Wolfenstein 3D (thing)

Wolfenstein 3D, from id Software, broke new ground in the first-person shooter genre because unlike its predecessor Faceball 2000, it was the first PC game of its kind to render textures on all walls and enemies.

Wolfenstein also appeared on some console systems. Like FaceBall, Wolf3d for Super NES ran in low resolution (about 112x80 or so) because of the slow 3.6 MHz 65c816 CPU. It's amazing that id managed to pull it off at all. Because the game came out before the ESRB set up shop, id had to censor the subject matter (all Germany and Nazi references became "master state"; swastika -> eagle; Adolf Hitler -> generic face named Staatmeister). A cheesy unlicensed Super NES game called Super 3D Noah's Ark by Wisdom Tree used a Wolf3d engine licensed from id, apparently in retaliation at Nintendo for censoring the game.

Wolf3d on the Atari Jaguar, however, was much better. The game used larger textures for everything, had clearer samples, ran fullscreen with a heads-up display instead of a status bar, and (best of all) did NOT suffer at the hands of the censor; even the mechanical Hitler made it in. The biggest problem I could see was that the game allowed no way to circle strafe around corners, as the 'open door' button toggled between sideways movement and turning. (It wasn't id's fault; imagine the Jaguar joypad as a Sega Genesis 3-button pad with a telephone keypad attached. What buttons would YOU bind to strafing?) At least it held my interest for a few months while I was waiting for Project Reality to materialize into a product.

(TheBooBooKitty told me to node everything i know about Atari; you're looking at all of it.)