Open-Source First Person Shooter Mega Review: Wolfenstein 3D

Wolfenstein 3D was a first-person shooter released in 1992 by iD Software. The company was a name well-known in shareware circles at the time, but after the release of this game, it became close to a household name.

The game was based on the 1981 Muse Software stealth action-adventure game Castle Wolfenstein and its 1984 sequel, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein. The idea was always to create a three-dimensional version of Castle Wolfenstein, but the company didn't own the rights until John Romero, the co-founder of iD Software, purchased the rights to the Wolfenstein name from the creator of Castle Wolfenstein, Silas Warner.

With the name secured, the game had much of the same story as Castle Wolfenstein in that an allied prisoner of war escapes Castle Wolfenstein. This time however, the role of the prisoner was given to William "B.J." Blazkowicz, who fought his way through the game with his guns and fists rather than through stealth.

The game had a first-person view, with the player experiencing the game through the eyes of B.J. Blazkowicz himself. Through six episodes comprised of six levels each, he blasts through Nazi enemies and collects health, ammo, and new weapons as he goes along. 

The game gets crazier as it goes on and leans heavily on the notion of Hitler trying to make augmented super soldiers. In this universe, the program succeeds, both through giant Nazis that take multiple shots to kill as well as Nazis in robot armor. This even extends to Adolf Hitler himself. 

Some levels will require a key to unlock doors which can generally be found in areas filled with guards and sometimes guard dogs. There are also hidden doors that can be found by pressing walls and paintings. Many times these will be found in the latter, which are usually giant pictures of Adolf Hitler. The hidden door will slide away and Blazkowicz can grab the loot found inside.

When a level is completed, the player is given a screen with the time it took them to get through it, the number of enemies killed, and the secret areas found. A time that is par for the level will be displayed with which to compare the player's time.

Wolfenstein 3D is a landmark game for the first-person shooter genre. It's over thirty years old now, so it definitely shows its age. However, it is still fun to play, even if it may cause dizziness due to the fact that the graphics are presented through ray casting, making only the surfaces visible to the player. The game has been ported to many different architectures from the Super Nintendo Entertainment System to the Nintendo Switch, so it is easy to pick up and play on your platform of choice. Fans have also converted the game as modifications for many later, more capable engines from Doom to Half-Life 2, and even in Virtual Reality in Half-Life: Alyx. However you play it, it's well worth playing to experience the game that popularized the first-person shooter genre.

Final Verdict:
4 out of 5

Body-Tracking Multi-Sports Video Game Review: Kinect Sports

With the surprise runaway success of the Wii, thanks in large part to its pack-in title Wii Sports, Sony and Microsoft rushed to make their own motion-sensing technology. Sony released the Move, essentially its version of the Wii Remote. Microsoft, meanwhile, released a body-tracking camera known as the Kinect.

Microsoft deemed that Kinect needed its own sports compilation, so it tasked one of its subsidiaries with the project. The company that worked on Kinect Sports was the famed English video game developer Rare.

Kinect Sports contains several sports including bowling, boxing, soccer, table tennis, track-and-field, and volleyball. Track-and-field actually constitutes five separate events including discus throwing, hurdle jumping, javelin throwing, and long jumping.

As long as you have a lot of room that allows the Kinect to detect your entire body, all of the sports work well. That's the main drawback of any Kinect game. A lot of room is needed. It will be a struggle to get the game to detect the entire body in a small room, especially with furniture in the way. 

In this game, volleyball is my favorite, as it seems to be the event that works best even with only partial body-tracking. If I'm lucky enough to get it to detect my entire 1.8 meters (6 feet) tall frame, the other games are fun as well. Another drawback of the Kinect is that it has trouble detecting dark colors, so make sure you don't have on a dark outfit so that the sensor has the best chance to detect your body. Unfortunately, this trouble with dark colors also is seen with hair and even skin color. I have natural jet-black hair, and I have played many Kinect games with my hair completely cut off. People with dark skin tones have reported even worse issues, with Kinect not detecting them or cutting off entire body parts.

Kinect Sports is a fantastic showcase for Kinect. However, it also showcases the issues with the Kinect sensor. If you are tall or have a small living room space like me, most of the games aren't fun to play. Volleyball still works well with partial body tracking, but the rest, especially soccer and track-and-field, are unplayable. The Kinect also has problems detecting dark colors, which has been an issue for people with jet-black hair like me and has been even worse for people with dark skin tones. Kinect Sports is great when it works, but it is brought down by the limitations of the Kinect.

Final Verdict:
3½ out of 5

Motion-Sensing Multi-Sports Video Game: Wii Sports

In 2006, Nintendo released the Wii, a console with a motion-sensing controller that managed to bring in multiple generations of players, from toddlers to the elderly. A big part of the console's success was due to its pack-in game, Wii Sports.

Wii Sports is the perfect game to showcase the ability of the Wii. It contains five sports, baseball, bowling, boxing, golfing, and tennis. Four of these require just the Wii Remote itself, while boxing requires the included Nunchuk accessory.

They all control well and promote motion while playing. Because of this, they became popular in assisted living facilities and nursing homes. The low-cardio sports are the ones that are likely to keep you coming back. Tennis and boxing are also fun, but they are strenuous and, unless you are in excellent health, it is likely they will be too much. Of the remaining three, bowling is the most fun. Golf and baseball have their strengths, but bowling is just a fun time, especially playing with friends. Because it is a low-impact sport by design, bowling is also the sport out of the five that feels most like playing the real thing.

A cute aspect of this game is the inclusion of Miis, the Nintendo player avatars that originated with the Wii. It's fun to design an avatar that resembles yourself and then play Wii Sports with that Mii. I have Miis for each of my family members, and it is a lot of fun to see them on the screen when I'm playing with my family.

Wii Sports was a bonafide system seller that is even fun to play years later. I still occasionally boot up my Wii with Wii Sports to get some cardio in when the weather outside prevents walking or if my chronic conditions flare up. For the latter, Wii Sports is a godsend. The five included games, baseball, bowling, boxing, golfing, and tennis are all fun games that are done well. Motion-sensing games sometimes get maligned by long-time gamers, but when it comes to Wii Sports it is unfounded. The game is a bonafide Nintendo classic.

Final Verdict:

4½ out of 5

System Review: Astro City Mini

Following consoles shaped like miniature arcade game cabinets from companies such as SNK, Sega decided to dip its own foot in the well with the release of the Astro City Mini.

The system is modeled after Sega's popular sit-down candy cabinet known as the Astro City. It's a self-contained unit with a screen, speakers, and a joystick with arcade-style buttons. The screen picture is sharp and easy to read the text on the screen despite its small size. The speakers have a little too much treble with too little bass for my tastes, but they sound fine. The most important part, the joystick, is a dream. It has the tight feel of an arcade joystick. Plus, the buttons have a satisfying click-clack and aren't mushy.

The thirty-six games included are Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars, Alien Syndrome, Alien Storm, Altered Beast, Arabian Fight, Bonanza Bros., Columns, Columns II: The Voyage Through Time, Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams, Crack Down, Cyber Police ESWAT, Dark Edge, Fantasy Zone, Flicky, Gain Ground, Golden Axe, Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder, Ninja Princess, Puyo Puyo, Puyo Puyo 2, Puzzle & Action: Ichidant-R, Puzzle & Action: Tant-R, Quartet 2, Rad Mobile, Scramble Spirits, Seishun Scandal, Shadow Dancer, Shinobi, Sonic Boom, Space Harrier, Stack Columns, Thunder Force AC, Virtua Fighter, Wonder Boy, Wonder Boy in Monster Land, and Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair. 

It also includes a bonus game in Dottori-kun. This game is based on Sega's 1979 arcade game, Head On. It was included with Astro City cabinets as a test game to ensure everything was hooked up and functioning correctly.

The included games spread across a wide variety of genres, from beat 'em ups such as Altered Beast and the Golden Axe games, to fighting games such as Dark Edge and the classic Virtua Fighter, the maze game Dottori-kun, platformers such as the Alex Kidd games and Flicky, puzzle games like the Columns and Puyo Puyo series, racing games such as Rad Mobile, run-and-gun games such as Alien Syndrome and Crack Down, and shoot 'em up games such as Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams.

The console was released by Sega Toys in Japan and by Limited Run Games worldwide. As of the time this article was published, on April 4, 2023, the Limited Run release is rather expensive but the original Japanese release is reasonably priced and easy to obtain.

Since Sega began releasing its own game-packed retro consoles rather than relying on outside companies such as AtGames, it has arguably become the leader of the miniature console market. Astro City Mini continues that trend with thirty-seven games spanning multiple genres of arcade games that were originally released between the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. The emulation is fantastic, the console is cute, the sound is adequate, and the joystick and buttons are as tight as you'd hope for in an arcade cabinet release. Because it can also be hooked up to television sets through HDMI and to external joysticks and gamepads through USB, it is a fantastic way to experience three dozen arcade classics.

Final Verdict:

4 out of 5

Action-Adventure Game Review: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link went in a completely different route from its predecessor which led to a game that, other than the Philips CD-i games, is the most polarizing entry in the entire series.

The team behind Zelda II opted for a side-scrolling action adventure with platforming and role-playing elements as opposed to the top-down action-adventure sword-fighting of the original. It did have top-down sections, but only as the map that Link walked through to get from town to town. 

Like the original game, Link gained abilities as the game went on that would help him in later parts of his quest. However, this time around, Link earns the ability to cast magic. As such, Zelda II has a health bar as well as a magic bar. Most abilities consume a certain amount of magic, so it is important to use your magic sparingly. Magic can be refilled by talking to specific people in the villages or from certain items dropped by defeated enemies.

Although the combat and exploration were different, it did add some elements that returned in future installments. The villages were explorable and you could talk to villagers who would sometimes do things to help Link or have helpful items in their houses. Future games would revert to using hearts to represent life, but the magic meter bar returned to keep track of things such as energy to cast fire or ice.

The story is, in my opinion, the best part of the game. As this was released in 1987, at a time when cartridge space was tiny due to the cost of memory chips, most of the story was told through the manual. The story in the manual is as follows. Before the events of the first game, the Kingdom of Hyrule was prosperous due in part to a mystical artifact known as the Triforce. The King of Hyrule had two children, a boy, and a girl. After he died, the Triforce of Courage was split into pieces. The prince sought the help of a magician to acquire the pieces of the Triforce that he did not inherit. It was believed Princess Zelda knew much about the Triforce, so the magician interrogated her. He threatened her with eternal sleep if she did not reveal what she knew, and when she remained silent the magician made good on his threats. Distraught by his sister's state, the prince ordered that all female descendants of the Hylian monarchy be named Zelda.

This leads to the game itself. Link sets off to find the missing pieces of the Triforce of Courage to wake the sleeping Princess Zelda. He begins his quest in the palace where the princess lies asleep. If Link fails in his quest, the evil Ganon is resurrected. This leads to a red game over screen, which flickered in the original release but has been toned down in re-releases due to fear of causing epilepsy in the children and adults who play the game. This is accompanied by an evil laugh which is also heard in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! and its variations. All of this, combined with the spooky silhouette of Ganon, scared me as a kid. Yet, it also made me determined to do better as I didn't want to see that game-over screen again. I still saw it multiple times, as the game is tough as nails, but it gave me the motivation to keep playing.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is a game that doesn't deserve all of the hate it gets. It is the most different of the Nintendo games in The Legend of Zelda series, and it is really difficult. However, it is not more difficult than other games that are still praised from that time, such as the Mega Man series. The Nintendo Entertainment System was chock full of difficult games. The random encounters of enemies on the map were also certainly annoying, but in the late 1980s, this was common in role-playing games developed in Japan. 

The combination of platforming, magic, and role-playing elements was certainly interesting. If this wasn't part of The Legend of Zelda series it would no doubt be better remembered today. The story and atmosphere make it very memorable. The musical pieces, from the classic theme song to the palace combat tunes are also extremely memorable. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link definitely deserves to be played with a fresh set of eyes. You might find yourself actually enjoying it.

Final Verdict:

3½ out of 5

The Legend of Zelda Review

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Review

Puzzle Game Review: Tetris for DOS

Tetris is one of the most well-known video games of all time. It's famous enough that many people who don't play games know what it is, or have at least heard the name. 

The original Tetris was created at the Computer Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences on an Elektronica 90 by Alexey Pajitnov as a prototype. As this computer isn't well suited for games due to a lack of graphical capabilities, he used ASCII characters for the tetrominoes that drop from the top down. Shortly after the prototype was created, Vadim Gerasimov, then a high school student, converted it to DOS. It was then expanded by Gerasimov, Pajitnov, and Dmitry Pavlovsky, a computer engineer, from 1984 to 1986.

The goal of Tetris is to rotate four-piece tetromino pieces to make them fit within each other. The goal is to set the pieces up in a line, where they will clear if the line is completely full. The most points are awarded for filling the lines with four pieces using a straight tetromino.

Many different variations of Tetris have been released over time. but the original DOS version of Tetris is still interesting. It is also easy to acquire because it is available for free from Vadim Gerasimov's website. However, his version is lacking in features compared to newer versions, as it has no music, background images, or fancy graphical effects. 

The original DOS version of Tetris is, without a doubt, an important piece of video game history. Without it, puzzle games such as Dr. Mario, Columns, Bejeweled, and many others would likely not exist. As it's the original version, other than the Elektronika 90 prototype, it is not the best variation out there. It is barebones, as it lacks sound and multiplayer modes. However, this version remains fun because Tetris is timeless no matter the variation played.

Final Verdict:

3½ out of 5

Arcade Beat 'Em Up Review: The Simpsons

The Simpsons is a beat 'em-up arcade developed and manufactured by Konami early in the run of The Simpsons television series.

The plot is fairly simple but works well. Waylon Smithers broke into a jewelry store and stole a diamond for Mr. Burns. He crashes into the Simpsons, the diamond pops into Maggie's mouth in place of her pacifier and Smithers takes the diamond, Maggie and all.

Players can take control of any of the remaining four main Simpsons family members. Marge smacks thugs with a vaccuum cleaner, Bart whacks enemies with his skateboard, Lisa whips baddies with a jump rope, and Homer just uses his fists and feet. A devestating attack can also be accomplished when two players combine forces, resulting in the duo spinning around to offer an enhanced attack on enemies.

There are eight levels total, including Downtown Springfield. Krustyland. the Springfield Cemetery. Moe's Tavern. Springfield Butte at the Springfield National Forest, Dreamland, the Channel 6 Station building. and the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. Each of the levels includes generic Simpsons-style men as enemies, but also include level-specific enemies such as Bigfoot, flying saxophones, and ninjas, among others.

The bosses include characters from the show such as the wrestler Professor Werner von Brawn, a Krusty the Clown balloon, a bear that looks like the one that befriended Maggie, and of course, Smithers, and Mr. Burns. It also includes characters created for the game such as a large goon and his child-size henchman, a fire-breathing drunk, a sentient bowling ball, an electric-shooting robot, and a kabuki warrior.

Konami did a fantastic job with the graphics, as both the characters and the backgrounds look just like pixelized versions of the art from the show. The music is also fantastic, including a digitized version of the classic theme song as well as stage music that wouldn't be out of place in the show proper. There are also samples of vocal clips from the show's characters.

Konami was the king of arcade beat 'em ups in the 1990s, and The Simpsons ranks among their best. Since it was released early in the show's run it includes some oddities such as a much eviler Mr. Smithers than usual, and deeper voices for Smithers and Mr. Burns than usual. All of that aside, it is still a fantastic beat 'em up arcade game that should be played by everyone at least once.

Final Verdict:

4½ out of 5