Wolfenstein 3D

Seventeen years away from cutting edge, Wolfenstein 3D's sprawling mazes of wandering Nazis retain a simplistic feedback charm entirely lacking from the brand it spawned. Booting it up today, the shock of the primitive is mitigated by a concise uniformity. Wolfenstein 3D's levels are easily tracked pastels and primaries, points of interest clearly signposted. The block colours give the game a crisp, readable clarity. A lack of browsable dungeon map is off-set by paper trail corpse retention, an atmospheric feature that has never quite caught on. Wolfenstein 3D's swaggering machismo - difficulty levels include 'Can I play Daddy?' for Easy, and 'I am Death incarnate' for Hard, as well as stages opening with the legend: 'Get psyched!' - frames the chubby foe renders as toys, and Wolfenstein as a grubbily interactive boy's own fiction.