Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Wolfenstein 3D,
Happy Birthday to you.

I have nothing but fond memories of this game

*wipes solitary tear away from eye*

Just two more years and we can have sex with it!

@The_nub_next_door:
You almost made coffee come out of my nose XD

awesome comment!

its about time they made another sequal

@The_nub_next_door:

....you mean you havent had sex with your wolfenstien yet?

I feel old. I'm going to go unpack my Atari 2600 and fall asleep cradling it in my arms.

Well. That makes me feel old.

Happy B-day Wolfenstein 3D and thanks for making me feel old.

It's 1am here, I was just shutting down my dev machine and heading off to bed when I decided to take my mind off my debugging by a quick hit of Kotaku and suddenly I was sent back in time! Back to a simpler world when I had my first programming job and spent the first couple of months happily mowing down simple minded Nazis in an oddly colorful castle (if only I had known the parade of continuously more detailed but monotonously drab color palettes to follow I would have appreciated the colors more).

I can still hear the opening MIDI music in my head.

I was one of few PC programmers in a company full of Mac gurus back then and I distinctly remember them gathering around quietly to watch me play.

"How do you think they're doing it?" I asked one of the bearded, faded tie-dye wearing fellows.

He chuckled somewhat morosely and answered, "They sold their souls to the devil."

I loved me some Duke Nukem, but B.J. Blazkowicz could wipe him out (not to mention ship a game eventually).

@Zazu_Yen: "B.J. Blazkowicz could wipe him out"

Definitely. And his descendant is none other than Commander Keen, so they could tag team his ass and feed him to the Dopefish. :D

I think the beauty of this (and other) games is simply the fact that they were.. games.

Real games.

As much as I still love gaming, everything's so complicated now (and I guess that whenever something simple comes around I just complain about how too easy it is).

16 years? Jesus shit, I feel old.

@The_nub_next_door: In Japan, it was legal two years ago.

God damn it, Japan.

Ah 16 years of murder simulators...feels like only yesterday these life like graphics let people magicly aquire the skills needed to use guns in realife...end sarcasm...

seriuously though wierd to see how far games have come =]

yay

This means my parents split up 16 years ago. I was actually playing the game when I found out. Thank you Wolfenstein, for getting me through the hardship!

That pic brought back memories. Motion sickness memories, that is. Never has the fight against the nazis been such a hard task...

I can't believe I was really 5 years old when I was playing this on my first pc, running on 8mb of ram or some hilariously low number compared to today's standards. Thanks for being the dope pusher of the video game world and getting me hooked for life, Wolfenstein. I can't thank you and Doom enough.

@The_nub_next_door:
You could've legally had sex with it 2 years ago in Alabama (and a few other states..)!

My fondest memories were playing Wolfenstein and Doom on my parent's PC with no sound (no soundcard). Which had me in constant paranoia that enemies were creeping up behind me. But really awesome games, even today. For the reasons... er, someone who's comment is now longer showing, said. Simple and all about the gameplay.

Wow. I used to get nausea while playing this when I was a kid. (Literally. I don't dislike the game.) The second I saw the screenshot it all came back to me. The fond memories and the nausea. Funny.

SPION

16 years on, and we've still only had one true successor to the game: the first Soldier of Fortune. Other than that, the sheer scum-killing carnage has remained completely unequaled. A shame.

@Dannon: I would sing that song too but I would then have to pay a royalty to Warner Chappell (the current copyright holder). Expect a letter from him pretty soon demanding for payment. Anyway, I never played Wolfenstein but I did play Doom. Congrats on practicality creating a genre.

I'm gonna have to say that the latter half of that reason wins out, Luke. BBQ chicken and Hitler killing are always a potent combination.

@deathsyth8888: How much is he charging for the use of it now? I'd rather just get a C&D letter than a 'Pay me now!' letter. Damned people and their flinging flanging copyrights

@Dannon: Im not sure but if major corporations and companies are not willing to use it in favor of its "own" variation of the song , Im willing to bet its a considerable number. Although, I guess you can use the "fair use" act to justify your use of it. But from what I have read sometime ago, he wants everyone who sings it to pay him. Good luck monertering the whole world Mr. Chappell. Now it seems Im just ranting now. lol

Can't believe I was barely 11 and already taking down nazi scum *snif*

Wolfenstein caused the first video game related headache I've ever had, mmm good times. I got used to it, my other two siblings were not so fortunate. Our young, impressionable minds seem to not have been affected (besides we only had the shareware version at the time).

Also the computer I played it on had porn and was my first time seeing that! Now I realize that man was not oddly urinating on that.. nevermind but it was weird cause it was like an animated gif where you clicked to "shoot" or speed up. Anyway, TMI.

I remember playing it on my brother-in-law's 486 and thinking, "Man, this is so much better than on the 286."

16? Is that it??

My own Wolf3D anecdotes:

1. When it first came out, I was nine years old, and was so grossed out by Hitler's death sequence that I had the entirety of Episode 3 made off-limits. I think I was thirteen or fourteen before that embargo was lifted.

2. Again when it first came out, I was a real little shit in school. When my parents sent me to see a psychologist, I lied that the game had caused me to start hallucinating Brownshirts and to be terrified of German Shepherds. This is odd, because it resulted in the (short-lived) household banning of a game that I loved, and was a claim with absolutely no basis in any kind of reality.

I'd actually forgotten about that second one until my Mum reminded me of it a few months ago. She was rather shocked when I told her it was completely made up.

@frostcircus: ...thanks, your mum probably told Jack Thompson.

The first and last game about killin' Hitler...

@The_nub_next_door:

Two more years? What kind of repressed country do you live in where the legal age of sex is 18??? Talk about human rights abuses.

Astos Green lasers rulz

One of the best games ever..

@Sabre_Justice: Okay, no more long name.: Since I had no memory of this, and since it went completely against my nature, I was wondering if perhaps it was an early attempt for Jack Thompson to obtain corporeal form. Thankfully, my love for games stopped him from successfully taking possession of my body. Take pity on the middle-aged Florida lawyer whose willpower was not strong enough.

8 MB? I think the system requirements were much less, more like 2 MB - and don´t forget enough RAM under the 640k barrier. ^^

I remember playing DOOM on my first Pentium with 8 Mbyte RAM - that was a lot of memory back then.

*checks task manager*
I could still run the task manager with 8 Mbyte RAM. XD

My first mature game on my first PC 486DX66hz.
Happy birhday Apogee&ID

Doom required 4MB RAM. I'd be surprised if Wolf3D required even half of that; in fact I don't think it even needed one meg.

@Sabre_Justice: Okay, no more long name.: You forget about Bionic Commando!

In fact, killing Hitler was IN back then.

This story, along with the X-Com story from yesterday are flooding my brain with pixelated nostalgia. I'm gonna have to go play both and maybe fire up The Dig while I'm at it.

@FlashIV: The Dig? Nice choice, but me, I'd suggest some good ol' fashion Commander Keen games myself. Nothing says pixelated old school like Commander Keen.

I remember leaning over a computer in High School during lunch playing Wolfenstein nervously looking over my shoulder to make sure no teachers would suddenly appear see the carnage I was releasing upon the evil nazi's. Good memories.

@Faradin: Rule #34 Of Internet: anything can be pornified. Rule #1 Of Internet: If you say Nazis in a thread, you lose!.

Official requirements from the 3DRealms site.
[www.3drealms.com]

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

* 286 Computer (386+ Strongly Recommended)
* 528k of conventional memory (2Mb total memory recommended)
* 3 meg of Hard Drive Space (for shareware)
* 8 meg of Hard Drive Space (for registered)

OPTIONALLY SUPPORTED

* Sound Blaster/Sound Blaster Pro or 100% compatible (with SB IRQ of 7 or less)
* Adlib
* Joystick
* Mouse
* Gravis Gamepad
* Disney Sound Source

---

...what is a Disney Sound Source?

@SenorKaffee: It was another sound card like SB and Adlib from back then.

Oh the memories! Almost as good as the one i remeber of the Wing Comander 1 entering title! With a Sound Blaster blasting away its music after the maestro tap his batuta! Omg so awsome!!

batuta = baton (maestro's stick)

happy birthday wolfy. I+L+M: my very first cheat code. good times.

I remember playing this on a friend's pc all the time. His version (he couldn't remember where he got it from) was wallpapered with topless female celebrities from the 60's and 70's instead of Hitler. I remember Cheryl Tiegs (sp?) was in there.

His must've been shareware too cos I never saw Hitler.

I remember playing this, first on some random PC, then when my parents bought me my first one a year or so later (A Pentium 75 with 16MB ram, which I still have in the closest, same with the Apple I had before that and every computer since, along with all TVs, monitors and game systems I have ever owned. God my closest is a mess) that was the first game I played on it as well.
Still have the disk for it somewhere I think, along with Jazz Jackrabbit. Who woulda seen that coming, one decade a little bunny, the next popping alien heads off with an explosive crossbow. Where did Epic go wrong?

you can download this now for free. its like abadonware or something.

i would play this and Battlechess like crazy

this was the first contreversial game i played that my parents gave scuff about.

what a treasure. i remember when we got our first set of speakers for the family computer and all of a sudden the germans talked!

enough to jump at return to castle wolfenstein.

related: the creepy scientist of the first level of RTCW saying, 'yees, yeeeees, yes, yeyeeees...' still a major part of my lexicon. yet to meet someone who has picked up on it.

A true classic. One of the first games to take full advantage of a Math Co-Processor (FPU).

I think "Links" was THE first.

I still remember the day I first laid eyes on Wolf3d. I was in 6th grade, and my science teacher (who was also totally hawt) let me and two other kids use the classroom pc during lunch. They other two kids had already installed Wolf sometime beforehand, so i was treated to 10 or 15 minutes of pure gaming bliss mowing down Nazis.

Happy Birthday, Herr Wolfenstien 3D!

my birthday is on the day before wolfensteins. what an honor

Yup, fond memories.

God bless this game!

The damned Nazi Chef lookin' dude that wielded a chain gun was one of the best mini-bosses of all time.