Welcome friend. Welcome to the first “RGM Talks” article – when we take a bit of time out of the normal hustle and bustle to bring you our thoughts and opinions on games we feel have made an impact on the games industry. And since this is the first one, we should go back to where you could argue modern gaming took a massive step in the right direction.
On May 5th, 1992 the world of gaming changed forever. id Software released what is generally accepted as the Grandfather of First Person Shooter games – Wolfenstein 3D. I asked around RGM and got some opinions on this somewhat legendary game. If you want to have a free go of the first 3 episodes of Wolf3D, then go to the official website.
toolbox24 (Lead PC Writer) – “It was such an iconic game, and such a change of pace from what was the norm back then. It unmistakably changed the tone of video games from that point on and we haven’t looked back. Wolf3D was an absolute joy to behold, and to be honest, my first experience of this was watching my Mum play the game in-between her writing when I was about 5 years old! And then that was it – I was absolutely hooked. My only experience of computer games before then had been things like Super Mario Bros – very kid friendly games. So to see this game with blood and shooting, and for it to be a game that actually scared me in some points, I was absolutely sold on what video games were and could be. I mean, I’ve been playing them ever since and still my heart beats harder, and I still get a little nervy when I hear Hitlers loud footsteps at the end of Episode 3.”
Michael (Co-Founder, RGM) – “Wolf3D, huh, that game owned a lot of my spare time when I’d get home from School. Wolf3D some would say defined the genre. It was always a toss up between do I play Wolf3D or Doom on my then superior Apple PC ( lol ). Really not a horrible thing being stuck between deciding which genre FPS to play. Both helped create the genre. Gamers should never forget that either!”
Julius (Co-Founder, RGM) – “Ahh Wolfenstein 3D. Back in the day, I used to tie up my parent’s phone line with my 9600 baud modem hopping from BBS to BBS looking for demo software to play on my AMD 386 DX-40. Yes, even back in the day, I was a diehard AMD fan.
Gaming back then for me consisted of the Sierra classics, King’s Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry (screw you manual copy protection!), Accolade’s Test Drive, and Origin’s space combat-sim Wing Commander.
Then one day, a shareware copy of Wolfenstein 3D popped up. That’s when everything changed for me. I forget how long it took to download the 1.4MB demo. I remember scoffing at stores trying to sell the retail demo for $4.99. Why the hell would you pay for a demo?
Anyways, back to Wolf3D. It was bloody, I was 14 years old, and it was glorious. Since it was a shareware copy, you could only play the first episode – Escape from Wolfenstein. That was enough for me to get a taste of FPS action. I wanted more. When I finally convinced my parents to buy the game for me, I played it for weeks on end finishing it on each level of difficulty.
It was the game that solidified my love for FPS shooters today.”
agentxk (RGM Writer) – “I grew up in the days of floppy disks and VGA monitors, so when 7-year old me heard that there was a cool new game that would let you run around and kill Nazis, I thought this was the coolest idea. While I really enjoyed the overall Wolfenstein 3D experience, may favorite feature to this game is still the awesome secrets hidden in every level. I remember walking along every wall in the game while spamming my spacebar to try to find all the hidden walls in that level. While this was probably one of my first 3D gaming experiences, it was the game that ignited my love to find hidden stuff in games to this day. I’m meticulous when completing game levels, I have Wolfenstein 3D to blame for that!”
What do you think about Wolfenstein 3D? Did you love it? Did you hate it? Whatever your opinion, we want to read about it! Comment below or in our forums.
