Is Wolfenstein 3D a better game than Spear of Destiny?

[wizardofwor1975]

Lately the computer gaming forum has been a real ghost town. So I thought I'd get a conversation going about a really popular retro dos game. Personally, I love Wolf 3d and I enjoy Spear of Destiny. Some people think Spear of Destiny is just a Wolf 3D expansion pack.

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/wol...lfenstein3.htm

Anyway, I just wanted to get your opinions on which is the better game or is Spear of Destiny just an expansion pack of Wolf 3D.

[Tanooki]

Personally I've been a fan of Wolf3D since I found the shareware disc not much after getting my PC for Christmas 2000 and played it to death backwards and forwards, and when Spear dropped I snapped that one up. I'll say I never finished it, never could much get into it but played much of it out by selecting chapters. I always felt it was a cheapo addon to cash in on the originals notoriety from that formgen company that was named on the box and reading the paperwork with it as it was clear iD didn't do it as it felt different. The only thing I dug but didn't at the same time was the added detail to some of the textures on the walls and what not, but then they seemed to have a big hard on for the color blue as it was like everywhere.

Sad thing is I've bought the other 2 console/computer based Wolf games since that were I think downgrades, got farther into the ridiculous with quake3 like appropriate stuff. The newest game New Order though is truly fantastic, totally recommend that one.

[T2KFreeker]

I think both games are good in their own right. Is Spear of Destiny an expansion for Wolfenstein 3d? Yes it is, but so what? Since when are expansions a bad thing? I hate this approach. A great example are console games these days. It's okay to buy the same Call of Duty game over and over again disguised as a sequel, but PC games, nope. DOOM II is very popular, but it really should have just been an expansion as it's, well, DOOM with Hard Rock/Metal midi added in. In the end, both games are solid and fun as Hell to play. Even though Spear of Destiny feels a bit different than Wolfie 3d, it still has solid level lay outs and some pretty unique secrets and enemy fights. In the end, isn't that what matters anyway? I agree with the above posters assessment on The New Order though, excellent game. I did really like Return to Castle Wolfenstein as well though. The other game was okay. My least favorite in the series. So yeah, Spear of Destiny is actually one of my faves in the series, anyway.

[wizardofwor1975]

I think both games are good in their own right. Is Spear of Destiny an expansion for Wolfenstein 3d? Yes it is, but so what? Since when are expansions a bad thing? I hate this approach. A great example are console games these days. It's okay to buy the same Call of Duty game over and over again disguised as a sequel, but PC games, nope. DOOM II is very popular, but it really should have just been an expansion as it's, well, DOOM with Hard Rock/Metal midi added in. In the end, both games are solid and fun as Hell to play.

Doom 2 sure has inspired a lot of debate over in Doomworld over whether or not its a sequel or an expansion pack.

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-gen...xpansion-pack/

A lot of folks over in Doomworld agree with you and think Doom 2 was not a sequel but an expansion pack. Personally I prefer Doom 2 hands down.

It looks like the folks over at GameFaqs agree with Tanooki. GameFaqs said Spear of Destiny was a needless and pointless sequel which should have been released as an expasion pack. Good call Tanooki.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/564605-sp...s/review-20808

In the end whether Spear of Destiny was a sequel or an expansion pack I still would have bought it back in the day based upon my absolute love for Wolf 3D which IMHO was the better game.

[Tanooki]

Huh interesting. I was just going by personal experience as I'm showing my age saying when I got that first pc and the early games I bought before warez was in the picture. :P I think my very first boxed game non-shareware disc was Simpson's Arcade Game bought at Egghead, kept that for so long well after it wouldn't even run right on PCs anymore yet before dosbox would have given me reason to hold onto it longer and it was fun.

DOOM2 I can see it, I guess. Looking back upon it, in a way, it's like two things playing off this topic. ONE - Wolfenstein 3D was a set of 6 episodes played out over 2 larger 'stories' on the whole where kick Hitler's ass into a deathcam'd pile of mulch at the end of Ch3, but then you got that psycho ass (forget name) head nazi over all the crazy tech/mutant plans at the end of Ch6. DOOM itself until they later did that fourth set of stages(ultimate) was jsut 3 Chapters and then DOOM2 was also 3 chapters. It's an interesting coincidence. And then TWO - Like with Wolf to Spear, Doom to Doom 2 added a few graphical changes, kept most the stuff, and added a slight change up to the weapons array you can acquire.

D1+D2 also released only 9 1/2 months apart on their primary format - DOS. That by todays standards would fall squarely into the game of the year/expansion package type release model like years back when Call of Duty then had the addon package or Medal of Honor later had two packages released for PC as well.

There is of course 'Final DOOM' (1996) which came after #2, 32 megawads by amateur excellent designers along with the year before 'ultimate' 4th D1 chapter too. Those they did market as expansions for each game D1 and D2.

In a screwball way DOOM64 for N64 (which you can get now for PC which is awesome using the N64 ROM) really was DOOM2 if anything, and then D3 is what it is and 4 whenever it drops next year.

[Edmond Dantes]

Just gonna say: Fuck Doom 3. Fuck everything to do with it. It is not Doom. It is a poor Half-Life clone that slapped the "Doom" name on the title for marketing purposes and then made you wander around in the dark because the designers were clueless idiots who didn't know how to create atmosphere.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein at least was okay, but it made me feel like I was playing Medal of Honor, not a sequel to Wolf3D. Wolf3D should be ridiculous and over-the-top, not historical or realistic. The later games seem to understand that, but then they have stuff that rubs me the wrong way too.

Now, getting back to the title question...

... I personally never saw a point declaring Wolf3D or Spear necessarily "better" than the other. A true Wolf3D fan needs both, and nowadays they're usually both available together.

Same with Doom 2. Why even bother drawing a distinction?

[wizardofwor1975]

Just gonna say: Fuck Doom 3. Fuck everything to do with it. It is not Doom. It is a poor Half-Life clone that slapped the "Doom" name on the title for marketing purposes and then made you wander around in the dark because the designers were clueless idiots who didn't know how to create atmosphere.

... I personally never saw a point declaring Wolf3D or Spear necessarily "better" than the other. A true Wolf3D fan needs both, and nowadays they're usually both available together.

Same with Doom 2. Why even bother drawing a distinction?

So how do you really feel about Doom3?

Well I guess I accomplished my primary purpose for starting this thread in the 1st place which was trying to get a conversation going in the computer gaming forum which has been a total ghost town lately and on life support.

Like Tanooki I played Wolf 3D back in 1992. I remember playing it on a good old 486. I completely agree with you about a true fan needing both Wolf 3D & Spear of Destiny. But I think its fair to say that Spear of Destiny had the potential to be like Doom 2 but fell short. I mean Doom 2 whether its an expansion pack or a sequel doesn't detract from the fact that its incredibly polished. I think its kinda fun comparing & contrasting these old classics. You never know maybe one of these forum posts will be read by a developer...stranger things have happened. Anyway that's my 2 cents.

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-gen...r-than-doom-1/

[Tanooki]

I feel about the same about DOOM3, not necessarily for it being much like Half Life exactly though it kind of is, but the absolutely horrendous scripting of the game. I remember back when it came out I could pull out a watch with a second hand, or even just count steps accurately for each new assault from behind for an area I just cleared because it will just repeatedly teleport new crap in from behind which makes progression annoying and a boring chore. The pop scares were done as badly if not worse than campy resident evil just making the game a hot mess and I hope for Doom 4 they learned not to repeat that.

Spear I think is something anyone who played and liked Wolf3D must try out. I think a lot will find that it's weak and has some serious design problems that make it wholly un-fun compared to the original. It's not terrible, it's just not great let alone all that good. I think DOOM2 passes as its own game because while using an upgraded engine of the original DOOM it did add in new enemies, new weapons, and had a new if you can call it 'cohesive plot' to drive why the hell you'd do it all again a year later.

That doomworld link is a joke, both answers being yes haha Seriously though I don't like it as much as the original. I think some of the stage designs were just absurd or just at points disgustingly annoying or unfair, it wasn't I think as polished as DOOM despite it being in general well polished, but that's no surprise coming out 10mo after the original game. It was like a Mega Man NES re-hash, just enough time to throw something together with a few minor upgrades and call it a new game. Even Romero who worked on it, someone brought up, said it was rushed out and not as solid as the original so that kind of clinches it and various others in there said that D1 better for 1P gamers, D2 better for deathmatch and that I can completely agree with on those maps.

[wizardofwor1975]

That doomworld link is a joke, both answers being yes haha

Agreed. I thought you guys would like that. Good old DoomWorld. I guess in DoomWorld their is no room for dissenting opinions on whether or not Doom 2 is the better game. Talk about a rigged election its like something out of a banana republic. But that's not the case at all on this side of the street and its one of things that makes DP such a great forum!!! BTW, your assessment of Doom 2 being its own game makes sense to me.

[Tanooki]

Good point, reminds me of another gaming forum and it's mobile hit squad.

[Edmond Dantes]

My favorite Doomworld article is this one honestly. It does a good job of making me nostalgic for something I never really took part in.

Incidentally, Doom 1 and 2 fans need to own Heretic and Hexen, and Duke3D fans need to own Shadow Warrior and Blood. Half-Life fans don't necessarily need to own Unreal or Doom 3 tho

(To be honest, Half-Life IMO was "the last good FPS" since Quake... well... wasn't really that good. I never played Quake 2, but I wound up finding Hexen II kinda boring compared to Hexen 1)

[Tanooki]

Finished heretic more than once, same with duke and still own it. Can't stand hexen.

[wizardofwor1975]

Finished heretic more than once, same with duke and still own it. Can't stand hexen.

Somebody should start a thread about Duke 3D. Frankly, I'll talk Nukem no matter what the topic is. Since were also talking about Wolfie 3D: what do you guy's think about the recent project of putting Wolf on the Genesis. From what I've seen on Youtube it looks great and seems to play really smooth from what I can tell from the videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPeDNi8ZkoM

[Tanooki]

Hmm never heard of gen-wolf, but it did remind me I never did bring up WolfGL which is a fantastic modernized opengl frontend using the original files of the game to run on a modern PC just fantastic. And in light of that, there's also an opengl Duke32 file out there which I've been using along with the copy I bought again last year for DN3D off gog.com and it looks awesome and plays right.