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Wolfenstein made Lucy Liu cry

And nine more things you didn’t know about the first great shooter

Words: Tyler Nagata, GamesRadar US

Welcome to GamesRadar’s Week of Wolfenstein. Achtung, and prepare yourself for five days full of injured Nazis, delicious dog food, secret rooms, and mecha-fascists as we celebrate all that is pure and good about fighting the Third Reich. Today, we’ll be kicking things off with some essential factoids that all self-respecting Wolfenstein fans should know by heart - but probably don’t. So scroll on for obscure trivia lurking in Wolfenstein 3-D’s occult background, and come back throughout the week as we continue celebrating the past, present, and future of the first great first-person shooter.

 

Returning to Wolfenstein years after it released brings back mixed memories. The worst: spending countless hours mashing the spacebar while pressing up against every wall until we were certain we uncovered all the secret rooms. The best: finding the secret Pac-Man level on the seventh floor in Episode 3: Die, Fuhrer, Die!


Above: Forget Mecha-Hitler. These wobbly-eyed ghosts were the most dangerous Wolfenstein enemies. Touching them meant instant death 

From the dark blue wall tiles to the way the level was littered with Nazi gold where the Pac-Man pellets would be, this surprising secret level suggests that Wolfenstein’s Nazis were up to much more than manufacturing mecha versions of their mustachioed leader.


Above: A map of Floor 7 from Episode 3 to help you get to the super secret Pac-Man level. Head here for more maps crafted by Christopher Long


Above: Wolfenstein 3-D’s bloody homage to the arcade classic 


Above: See the super secret Pac-Man level in motion


 

By the time Doom introduced gamers to the joys of wielding a chainsaw, Wolfenstein 3-D had already carved its place in the canon of PC games. So it’s fitting that Doom II: Hell on Earth featured a gory recreation of the very first level in Wolfenstein 3-D.

Above: Type ‘idclev31’ to skip to Doom II’s recreation of the first level in Wolfenstein 3-D 


Above: While we’re at it, let’s compare BJ Blazkowicz’s always arching eyebrows against the furrowed brow of Doom’s space marine 


  

It’s true. Dragging bodies out of sight, changing uniforms, and performing silent kills might have given you a taste of what Solid Snake and Sam Fisher would have to offer years later. Although these features were completed, they were eventually removed because they over complicated the control scheme and slowed down the game’s pace.


Above: Hints of the stealthy shooter - that might’ve been - can be seen in the title screen. Look how sneaky! 


Above: Although you could give a grunt a good scare if you snuck up behind them, Wolfenstein 3-D might’ve been so much more

 


 
20 Comments
Order Comments: Newest First | Oldest First
Cyberninja  - 8 months 21 days ago 
First
great article
Gahmah  - 8 months 21 days ago 
"
How it all went down:
- Daniel Meade (Eric Mabius) stood up Grace Chen (Lucy Liu) when they were in college.
- With no date, the forlorn Grace Chen is forced to celebrate New Year’s by herself playing “Wolfensteen” on her computer.
- Grace never got over her lonely night with Wolfenstein. When Daniele tries to hire her to be his lawyer years later, she tells him how she spent her lonely night, screaming “Wolfensteen! Wolfensteen! WOLFENSTEEN!”
"
Ummm, Hey it's Tyler Nagata, how bout that boy.
Life  - 8 months 21 days ago 
Third I suppose. Good article.
DeadGirls  - 8 months 21 days ago 
"Hi, I'm John Carmack, I make the games. And this is John Romero, he tells the jokes and gets the girls."
NelosAngelos  - 8 months 21 days ago 
Well..don't really know what to say here...thanks for sharing this?
manaconda  - 8 months 21 days ago 
the johns were very fashion forward, with those sweet azure sweatpants, and romeros johnny borrel inspiring attire. maybe white jeans are a curse for johns through every generation. i bet john adams had white jeans.
BoondockSaint54  - 8 months 21 days ago 
Fun article. Brought me back to playing this on my Tandy computer in 1994 or something like that.
iKOemos  - 8 months 21 days ago 
Wolfensteen!
Spybreak8  - 8 months 20 days ago 
Haha, funny on all of these, especially the pac man bonus level. I love the googly eyes on the Ghosts. It totally looks like the two Nazis bash heads on the second place where you kill all of them in a row with the machine gun weapon. Man this brings me back.
The_Tingler  - 8 months 20 days ago 
Wolfenstein week? Will you be getting some new info on the new game then?

Also note on that map pic of Ep 3 Floor 7 the letters 'JR' built in, presumably John Romero.
Skateboy88  - 8 months 20 days ago 
OMGosh dude, I remember Wolfenstein like it was yesterday! Wow!

RT
www.privacy.at.tc
Flip4910  - 8 months 20 days ago 
Wolfenstein was a great game. I love that noise the enemies made don't know how to describe but i think you might remember
Flip4910  - 8 months 20 days ago 
Lucy Lui is beautiful
Rayden4444  - 8 months 20 days ago 
Fyi the name of the so called DooM Marine is not DooM marine his name is Flynn Taggart. There were sci fi novels of the game and the main character is Lance Corp Flynn Taggart.
MarXmaN  - 8 months 19 days ago 
Lucy Lu is in my Wolfensteen. Yay!!!
GamesRadarBrettElston  - 8 months 19 days ago 
Dost thou wish to leave with such hasty abandon?
lamentconfig  - 8 months 19 days ago 
Umm...Lucy Liu isn't the one mispronouncing "Wolfenstein". She gets it more right than the author of this article does.
It isn't pronounced Wolf-en-stine. It's pronounced: Vul'-fen-shteen. It's german, you know.
The word is audibly spoken with the correct pronunciation in many of the Wolfenstein 3D ports. The one on 3DO comes to mind for me.
Distracticon  - 8 months 19 days ago 
good point.

also, if you don't roll your tongue a little when you say "San Francisco" or "Sacramento" you're mispronouncing it. It's Spanish, you know.
w00f  - 8 months 18 days ago 
lamentconfig you fail its pronounced Vul-fen-Shtine as in wine, fine, line....not shteen as in green, mean, scene ask a german
lamentconfig  - 8 months 17 days ago 
W00f, fair enough. I am just going from the 3DO, PowerMac, and Jaguar versions that all contain audio of the Nazi's shouting VUL-FEN-SHTEEN.
here is a youtube video that shows what I mean. I swear to God it isn't Rick Astley.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EQlk27eAD4&feature=related
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