Nein! file - Wolfenstein 3D

I'm playing. Very good. Thank you.

Done. Thank you. Interesting levels.

Played through this yesterday, though a simple file doesn't allow a rating, I think it gets a 7--competent, but not excellent, with a point extra because this appears to be the author's first release set and it lacks many of the technical problems common to newbie sets.

First, the high points. The author clearly has a decent command of texturing and their levels' textures are well-coordinated and largely free of problems like "wallpapering" of dissimilar textures. The levels are fairly extensive and well decorated, though not to excess, and the intensity escalates smoothly and gradually from map to map making for a satisfying climax in levels 8 and 9.

Now, for the problems. First and foremost, the layouts here are very simplistic--mostly rooms and corridors of regular shapes (usually simple rectangles) connected by doors. There is no integration of larger segments of the map into setpieces, no sightlines that pass through multiple areas, no memorable bits of architecture. Since the maps don't use "loops" to bring key areas back into the main flow of the level, there is a great deal of backtracking through already cleared areas, which gets especially tedious when most of the areas of these maps look more or less alike due to their simplicity. In general these maps seem to have put together piecemeal, one area at a time, instead of striving for larger-scale concepts to knit the rooms together into a sense of place.

These problems compound and are compounded by problems with the combat. Enemy counts are high, but most of the encounters are very blunt, with droves of Nazis pouring through one or two chokepoints where they can be easily mown down. Often rooms connected to the same hub all have different floor codes, leading to repetitive room-clearing with no surprises and no dynamism. The increased ammo limit mostly serves to eliminate almost all ammo pressure and any incentive to use the machine gun over the chaingun. Thus even in level 8 with over 200 guards present, the gameplay never gets very difficult unless you intentionally make it harder for yourself by rushing.

Overall I think this is a decent newbie set that does very little badly, but also doesn't really do anything all that well. It is a good start at Wolfenstein mapping, and the author clearly has talent, but this talent has not really been developed yet. I would recommend playing great mapsets of the past like Gary Ragland's Countdown to Disaster, ack's Acktung!, ArEyeP's Spear Resurrection series, Barry Christian's Atomprojekt, and Thomas Weiling's various sets to get some ideas for how to improve from here.