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Long before there was Battlefield 3, there was Call of Duty, and before that, there was Quake and Doom. All those games can trace their lineage back even further, to Wolfenstein 3D, iD's awesomely innovative Nazi-hunting FPS adventure. Today marks a milestone for the classic franchise: B.J. Blazkowicz has been blasting SS guards and chaingun-wielding robo-Hitlers for a whopping 20 years. Even better, rather than just tooting its own horn, iD's showering gamers with freebie gifts to celebrate the anniversary.
First up is a new 25 minute-long Director's Commentary, with spoken words by none other than gaming guru John Carmack himself. Seriously, it's awesome. Check out the whole thing in the embedded video below.
If listening to the man behind the curtain doesn't pique your interest, iD's also made a browser-based version of the game, which you can play for free over on the Wolfenstein website. What, that still isn't good enough? Well, you're in luck -- the iOS version of Wolfenstein 3D is selling for the low, low price of FREE all day today. If you've got an iPhone or iPad, there's no reason NOT to go pick it up.
Happy birthday, Blazkowicz; we'd hoist a beer in your honor but that'll have to wait until next year.
Comments are closed on this article
ApathyCurve
May 10, 2012 at 6:20am
And before THAT was Castle Wolfenstein, back when the Apple II was the premier personal computer gaming platform, (yes, there was such a time). It wasn't 3D, but then nothing was -- unless you count Akalabeth, and that's really pushing the definition of the term.
Crap, I think I forgot to take my Geritol this morning...
Jox
May 10, 2012 at 12:29am
If this video has taught me anything it's that Carmack sucks at Wolfenstein =)
Honestly. It's like he was playing one-handed.
-Jox
Doublerush
May 09, 2012 at 7:13pm
Nice. I guess this gives me a chance to finally finish this old game.
Btw a few years ago id released a free to play version of Quake 3 that also plays in web browser. Check it out www.quakelive.com
Slugbait
May 09, 2012 at 3:00pm
"...we'd hoist a beer in your honor but that'll have to wait until next year."
Legal beer drinking age in Germany is 16. Blazkowics is way ahead of you.
As an aside, in Germany, Budweiser does not make the legal classification of beer, and Anheuser-Busch is legally prohibited from labeling or advertising it as beer. They are also legally prohibited to use the name "Budweiser".
vrmlbasic
May 10, 2012 at 2:02pm
That's one of the few rational things the once-respectable Germany still does, recognizing that Bud is not beer but rather urine by another name.
The swill that is Bud/Amstel/Miller/Guiness/etc kept me away from all beers for years. I hold them in contempt for putting out such a horrid product, almost as much as I revile Intel for releasing the Atom processor. That's a decent analogy, "Bud is to beer as Atom is to CPUs". ;)
jgrimoldy
May 09, 2012 at 12:55pm
I'd love to hear a similar commentary from the Valve folks behind Half-Life. In the same way that Wolfenstein changed the paradigm, so too did Half-Life. It'd be great to hear about the challenges, the trade-offs, etc.
Neufeldt2002
May 09, 2012 at 10:26am
There is also deals on Steam for those interested.
$1.24 for Wolfenstein 3D or
$3.75 for Wolfenstein 3D, Spear of Destiny, Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
Cy-Kill
May 09, 2012 at 10:22am
Well, went to play it in CoolNovo, and it wouldn't go past the form to enter your birthdate, opened it in Waterfox and no problem entering my age.
methuselah
May 09, 2012 at 1:23pm
Are you trying to create a problem? Any other obscure browsers you think you can try?
Why don't you use Chrome, or Firefox or IE for cryin out loud.I'm a bit perplexed by your comment in the first place??? Are you trying to show off your epeen about less than popularly known browsers?
I don't get it.
Cy-Kill
May 09, 2012 at 3:39pm
CoolNovo was originally called ChromePlus, a Chromium-based browser.
Waterfox is just Firefox compiled with command line switches to be 64-bit, although I am of the mind that Pale Moon is the better of the two Firefox-based browsers.
dedgar
May 09, 2012 at 2:29pm
Are you trying to troll?
Or is blather you middle name.
I don't get it.More like he may be trying to inform some other that may be using that browser that it won't work. Try something else. Just a guess on my part.
Get that?
