Wolfenstein 3D

Wolfenstein 3D for the Super Nintendo is a substantially altered console adaptation of id Software's landmark MS-DOS shooter. Imagineer commissioned the conversion after the success of the original computer game, and released it in Japan, North America and Europe in 1994; the Japanese edition was subtitled The Claw of Eisenfaust. Although it retains the first-person viewpoint, enemies and central goal of the PC release, it is not a direct reproduction of its six episodes. New stage layouts, weapons, narrative briefings and extensive censorship make it a distinct version of Wolfenstein 3D.

The conversion had a difficult development. The original Wolfenstein technology had evolved from the engines of Hovertank 3D and Catacomb 3-D, but it required extensive rewriting for Nintendo's 16-bit hardware. id Software accepted a substantial advance from Imagineer while its team was occupied with Spear of Destiny and the creation of Doom, leaving the project dormant for several months before completing the SNES work under severe time pressure. The resulting engine displays the three-dimensional view inside a reduced window surrounded by a large status panel. Movement is less smooth and the image less detailed than on a capable contemporary PC, but rendering a fast texture-mapped shooter on an unmodified Super NES remained an ambitious technical achievement.

B.J. Blazkowicz must again explore maze-like military installations, eliminate guards and locate the exit from each stage while conserving health and ammunition. The cartridge reorganizes material from Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny into thirty simplified levels divided among six missions, including two secret stages. Between missions, briefings from President Roosevelt provide a revised storyline, while passwords allow progress to be resumed without a battery-backed save system. Doors, keys, hidden passages, treasure, elevators and end-of-level statistics preserve the recognisable rhythm of exploration and combat.

The knife, pistol, machine gun and chaingun return from the computer game, joined by a flamethrower and rocket launcher created for this adaptation. The two new weapons use their own ammunition and give the limited campaign more tactical variety, while a backpack increases the amount of supplies B.J. can carry. Several familiar enemies and bosses appear in modified form, and their placement differs from the DOS maps. The controls translate turning, running, strafing, firing and opening doors to the SNES controller, though the directional pad cannot match the precision and rapid turning available from a PC keyboard or mouse.

Nintendo's content requirements caused the most conspicuous changes. Swastikas, Hitler portraits and other explicit Nazi imagery were removed or replaced, German voices became generic English exclamations, blood and many corpses disappeared, and attack dogs were transformed into oversized mutant rats. Adolf Hitler was redesigned without his moustache and renamed Staatmeister, weakening the deliberately provocative climax of the original. These alterations do not change the basic shooting mechanics, but they remove much of the historical caricature and grim atmosphere that gave the DOS release its identity.

The audiovisual presentation is inevitably compromised by the hardware. The playing window is small, distant enemies can be difficult to identify and the frame rate makes rapid close-range encounters less comfortable, yet the large sprites and colourful wall textures remain readable. The soundtrack rearranges Bobby Prince's military-inspired compositions for the SNES sound hardware, while the interface clearly displays health, ammunition, lives, keys and the selected weapon. Passwords and shorter maps make the game more suitable for console sessions, even though they also reduce the scale and continuity of the original campaign.

As a replacement for the DOS version, Wolfenstein 3D on SNES is difficult to recommend: it contains half as many levels, runs less fluidly and loses much of the provocative imagery and sound. Judged as an independent cartridge, however, it remains an interesting and generally functional attempt to bring an influential PC shooter to a machine not designed for this type of game. Its additional weapons and rearranged campaign give experienced players material they will not find in the original. The port also had an unusual legacy, as technology derived from its engine was later used for the unlicensed Super NES game Super 3D Noah's Ark.