Return to Castle Wolfenstein Ships

Screaming Lunatic writes "Woohoo, Return to Castle Wolfenstein has finally shipped. Check this story out at Yahoo. You should be able to buy it at the regular gaming shops. I highly recommend buying it rather than hacking it, as noted in Graeme Devines .plan file." CD: I am seriously flashing back to the Apple II game with a similar name, hope this doesn't suck like daikatana.

Comments

I don't envy the developers

[rcs1000]

It must be really hard producing a sequel of such a classic game after such a long period. They will be judged against people's rose tinted rememberances of the original Wolfenstein 3D. And no matter how good it is, people will say 'Ahhh I enjoyed the original more.'

It's also hard, because the FPS genre is not new anymore. Can RTCW be a better game than Deus Ex or Counterstike? Maybe. But whatever it is it will be hard for it to be revolutionary.

That said, I'm sure I'll buy it as soon as it hits the shops. Just as soon as I finish Civ 3 that is!

*r

Re:I don't envy the developers

[flacco]

Not compared to Team Arena. That was a cheap hack that they sold just to rake in a bit more. Wolf3d is the same engine and very little else. And it actually has a single-player element, one that doesn't involve out-railing bots. (God, their AI is crap.)

Q3:TA was a few new runes, some new models, and some new maps. Nothing amazing either. A day or so picking over planetquake for 3rd-party levels will get you the same quality. Ca-ching.

Christ, Romero, still bitter?

mini review... minimal requirements...overall feel

[Cosmic Cow]

For those of you who are wondering the minimal requirements, it works fine here on both my Tiger K7 and my trusty old BP6 with 366Mhz celeron and geforce2MX 400, I can play at 1024x768 with compressed textures, high details, but I've putted the display to 16bits (anyways, it's not like you'd notice a big difference from 16 to 32 in a fast-paced game). It's smooth, it rocks...

Of course if you're planning on joining a 40 people server you might want a bigger cpu than a Celeron 366mhz :) but for single player and 10-20 people it works okay... worse case scenario, you reduce the resolution from a notch.

As for the graphics, it's about like Q3A (same engine) but there are a lot of visible changes, one that you will notice right away is the details on the characters, and also all the motion, probably John will step in and talk about some of the aspects of the design, it looks like motion capture applied to the characters. The graphics aren't a big step up like from quake 1 to quake 3, but the overall mood and gameplay is really good. When I first played the demo, I thought that game would really suck because of the respawn time and the choice of weapons, but when you get to know it and get a well-balanced team that knows how to play, the level, and use special habilities like medic, or engineers defusing,etc.. it's really starting to get addictive. So to anyone who didn't like the test, do like I did, play it a bit more, and if you like the quake style and the RTS style, wolf is a good balance of both.

The single player is good, when I read the interviews, I was expecting a "max payne"-like story line in between each level, it's not as good, but the mood is really there and the levels are really nice. Like I said, it's not a Revolution, but it's an evolution. It's worth to buy if you're into that kind of games.

Hope this is useful to anyone out there :)

Interview with kevin Cloud @ homeland.com

[Cosmic Cow]

For those of you that might find this interresting, there's an article on homeland.com with id co-founder and artist Kevin Cloud, who was the main coordinator at the company for the game's development, to find out about their expectations for the game and what might be next for the Wolfenstein franchise.

Happy Reading.

Re:Flame throwers, right on.

[denzo]

I can't wait to play. The flame thrower is a wicked weapon, but Kingpin did it first to my knowledge.

Actually, there was a flame-thrower Blood (and Blood 2?). There was also a flame-thrower in the Mac version of Wolfenstein 3D (so it's really the second time it's appeared in a Wolfenstein game). Not quite the same fancy effects as in RTC Wolfenstein or Kingpin, but... ;)

Can I hear a "Mein Leibin!" (I think that is how it's spelled).

It's "mein leben," which means "my life" (i.e., my life is leaving me).

Return to Castle Wolfenstein & Graeme Devine

[Kreeblah]

Hmmm. I just saw this at my local BestBuy today. And here I thought I simply missed the release announcement on Slashdot . . .

Regarding the CD key banning, there's something I'd like to point out: what happens if you buy a copy of RtCW and the CD key that you get has already been blacklisted? Say someone uses a keygen. Keygens come up with apparently valid keys which can be used to install software/etc. However, the same CD key could very well also be sitting in a box on a store shelf somewhere. This happened to a friend of mine with Diablo II (although they do not blacklist keys; he just couldn't log on because of it), and Blizzard killed the other guy's account (seems justified . . .). However, suppose the keygen has produced a key that has been posted on the Internet and shared. I doubt that id would just say, "Oh, that's yours? Well, we'll just take it off of the list of banned keys." Hopefully, the customer could fax a copy of a receipt or something and get a new key mailed if this was to happen.

On a side note, I'm surprised at the note that Graeme Devine had something to do with this. Last I heard of him was in the interview at the end of the 11th Hour strategy guide. Good luck Mr. Devine, wherever you are.

Wolfenstein 3D was NOT the original!

[Myriad]

It must be really hard producing a sequel of such a classic game after such a long period. They will be judged against people's rose tinted rememberances of the original Wolfenstein 3D. And no matter how good it is, people will say 'Ahhh I enjoyed the original more.'

Uhm, hold on a sec, perhaps it was before your day but Wolfenstein 3D was NOT the original! The original was "Castle Wolfenstein" for the Apple (not Macintosh here, we're talking Apple II IIc kind of Apple).

Check the link from the front page to see what the real Castle Wolfenstein looked like.

Man, I loved that game... :)

Re:Linux version?

[geekd]

The linux version of the multi-player test 1 (there is no "demo" yet. When people say "demo" they mean the mp-test) came out a week after the windows version.

The linux version of the mp-test 2 came out the day after the windows version.

Here is a section of Todd Hollenshead's .plan file that refers to the linux version of the final game:

No date yet on the Mac version, but it's coming soon (not gold yet,
though). We don't have plans to sell Linux in retail, but Timothee
has done great work on the downloadable binaries so far, and I expect
that to continue.

So there ya go.

I have been looking, but I see no final linux version yet. But it's been just 1 day. I just hope that Timothee isn't on vacation or something, because the tin box is sitting right here just waiting to get installed... (Timo: hint hint) :-)

-geekd

Wolfenstein 3D was not the First...

[Myriad]

A lot of people seem to think Wolfenstein 3D was the game that started it all... well, maybe in terms of FPS, but not the start of the Wolfenstein series.

The first was Castle Wolfenstein, a great old game originally for the Apple computer (as in II, II+, IIc kind of thing, not Mac).

For those looking to re-live the past, a copy is available here.

On CD keys, etc.

[Alpha State]

I can't be the only one here who uses cracks of my favourite games (that I've already bought) just to avoid having to swap CDs all the time. In fact I have a laptop without CD drive and this is the only way I can run games on it.

The CD-key is similarly annoying. I can see the point if they are going to check for online gaming, but why do they insist on needing it for single player games? (I rarely game online at all) Even for online gaming, they can only block 2 people trying to connect to the same gameserver with the same key - they could do this just by storing a serial number that the game uses on each CD, avoiding the silly mistake-prone key typing.

I can't understand why they keep using these methods of "copy protection", when they obviously don't work and the games sell huge amounts (the good ones anyway).

(BTW, I'm sure the game is great, I can't wait to relive the glory days of SS impersonating and grenade throwing I used to have in school.)

Re:On CD keys, etc.

[loosenut]

The CD-key is similarly annoying. I can see the point if they are going to check for online gaming, but why do they insist on needing it for single player games? (I rarely game online at all) Even for online gaming, they can only block 2 people trying to connect to the same gameserver with the same key - they could do this just by storing a serial number that the game uses on each CD, avoiding the silly mistake-prone key typing.

Once the game is installed, it shouldn't bother you. It's a single, one-time key entry, and any mistakes you make typing it in will be picked up immediately. It also seems lot easier to have a CD-key than it is to produce serial numbers for CDs. I could be wrong, but I thought they were all exact copies. Otherwise CDDB would be ineffective, wouldn't it?

It is also a very effective form of copy protection. Normally, I wouldn't have a problem letting friends copy my game. But, now, if they want a copy, they need a key. They could either randomly generate one with a keygen (and risk screwing someone else over) or use mine, in which case we wouldn't be able to play together, or even on different servers at the same time. The readme says that the keys are checked with a master server.

And that's what makes it such great copy protection. You don't need the CD once the game is installed, and you can copy it easily enough. But you won't risk losing functionality!

Allow me to post a portion of the readme:

Some Common Sense About Your CD Key: It's important to remember
that your CD Key is unique. No other copy of the game will have
that key code. You need to treat that code as something valuable -
protecting it from loss or theft. Without it, you cannot
reinstall the game, or play on-line. You may not be able to
replace the key without some difficulty and expense. Think carefully
about allowing someone to borrow your CD Key. The Return to Castle
Wolfenstein Multiplayer Master Server will not allow duplicate
keys on-line at the same time. Don't be fooled by claims about CD
Key generators. Not only do they not work, but many "create"
additional CD Keys by stealing and transmitting the keys of gamers
who try to make new keys.

[pirate voice] I'm sooooooo scaaaaarred!

First of the Genre: Ultima Underworld

[dido]

The first real first-person-shooter game (sort of), would rightly be Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss. I think it would be the game that started the FPS revolution, except that Wolfenstein 3D and later, DOOM, brought the revolution into full gear.

Re:Patch

[Anonymous DWord]

Before I'm halfway through? Hah! Not the way I play! Man, you've never seen moves like these- super-backspin-kicking-slash-shoot attacks! Bang ka-POW! Of course, with my luck, the first patch will screw with all the timing settings and my descending laser bullet of CERTAINDEATH will miss horribly, thus deciding my fate before I've even had a chance to say goodbye to my loved ones.

Damn, I love FPS.

And that's the way it should be.

[Chasing Amy]

As the guy above pointed out, there will be a Linux client download available. So you're not really SOL. But I put a provocative subject line on my post anyway to get people to consider this.

You see, I'm glad that there appears to be one primary platform for computer games. I don't cae that it's Windows. It could just as well be Linux or Mac or whatever for all I care. But I do care that most new computer games are developed for one given OS.

You see, unlike the console world I don't have to have 3 or 4 different expensive bulky boxes in order to be able to play all the cool new releases. I just have to have one expensive bulky box. And I don't have to boot to 3 or 4 different OSes either--I just run Windows when I want to play a game.

Now, sure, I wish all games came out for every OS. Who wouldn't want to be able to just use whatever he likes, be it a Windows or Linux PC, or a Mac running either OS X or OS 9, and run any game he wants? But that will simply never, ever, ever happen, because there is no money in eating into your thin profit margins to make ports to every OS and architecture in existence. Instead, most developers pick the most popular OS--the one with the most users, that is--and code for that.

The result is a unity in the PC gaming world that will probably never come to the console world. I'd like to be able to just buy one next-gen console, and play all the console games on it. I wish I could buy either a PS2 or Gamecube or even an Xbox and use it to play Luigi's Mansion, Munch's Oddysee, Soul Reaver 2, DOA3, and all the other cool console games that are coming out. But I just can't and that's that.

Comparing it to the PC gaming scene, I'm glad I wouldn't similarly have to have Linux, Windows, and a Mac just to play most of the cool new games. Instead, just having a good PC running Windows means I can run almost every cool new PC game I could want. Rare is the really cool game that's Mac or Linux only. Almost all come out for Windows, and almost always first.

Would it be nice if the primary PC gaming platform were Free Software? Of course. But it isn't and I'm fine with that as long as I don't have to boot between many OSes or worse yet keep several different boxes to play different games. Windows 98SE can play almost every game ever written for the PC from the DOS days of the early 80s to the present, and of that I'm glad because I can and do play many of them, old and new. I'm glad that, as outdated and technologically weak Win9x is, it has kept almost-perfect game compatibility. It's like if Nintendo offered a machine which played all games from every console and region from the NES on through the Gamecube. AS a man who likes his games, I think it's perfect for what it is in that respect.

Now of course soon games will start to be targeted for a newer platform. I wish it were Linux or something else free and Free, but it will be WinXP and again I am fine with that as long as it maintains the sort of unity of platform we enjoy in the PC gaming world. Again, we are lucky that it isn't how it is in the console world, where there are several major platforms with exclusive games, which completely change every few years and with the exception of the PS2 completely break all chance for backwards compatability.

Complain all you want, but we have it easy. I'd never complain about having a near-universal gaming platform with nearly universal backwards compatibility. Neither Nintendo nor Sony are any better than Microsoft either when it comes to corporate behavior, so I count myself lucky and look at the good in this PC gaming platform.

Linux gamers

[Ender Ryan]

For all you Linux gamers, I know you're out there, hopefully in a couple days or weeks or so a Linux binary will be released. When it's released, Tux Games will sell the game with an extra CD with the Linux binaries on it.

If you care about the future of Linux gaming, please, please wait and buy it from Tux Games. If you buy it from your local Best Buy or whatever, if just looks like another Windows sale, but if you buy from Tux Games they will see that it was sold from a Linux games retailer.

My comments

[Sludge]

Well, I got the game yesterday, and played it until 5 am. I then woke up and played it until around now. I'm on mission five, the snowy terrain map. (Note: I go through games very slowly and never miss a nook or cranny. I annoy myself, but I cannot help it.)

Things that are good:

• Anywhere where there is fire, the game is damned beautiful.
• The ghouls and ghosts part of the game is tastefully done, and well integrated so far. I was disappointed when I read that they were going to put this in, but it's been the most intense part of the game yet.
• The stealth mission was a lot of fun. I enjoy killing things before they're aware of my existance. I am personally guessing that there is a routine in the player code that gives them more health when they spot you. The game seems to really encourage killing things while they're still unaware of your existance.
• It uses the Quake 3 engine which means it's familiar, works well and is portable.
• Lots of good textures. A lot of games ship with only decent textures. This game comes close to the texture art in Q3 at points, which is the best out there, in my opinion.
• I think those are authentic Nazi propaganda posters on the walls, that have been scanned and put into the game. Right on!
• The artificial intelligence is really quite good. You can still break it down into different methods in your head, and learn how to react to each mode of attack/defense the AI takes on, but it still manages to deservingly sap your health.

Bad Stuff:

• The developers seem indifferent to putting corridors with lots of doors and gray walls in their game. This makes the first couple of missions VERY stock FPS. In fact, I was downright bored playing at first. It picked up later, but has started to waver again.
• The Nazis speak english, and only english. I want German with subtitles. Talk about an atmosphere reduction.
• You can't kill civilians. To me, this is annoying because of the principal at play here: The game has probably been toned down in an attempt to obtain a softer rating.
• Same principal as above, I have yet to encounter any dogs!
• Enemies don't twitch when they're shot with a machine gun. You'd be surprised at how much satisfaction this takes away when blowing up round after round of bad guys.

Now, for the comparison: Halflife versus Return To Castle Wolfenstein. What if RTCW came out the same day as Half-Life? I would be VERY impressed with the image quality in RTCW over Half Life and the high res textures would be amazing. However, I would still choose Half Life as a better single player game, because the variety of monsters is what made that game so amazing. RTCW seems to have some surprises in store for me, but nothing too exciting yet.

As of the first four missions (each containing four levels) of the game, I would rate this game 7/10. It's a good FPS, but it borrows more ideas from the genre than it gives back to it.

ATI driver support?

[statusbar]

Remember to rename the exe file to 'quake.exe' to squeeze out a better frame rate!

--jeff

Graeme saves us from evil pirates

[Seemlar]

From Graemes plan:

Many so-called cdkey generators are in fact virus attacks that steal your own good cdkey, or worse, corrupt your files

Obviously, Graeme thinks the people who read his .plan are idiots.

Picture me sitting here with my brand spanking new downloaded copy of RTCW. I run a keygen.

Oh no! That evil virus attack just sent my valid Wolf key to some insideous pirate! Except it didn't.

PIRATES USING KEYGENS DON'T HAVE VALID KEYS.

He used this same stupid assed scare tactic when Q3A came out. It was stupid then, and stupid now. But at least he added the evil terrifying file corrupting ability bit.

I'm tempted to just download the game and play through the singleplayer game for the heck of it.