear the sound of gunshots you fire, open the doors from other sides of the map, and come to kill the player.
9. There is also another problem with the doors; if you enter a room, that is full of enemies, and want to escape from that door, you’ll probably open the door again, as they have the behavior to close them automatically. So, until the door opens again, you’ll get shot at, and maybe get killed. Why? Because the door has to be almost completely opened to allow the player to pass through:
10. Sometimes you have to find the secret areas of the level to progress through the game, and this is where the game becomes super hard if you’ve got no patience.
11. Sometimes, you have to find keys to open locked doors, but since it’s impossible to tell which key is for which door, you have to rely on trial and error methods to open them. And the problem? There can be more than just one locked door in a level, and some of them are just traps with enemies (or maybe a hoard of enemies) behind them. So you have to pass through all of them to find the exit elevator.
12. And the problem with exit doors is that, there can be more than just one of them in a level, and you can’t guess which one can lead to the next level. And we have the same story; pass through all of them, kill all enemies in every room (if any), to find the true one. Not to mention that there can be some enemies inside the true exit room.
13. If you have a low amount of health or ammo, and want to pick up some, you’ll probably find this process a bit tricky. Because you have to run exactly over them, and backward running or strafing doesn’t solve your problem:
That was all the experience I had to share. So, do not forget to share your feedback with me!
