Wolfenstein 3D

You open a door, somewhere a guttural "Achtung!" rings out, and a German shepherd hurls itself at you. Welcome to Castle Wolfenstein, which B. J. Blazkowicz has to shoot his way out of — grabbing as many golden goblets, crowns and chests as he can carry along the way.

This was the game that showed the world you could run down corridors in first person and shoot at anything that moves. It comes from id Software, on an engine that was a small miracle of speed for its day. You play an American soldier locked in a Nazi castle, and your job is to get out through floors full of guards, dogs and SS officers.

The principle is simple and addictive. You run through a maze of corridors, hunt for coloured keys to locked doors, and shoot enemies that differ by how badly they want you dead. Secret walls are everywhere: push on a wall and a little room with treasure or a shortcut opens up. Finding those stashes is half the fun.

At the end of each episode waits a boss that makes it clear the makers weren't taking realism remotely seriously — over-the-top, loud opponents with several lifebars that you empty everything you've got into. It's a parody, and it fits a game that never pretended to be more than fast fun.

Wolfenstein also kicked off a model that worked brilliantly back then — the first episode free as shareware, the rest for money. That's how the game spread across hundreds of computers and paved the way for what came a year later. Without Wolfenstein, Doom probably wouldn't have looked the way it did.

From today's vantage it's mostly a museum piece. The maps are flat, with no height differences, the textures repeat and finding your way through the corridors can twist your head. But that feeling when you first round a corner and stand against five soldiers still works. It's the direct ancestor of the whole genre — and as such it's allowed to be a little stiff. You can play it right in your browser, no install needed.