Wolfenstein 3D

Wolfenstein 3D has become a huge success and it's often called "the grandfather of first-person shooters" due to helping to create the FPS genre. Since its original release, the game has been ported to several platforms, including the Atari Jaguar, the 3DO, the Apple IIGS, the Macintosh and the Game Boy Advance. The game was also ported to the SNES in, which this article will cover. This version is compatible with the SNES Mouse peripheral, which somewhat improves the controls. A romhack also exists that restores the uncensored content to make it more like the PC version.

Imagineer, the company that published this version, originally hired another contractor to develop the port, but nine months passed and the contractor could not be contacted. This forced id Software to pause work on their current project(s), and develop it by themselves in only three weeks.

Nintendo of America's strict censorship guidelines also forced id Software to censor this port, thus causing results stated below.

The SNES version of Wolfenstein 3D is the first official port of the game. However, it has been critically panned by Wolfenstein fans and is often considered to be the worst version of the game.

The cover art is rather shoddy; it's just a bland, black background with a generic Vietnam-era soldier (with an M16A1, an Uzi and a Beretta 92FS, none of which were actually in production during World War II) that hardly looks like B.J. and a poorly stretched logo.

As mentioned above, this version was heavily censored so that it fell within Nintendo's notoriously restrictive "child-friendly" content policies. All Nazi symbols and imagery are removed (which also allows this version of the game to be legal in Germany due to Article 86a, which prohibits the display of such symbols in games unless for educational purposes, as the other versions were banned due to this), Hitler was renamed "Staatmeister" (which translates to State Master) and his mustache was removed, the title screen music was replaced with the "Evil Incarnate" track from Spear of Destiny, and the enemy soldiers speak English despite the game taking place in Nazi Germany (the city of Dresden is mentioned in the first mission). All blood is replaced with sweat, guard dogs are replaced with mutant rats, and the bosses are also edited and show a lazily copied animation when they are defeated. For instance, Hitler's (or Staatmeister's) death animation consist of him simply falling over like the officers, instead of dissolving into a pool of his own blood and organs like he does in the original version. The same thing happens to all the other bosses, without any death quotes when they had such in the DOS games. Ironically, B.J. Blazkowicz's face in the HUD when his health reaches 25% or lower isn't censored and is also the only thing left uncensored in the game.

Technical limitations for the console make the resolution very blocky, which in turn makes enemies hard to clearly make out. This is especially not ideal considering the type of game Wolfenstein 3D is. You can't resize the screen, which makes the blocky resolution an even bigger problem. Even worse are the dreadful controls, the stripped-down level design, mediocre and choppy sound effects, and unsatisfying ending. Worse still, enemies always face the player due to the limitations of the SNES port, making sneaking up on them virtually impossible. However, the soundtrack in this version is fairly decent.

This version adds an overhead map like in Doom, so players won't get lost, unlike in the original version. It also includes new items and weapons, such as a flamethrower and rocket launcher. But you can't use a specific weapon after you get another one. As an example, the Machine Gun can't be used after getting the Chain Gun.

This was a failure. Even id Software disowned the port, with its employees being quoted in The Official DOOM Player Guide about the reaction to the port, claiming it to be ironic that it was morally acceptable to shoot people and rats, but not dogs.