SNES Game of the Week 118 - Clock Tower

[excelsior]

• Publisher - Imagineer
• Developer - id Software
• Genre - FPS
• Initial Release - 10 February 1994

The fate of the free world hangs in the balance and the President of the Replublic knows that only you can save millions of lives from the evil of the Master State. Sent on a series of perilous missions, you must infiltrate this hideous nether world and terminate it's leader. Unfortunately the Statemeister commands a crack force of vicious and conniving soldiers, who'll hunt you down no matter who you are.

Will you live up to your reputation as an elite commando? Or will the Statemeister fulfill his diabolical plans to rule the Earth?

  

  

[excelsior]

This is one of those ports that nobody should have any reason to play in this day and age; at least beyond curiosity. As you could imagine, Wolfenstein 3D isn't a great fit for Nintendo's console from back in the day, in more ways than one. Visually, the resolution is lower and therefore everything has a pixelated look to it. It can be tough to make out enemies, as I find I confuse them with plant pots from time to time. The story is of course butchered. Any mention of Nazi's is removed, and Hitler's moustache is removed in imagery and he is now known as The Statemeister. There are many concessions here, but fortunately it still manages to play pretty well on the SNES and I find it pretty enjoyable. There's enough Wolfenstein here in gameplay even if it does miss much of its personality. So in short, don't play this but I kind of like it.

Ranking - C

[vnisanian2001]

C. Just stick with the original game and Nocturnal Missions for your Wolf 3D fix.

[spanky]

This is one of those games I have trouble judging because it's so subject to personal context. I about it differently whether I think about it today or whether I'm thinking about it as a 9 year old in 1994 who had never played the PC game or years later when I played the PC version. I know a lot of old games have this issue, but it's especially prevalent with this game. There's also the issue of DOOM blowing away this game in every facet.

So I'll say, as someone who did not have a PC capable of playing Wolf 3D back in the day, I loved this. Despite being choppy and pixelated, it was incredibly tense, and got your blood pumping. It even has an automap, which the original game and rereleases don't seem to have (this drove me nuts when I finally played it). The gore and offensive imagery have been scrapped but this is still quite a violent game. You are gunning down humans (and rats I guess) - not aliens or robots that look like humans with realistic looking guns. I think it's still pretty fun to play so I'll be a bit easier on it - B.

[🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀]

I have never really played any version of Wolf3D despite the fact that I'm a huge DOOM fan...I swear I'll rectify that one day. I'd imagine that the actual gameplay, resolution and censorship aside, would hold up well enough with an SNES controller compared to DOOM, which is more clearly made for mouse controls.

[dsparil]

Need to think about a rating, but arguably the controls in the SNES are a leg up over the original. You can actually circle strafe! I don't know if that was an engine limitation or a design oversight, but you just can't on DOS.

[Apollo Chungus]

Oh hey, another SNES game I played that I can actually discuss.

My argument for this port of Wolf 3D is that it requires little fuss to set up compared to the computer version. It has an automap, you can circle strafe, and you can immediately play it with a controller if that's how you prefer to play games (and I do). The only issue is that you can't save in the middle of stages, so you have to do the whole stage over if you die which is pretty lame especially when things get tough later on. Still, I enjoyed my time with the game in spite of that and its somewhat stodgy framerate, as it manages to get across a lot of what makes the original game a uniquely challenging experience.

Like I said in the Game FAIL thread for 2022, Wolf 3D is a game designed in such a way that I totally understand how it can become really annoying, with its flat maze-like stages, slow turning arcs, and enemies that can quickly kill you if they're within range, but it can also be really quite enthralling if you like those design choices. Even in this somewhat gimped version, that's still the case and I'd deffo recommend it if you wanna try Wolf 3D without finangling around in emulators and Joy2Key-type programs.

Rating: B-

[dr_st]

Heh. I wish the PC version had an automap. Those mazes really are annoying.

[ommadawnyawn2]

ECWolf version for PC is still a decent game, maybe a C. I like that you strafe on L/R here but it's still not that fun. I keep getting lost and turning feels either too slow or too fast.

D

[dsparil]

I'm going to go a D. It's so much worse than I remember! id dropped the ball so hard. They do not seem like they were ever a well run company on the business/management side e.g. Epic ended up eating their engine licensing lunch by treating the engine like a real product instead of a source code dump to be figured out. This really exemplifies that as it had to be churned out really fast as they apparently just forgot about it until the publisher started asking questions. 

[excelsior]

• Publisher - Playmates
• Developer - Shiny Entertainment
• Genre - Action
• Initial Release - October 1994

Jim wasn't always a studly super-worm. He was once just a spineless, dirt eater with no real mission in life... Then a cosmic twist of fate placed him in control of an ultra-high-tech-indestructible-super-space-cyber-suit. Now Jim must make it to Princess-What's-Her-Name by staying clear of Psy-Crow, the intergalactic bounty hunter, until the final battle with Queen Slug-for-a-Butt.

  

  

[vnisanian2001]

B is fine. Just don't eat something while playing, because you could lose your appetite.

I know the AVGN is not the final word on whether a game is good or bad, but he seemed to have quite a bit of issues with the other two games in the trilogy.

As for which version to own, I'd say the Sega CD for 1, and the SNES for 2.

[ommadawnyawn2]

It's a C-, being worse than the MD and MCD versions overall. The best one to me being the MCD version. 

Replaying the first level now I had kinda forgotten how good it is. Alternate paths, various gimmicks, hidden items and shortcuts, good use of your abilities (and showing off the loot magnet around the same time as Sonic 3), two decent bosses, no one hit deaths and even a little physics puzzle at one point. It's a shame we'll probably never see a proper EWJ3. 

[excelsior]

I'm going to give it a C also. It's creative and has really strong personality. The SNES version is weaker than the Sega versions, though. I also find the lack of decent feedback for enemy hits to be a significant weak point. I guess this is a result of favouring the cartoonish presentation.

Ranking - C

[retr0gamer]

Going to give it a D. It runs out of steam after the early levels and then it's the usual virgin/shiny airplane hangar level design. Also I'll never forgive this game for hiding one of the air supply points that is pretty much essential to beating that level behind a secret. It brought my weekend rental of the game to a total halt after the first evening. That's just utter bullshit. The megadrive version is also the better one.