Castle Wolfenstein
From Free net encyclopedia
| Castle Wolfenstein {{#if:{{{image|}}}|<tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;">{{{image|}}} | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Muse Software {{#if:{{{publisher|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Publisher(s)<td>{{{publisher|}}} |
| Release date(s) | 1981 |
| Genre(s) | Strategy/Action/First-person sneaker |
| Mode(s) | Single player {{#if:{{{ratings|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Rating(s)<td>{{{ratings|}}} |
| Platform(s) | Apple II, DOS, Atari 400/800, Commodore 64 {{#if:{{{media|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Media<td>{{{media|}}} |
Castle Wolfenstein is a computer game by Muse Software for the Apple II. It was released in 1981 and later ported to the PC for DOS, to the Atari 8-bit family, and to the Commodore 64.
Contents |
Description
Image:CastleWolfensteinPickChest.png Castle Wolfenstein is a combination action and adventure game. It is set in World War II during Adolf Hitler's reign of terror. The objective of the game is to traverse all the levels of the castle and find the secret war plans and escape alive.
The game features a top-down view of each room on the level, though the characters are seen upright like in a side-scroller. The player tries to traverse the levels by stealth, impersonation and sometimes killing opponents. The game is controlled via a joystick, paddles, or the keyboard. The player successfully completes the game by finding the plans hidden in a chest and escaping without being captured.
Gameplay
Upon entering the castle, where the game begins, the player is equipped with a gun and bullets. Once the player starts moving, he attracts the attention of the guards, who will try to shoot or apprehend him. He must either run from the guards, or kill them.
Image:CastleWolfensteinSearchGuard.png There are two styles of guards, the basic guards, and the SS Stormtroopers who wear bulletproof vests marked with "SS". The regular guards are not very intelligent, reacting only to the sounds of gunshots and grenades, or seeing the player wandering about without a uniform. The SS guards are much smarter, and tend to chase the player after getting their attention. They usually require a large number of bullets or a grenade to kill.
The player has two means to kill enemies. The first is to shoot the enemy, but this expends bullets, a scarce commodity in the game, and risks raising the alarm if another guard is present in the room. Alternatively, a grenade can be used, but this is sure to attract the attention of nearby SS guards. The guards die with a scream of "Aieegh!", which takes the form of a digital sample. Once an enemy soldier is dispatched, his body can be searched for bullets, keys, grenades, and bulletproof vests.
An alternative to the player shooting their way out of the castle is to find a uniform (either in a chest or from a dead guard), at which point the normal guards will think the player is one of them. However, the SS guards are smarter than that, and will usually expose the player as an impostor. Typically, this means that the best strategy is to quickly obtain a uniform, and then attempt to sneak by any SS guards that one runs into along the way, since it is difficult (especially at higher levels) to win an outright shootout.
Guards do not always have to be killed, however. Pulling a gun on a guard usually will cause them to put their hands up, and they can then can be frisked for ammo, bulletproof vests, grenades, and keys. The player can still choose to kill the guard at this point, but it is not strictly necessary.
Some rooms contain locked chests which can be picked and searched. Some are empty, but some contained useful items such as bullets, grenades, the war plans, uniforms, and bulletproof vests. Some contain Liebfraumilch, Schnapps, Eva Braun's Diaries, and other items; these items are worthless in terms of gameplay. Edible items, when ingested, result in comments on their taste.
The alcoholic beverages, when used, result in the message of "Hic!" being displayed, and the player's aim being thrown off balance, resulting in some of the shots missing their target, or a grenade to simply pass through the target, instead of exploding on contact.
Analysis
Image:CastleWolfensteinC64.png
One of the main drawing points for fans was its use of digitized voices—an unprecedented technical achievement. Though the voices were scratchy and almost unintelligible because of the Apple II's limited sound facilities, they were good enough for such a break-through effect.
With an emphasis on the player trying to avoid detection for as long as possible, this game (along with its sequel) could be considered an ancestor of the first-person sneaker genre of games that would gain popularity in the 1990s.Template:Fact
The disks save the player's progress as they progress through each room; because of this use of the drive as a status update, the disks could not be write protected. This also enables players to cheat by popping the drive door open before the game could write the death status to disk; one can reload the game as if they had just entered the room.
Author
Castle Wolfenstein was written by Silas Warner (1949-2004). He was one of the original employees of Muse. In addition to developing Castle Wolfenstein, he wrote the sound engine (called "The Voice") and the game engine. He also wrote RobotWar. He would reportedly typically program while wearing only his underwear, even in the office [1].
Legacy
Muse followed Castle Wolfenstein with Beyond Castle Wolfenstein which is very similar in terms of game play and appearance. The objective of that game is to kill the Führer himself.
Around the same time, an unauthorized parody called Castle Smurfenstein began circulating in the computer underground. Castle Smurfenstein was a hacked version of the original Castle Wolfenstein; it used the same game engine, but replaced the graphics and sound assets with cartoon characters from The Smurfs TV series. In Castle Smurfenstein, the player's objective is to escape the castle (either through the evasion or killing of Smurfs) in order to "get home in time for dinner." Many interpreted the spoof as a sarcastic political commentary;Template:Fact Comparisons were made between fascist Germany and Smurf society, in within which "Papa Smurf" exercised absolute power over the others. This made Papa Smurf the de-facto dictator of the Smurfs.Template:Fact
Probably Castle Wolfenstein's greatest legacy is inspiring the game Wolfenstein 3D by id Software. Though id's game shares a partial name with Castle Wolfenstein, its game play, plot and look and feel are vastly different. Wolfenstein 3D helped popularize the first-person shooter genre on the PC. Few fans of Wolfenstein 3D know of its digital pedigree (indeed, to keep confusion to a minimum, fans of the original game now call it "Wolfenstein 2D" to differentiate it).[2]