Talk:Castle Wolfenstein

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 January 2021 and 15 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Elliott Thorne.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 16:55, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Initial Stab

This article is my initial stab at a description of the game. However, it may contain numerous errors: I mainly played Beyond Castle Wolfenstein and only played this game once or twice, so please be bold and make corrections were you see mistakes. Also, I don't speak German so correct those words if you know the correct spelling. :-) —Frecklefoot 16:38, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thanks to Wik for his edits and, especially, German translations in this article! —Frecklefoot 16:57, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

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Added Images

I added two image from screenshots of an emulated version of the game. They don't look so hot, but that is what they really looked like on the Apple II. They are allowed under "fair use," I beleive, or some such copyright term. —Frecklefoot 22:20, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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Beyond!

I just wrote the Beyond Castle Wolfenstein article. For those interested, please take a look and edit to your delight! — Frecklefoot | Talk 20:13, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

POV

There is a lot of point of view in this article; many opinions are expressed of the nature and playability of the game, of the Smurfenstein hack, and so on. In order to be encyclopedic, this needs to be removed --larsinio 21:25, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I looked it over and could find very little POV. Could you please point out some specific instances? — Frecklefoot | Talk 22:23, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. The only major error I found was saying Wolf3D ushered in the FPS age, whereas many consider Catacomb3D (or earlier) to be the "First FPS". Even then, you could make the argument that it was the first "major" FPS. (Certainly the first I played.) Anyway, if Larsinio is referring to some of the statements regarding the superior AI of certain types of troops, it seems to me that that is simply a more lively descriptor than one would be used to, not POV. Furthermore, I find it kind of silly (though proper!) that I found this article while wading through those cited as not being NPOV. Larsinio, can you make a good case for this being POV? JD79 03:32, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

POV Found

Analysis seciton:

Though the game's graphics are dated—and almost comical—by today's standards...With an emphasis on the player trying to avoid detection for as long as possible, this game (along with its sequel) is considered an ancestor of the first-person sneaker genre of games that would gain popularity in the 1990s.

• iS that second part cited anywwhere?

in the "Author" section:

He also wrote Robot Wars. He was a prototypical "geek" in the best sense of that word: smart, inventive, and totally uninterested in conforming. Legend has it that he would typically program while wearing only his underwear, even in the office.

Legacy section:

but, besides being an entertaining game in its own right, inspiring the seminal Wolfenstein 3D is probably Castle Wolfenstein's greatest gift to computer gaming.

--larsinio 13:16, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I cleaned up all the instances you cite. I made the wording clearer and less POV. Since Silas Warner has his own article, not as much needed to be said about him in the "Author" section. — Frecklefoot | Talk 14:23, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Hooray for fixing stuff! JD79 02:51, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

...

some technical idiosyncrasies (for example, bumping into a wall caused the screen to flash random characters and generated a screeching sound)

I would interpret this not as a glitch or bug but as a deliberate attempt to replicate the shock of mild concussion incurred when running into a wall head-first, a la a circle of stars or chirping birds orbiting the head of a Warner Bros. cartoon character. Pseudo Intellectual 07:32, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Cleanup.

I've cleaned it up as best I could for now.--Drat (Talk) 13:55, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Emulators

Hi. I've undone a revert[1] in a way that I hope reflects Wikipedia's spirit of collaboration as opposed to deletion. I tried to apply the guidelines contained in the reverting dos and don'ts, in a way that Nandesuka might have done. Also, Nandesuka's revert comment was not factually accurate (except in theory), so I worded my changes accordingly ("many" rather than "any"). Regards. --Segaba 18:48, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

How is Castle Wolfenstein different -- with respect to emulators -- than any other Apple II game ever made? Should every article on every Apple II game (and there are thousands) include this paragraph, or something like it? Nandesuka 00:51, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

The point here is that reverting is almost always the wrong choice. The guidelines make this very clear, yet revert continues to be misused all across Wikipedia. --Segaba 09:59, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Please answer my question. I've removed the material until you can explain why this tangent belongs in this article. Thanks. Nandesuka 11:37, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it doesn't belong in this article. — Frecklefoot | Talk 14:27, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Voices and sequels

I believe some of the voices mentioned in this article actually appeared in Beyond Castle Wolfenstein. I have never heard "Kommen Sie!" in the original game.

Furthermore, any sequels (outside of Beyond Castle Wolfenstein) are not true relatives to the game. I think it should be noted that the game has one proper sequel.

The other games are a huge departure from the first two titles. No Castle Wolfenstein sequel has featured the stealth elements of the first two games. In fact, all recent "Wolfenstein" games have been run and gun games--with plenty of ammo. 72.205.250.123 (talk) 21:38, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Be bold. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 06:11, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Here is a list of all the voices used in the Apple ][ version

  5E38:5E48 // ACHTUNG // "Alert" 
  6064:6074 // HALT 
  624D:625D // EEYAGH // Death Sound 
  661C:662C // YIEEE // Death Sound 
  6B7D:6B8D // CHWEINHUND // "Pig-Dog!" Mis-spelt: schweinhund 
  7029:7039 // SS 
  7570:7580 // PHOLGE // Result. Mis-spelt: Folge? 
  7806:7816 // KAMERAD // "Comrade" 
  7B79:7B89 // WASISTLOS // "What is happening?" German: Was Ist Los 
  819E:81AE // FEUER // "Fire!" 
  847C:848C // DAPUT // "(t)Here " 
  86F8:8708 // UFWIEDERSEN "Until we meet again." Mis-spelt: Auf Wiedersehen 

Michael.Pohoreski (talk) 06:48, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Borg did voice playback too

I'd like to point out that Borg from Sirius Software, written by Dan Thompson also published in 1981 used recorded voice played back on the Apple II. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.32.192.33 (talk) 20:18, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, okay. But it sounds like a pretty obscure game. I've never heard of it, and we don't even seem to have an article on it. Since they were both released in 1981, it'll be pretty hard to tell who hit the market first. But this game undoubtedly had a greater impact on the market. Be bold if you want to mention it in some fashion. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 20:22, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Medals

The text states that the medals found in the chests had no effect on gameplay. I seem to recall that they did have an effect, that reduced the chance that an SS guard would challenge the player. Can anyone confirm or deny this? Maury Markowitz (talk) 01:06, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Article sections

The section titled “Analysis” seems to contain no analysis. I’m removing the section break, since both this and the previous section focus on gameplay. —Frungi (talk) 01:37, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Is this not properly called "Escape"…?

Early reviews of this game were lab led "Escape from Castle Wolfenstein", as in the case of Creative Computing. I also recall this was the title on the Apple II. Is this not the case? Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:03, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Medals are worthless?

The game description claims that medals are worthless, but am I mistaken in believing that they made you "outrank" a SS guard in the same way that a uniform did to the normal guards? Maury Markowitz (talk) 19:36, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Castle Wolfenstein/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk · contribs) 12:52, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

i decided to review this article. I'll post soon on what i find.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 12:52, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Blue Pumpkin Pie, any update on this? --► Sincerely: Solavirum 19:31, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

@Solavirum: i apologize for the very late reply. i had a medical emergency that took some time away from Wikipedia. i will now focus on reviewing the GAs i set out to do.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 14:09, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Oh, sorry to hear that. Don't worry, it ain't a problem. Your well-being is more important. I hope you'll get better soon :) --► Sincerely: Solavirum 14:19, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Overall

I think one of my biggest issues is how wordy it when it can be more concise.

Lead

• "The protagonist is an Allied prisoner of war who is held captive in a Nazi fortress called Wolfenstein."

^I would word this instead to be "The player takes the role of an allied prisoner of war who is held captive in the fictional Castle Wolfenstein.

• "Sneaking, killing, and impersonation are used to deal with Nazi soldiers"

^ I would reword this to "Nazi soldier enemies can be dealt with by impersonating, sneaking, or killing them."

• "Castle Wolfenstein received high ratings from reviewers and became one of the best-selling games of the early 1980s."

^High ratings for what specifically? If you're trying to say that it had positive reviews, I would just go with "The game was received positively amongst critics".

• "The game was criticized for its long waiting times when opening chests but the reviewers found the graphics simple and effective and praised the gameplay."

^If the paragraph started positively, this sentence should as well since the negative response is the outlier

Gameplay and premise

• The premise of the game is too short to have its own section. It is common to merge it with gameplay.
• There is no need to mention what type of pistol the player starts off with. Any minute details like that don't add any context to the gameplay can be removed or simplified.
• A general rule to have the tone be as objective and less personal as possible is to avoid words like "it is impossible", "must", "should", and "need" as it is too subjective to say the player needs to do anything. I usually replace them with "is required", "In order to", or "can".
• Overall, the gameplay has too many sentences that can be simplified and merged.
• "To win the game, the player must escape from the castle. If the player finds the battle plans before escaping, he will be promoted and the complexity of the subsequent run will be increased. Following this, the castle's layout changes and the game starts again."

^This sentence can be merged, and instead of saying "To win the game", I would instead say "The objective is...". I also recommend mentioning the objective of the game near the beginning of the gameplay section in order to give context to the obstacles.

• "Bulletproof vests, uniforms and secret documents can be found in chests, which must be opened using keys the player finds. Chests may also contain sauerkraut, sausages or schnapps, which the player character can eat without affecting the gameplay. The uniform allows the player character to pass guards unnoticed but it is useless against SS Stormtroopers. Chests can be opened more quickly by shooting at them but this will attract the guards in the room. The player must also be careful when shooting at chests containing ammunition and grenades, which may explode. Locked doors in the castle can be opened with a key or by shooting at them.

^With the previous advice is given, this entire section can be reduced and made smaller.

• The player character can die from being shot by the enemy and from the explosion of their own grenades. If the player dies from enemy gunfire, the game restarts, the castle's state is preserved, and the chests and guards remain the same. If s/he is killed by his or her own grenade, the game restarts in a newly generated castle

^S/he looks unprofessional in the body of the text and I would recommend replacing it with "they" would probably be easier and simplifies the article.

More information coming soon, but please follow the same principle on the other sections if you see it.

Development, Reception, Sales, Legacy

@Solavirum:

• Overall all three sections suffer from over-quoting. A lot of the information can be summarized and get straight to the point. I'm going to recommend avoiding quotes as much as possible. Some of these quotes in legacy don't paint a good picture of what the person saying them means.
• Castle Wolfenstein became so popular that the publisher released an advertisement in 1984 containing bug fixes to speed up the opening of chests and the startup time of the game

^the source is the advertisement itself, nothing about this ad indicates the reason why is because it's so popular, and even so I wouldn't use a 1st party source like that to verify popularity. There's also not a lot of context here. Seems to be some external cheat device called "The Great Escape"? If it's necessary for the article, more information should be provided. Just not part of Sales or Reception.

• According to Harvey Bernstein of Antic, after its release, Castle Wolfenstein "quickly shot to the top of the charts" and became "one of the most popular games for any microcomputer".

^The source stops at page 80. Do additional pages exist and somehow missing from the archival? it's hard to believe this was verified unless it was an advertisement. If it was an ad, then I would recommend trying to verify that from other sources. if the majority of the sales section can't be verified, I recommend merging with Reception.

• There is no need to have a picture of the advertisement. There are already two Non-free images. The Cover and the gameplay. The ad image will fail NFCC guidelines for not being informative or vital to explain any issues.

Sequels/spin-off

Since this is the first entry of a series, I would recommend creating a section for sequels or some information indicating a series was created. Castle Wolfenstein having a 3D version isn't necessarily "Legacy" and recommend moving it to a Sequel/spin-off section. Examples are Kingdom Hearts (video game), Lumines: Puzzle Fusion, and Patapon (video game) to see a sequel/spin-off section. This also is necessary to reflect on the lead.

Comments by Solavirum

• Y Did the recommended changes to the text.
• Y Merged "Plot" with "Gameplay", moving it to the second paragraph in the section.
• Y Moved the "player objective" to the third paragraph in the section.
• Y Tried to merge some sentences in the "Gameplay" section.
• Moved the gameplay image to right in order to avoid the interruption in the text.
• Will look into more stuff here tomorrow per the advice Blue gave. It is bit late here :d --► Sincerely: Solavirum 20:37, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
• I will take a look at the new comments tomorrow, don't know why Wikipedia didn't notify me about the tag. But firstly, should I create a new Sequels section for the first and third paragraphs of the Legacy section, then keep the second paragraph as it is? --► Sincerely: Solavirum 18:12, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
  • @Solavirum: Since the first and third paragraph are more strictly related to just Sequels, yes.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 18:17, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
  • @Solavirum: are you still interested in the rest of this GA review? Ahoy's review takes an entire paragraph that should be summarized to a couple of sentences. I removed the image of the advertisement. But theres still false information that the ads for bug fixes was the result of its popularity of the game. I already removed the advertisement image as it added nothing to the article and didn't meet NFCC guidelines. Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 14:16, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Blue Pumpkin Pie, hi. Yes! I just have to give my university entrance exams on 15 July, so I would really appreciate just a little more patience on your part. Thank you for your review again. --► Sincerely: Solavirum 21:01, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

I understand, take your time.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 22:05, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Blue Pumpkin Pie, so, to touch upon the new comments,

Y that The Great Escape thing is apparently is a cheat mode (and per Retro Gamer, first one of its kind), so I expanded the topic a bit and merged it to the development section.

Y that Antic source is actually this. Don't know why it got messed up. --► Sincerely: Solavirum 09:11, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Blue Pumpkin Pie, tagging again as a reminder. Anything else I should do and touch upon? Should I tweak the text more? --► Sincerely: Solavirum 11:47, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

• The development section goes into too much detail of Warner's prior works. I dont know if that is to compensate for no actual article on Silas Warner but I think it is best to summarize it further.
• There's too many quotes in the second what can be reduced is the conception of Castle Wolfenstein.a lot of the information is too basic to quoting it.
• also no need to indicate what Warner told which outlet, if the outlet is the source itself.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 19:56, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

  • Blue Pumpkin Pie, summarized Warner's previous work. Yeah, I agree that detailing them in such a way is out of place. Also, moved that text to a different paragraph as it was weird to have a text that goes as "turned out to be" at the beginning of a section.
  • Removed the quote box and merged the required info to the main text.
  • Y --► Sincerely: Solavirum 12:51, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

@Solavirum: you use a lot of subjective words for the sake of quoting Warner. I made some adjustments but definitely try to avoid words like "very", "total", "obviously", and so on. The more I think about it, the less I find Silas previous works relevant and may need to be cut. But there are still more adjustments to do.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 08:45, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Blue Pumpkin Pie, if I recall correctly, the source itself had "obviously" in the quote. Yeah, I will remove that part completely as it is kinda out of place. I'll try to adjust stuff more. --► Sincerely: Solavirum 09:33, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Solavirum I reduced the redundancy, but at this point, I recommend reviewing the article one more time. specifically in the legacy and Sequels sections. Its missing refs and Legacy can reduce some of the quotes.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 20:54, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

I decided to give it a pass, the article is well written and some adjustments had to be done on my part but I still highly recommend cleaning up the quotes in the Legacy section.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 21:53, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Blue Pumpkin Pie, thank you for reviewing this. Yeah, I'll try to clean up some stuff here. Good luck! --► Sincerely: Solavirum 22:18, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Maze game or not

Dgpop, I had reverted your edits regarding the Routledge source. Can you explain why did you remove it, per WP:BURDEN? If there is an WP:RS describing this game as a "maze game", then we include it. And unless you have a problem with the source, you should head over to the WP:RSN. --► Sincerely: Solavirum 17:46, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

It seems like there is a dispute regarding this between you and Maestro2016, considering the history of the article. The "maze game" should be removed from infobox per IceWelder's words here, but I don't see a reason to remove the Routledge ref on the article's body about some referring to it as a "maze game". --► Sincerely: Solavirum 17:53, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

• From what I understand, "maze game" is an old-timey description for any game set in a maze, just like "Doom clone" was the description for most early first-person shooters. One (1) reliable source using this terminology does not force us into using it as well. I personally feel like saying "It is set in a maze ... it is a maze game" is somewhat redundant. IceWelder [✉] 18:02, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
• It's clearly not a maze game in the sense of what's on the List of maze video games. If Castle Wolfenstein is a maze game, then so are almost all flip-screen exploration games. Citing one person who called it a maze game is misleading to the reader. Dgpop (talk) 18:53, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Since I'm reviewing the article, I'm going to agree with Dgpop and IceWelder that only one source saying it's a maze game is not enough for classification. If another reliable source calls it a maze game, it can be added to the infobox instead of the gameplay section. For now, it's best for it to be removed until then.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 20:40, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Castle Smurfenstein?

This redirects here but it isn't mentioned anywhere in the article. What is it? Should be redlinked if there's nothing to put here. 2601:602:880:9A40:1878:948D:1FD9:CE6C (talk) 11:48, 23 September 2021 (UTC)