Return to Castle Wolfenstein

This remains one of my all time favourite games. The Single player campaign was brilliant, and the multiplayer just as much so. So many memories of playing through the Single Player campaign. Definitely still one of the greatest FPS created to date.

I still own my original retail copy, but got a second copy last weekend as part of the Steam bundle QuakeCon, so thought I would let it download and give it a quick play.

However I hit a problem on first loading the game... it crashed! It loaded to the menu screen, I setup the graphics to everything full, clicked save and crash! Seems the game doesn't like Windows 7 or modern graphics cards, plus it has no idea about widescreen resolutions. Quick Google and discovered a Steam forum thread discussing this very issue, along with a download to fix it. Nice. The fix was developed by those using the now freely available source code for the game engine. They have fixed the issues causing it to crash, but also added support for widescreen modes and a few other things.

Updated with the patch and the game was up and running. Everything set to full, and now able to set my monitors native 2560x1440 as the resolution. Nice.

Now the game was released originally in 2001, so you might expect it to look fairly dated. Many games of that era do. But it instead stands a great test of time. Obviously it doesn't have the poly-count or the increasing realism of current releases, but it still looks good, the graphics are smooth and the textures still look nice. And the atmosphere remains.

And most importantly the gameplay is still there, just as I remember. very unusual because normally we all remember games we enjoyed in the past, but then decide to go back to them and end up ruining our memories because they never live up to them. Not so here. It was just as I remembered and just as much fun.

So if you have never played Return to Castle Wolfenstein then why not grab a copy from Steam and give it a play. It's about £5 i think on there at the moment. Great fun and well worth it.

Update pack download attached

I've attached the RTCW update pack. This is required to make the game stable under Windows 7, and also to add support for widescreen displays. This patch works with both the retail install and steam versions. You just navigate to your RTCW installed files and copy the patch files over the top of the existing ones, then launch the game.

Note: I recommend deleting your config file for the game when adding this patch, then the game won't have any old settings stored and will create a new config file and run the game correctly with the better resolution support.

I remember playing something "wolfenstein", i do thing it was "return to ..."
i did play a bit, and enjoy it a lot, till a part that inside some house it apear some type of spider monsters....
i didn't play more then that. I love WWII and war FPS, but remember i didn't like those "monsters".
But till i found them i did like a lot the game. Maybe i try it again.

There was a newer sequel called just "Wolfenstein", released in 2009, but it wasn't so good. Still an OK WWII FPS, but nowhere near as good as Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

RTCW was also a sequel itself to the original Wolfenstein 3D, which was the game responsible for starting the whole FPS gaming genre and Doom is really an indirect sequel. Graphically the original is very blocky (more so than Doom) but still a fun little game. You can buy a bundle containing the orginal and RTCW on Steam if you fancy playing both.

Oh yes, the original was a very special game, i remember well, what a big jump it was.

I remember all of us with Amiga's just having to sit there a little envious of what the PC could suddenly do. I think the first time I saw Wolfenstein 3D and Doom running I knew the Amiga had lost the fight and top end gaming had moved on.

Yes i had that feeling.
Other game where i saw that PC was getting better was in the first Formula 1 Grand Prix from Microprose.
After playing for hours, days, months in Amiga, then i saw it in Pee Cee, and i was devastated by it's loading speed and frame rate.

Yes, we all thought Microprose F1GP was great on the Amiga, but the PC version really did show it up. And the PC version utilised texture mapping, but only in scenery and not the cars.

Although whichever version you play the game contains a unique coding issue. Geoff Crammond coded the game before DirectX, OpenGL and other hardware acceperated graphics existed, so the 3D was purely software based. He made the choice to lock the framerate to a set speed, with the PC version being the fastest at something like 25fps. I think the Amiga's was 12fps or something. Anyway, the game was coded to always run at the fixed framerate regardless of CPU load. This meant that when the CPU hit 100% load the game would not miss frames to keep the time running correctly, so instead the game slowed down time. This happened on all versions. I remember very well on the Amiga version at the start of races when all the cars were on screen it could slow right down to single frame and the movement would slow to match.

And I read that Geoff Crammond still coded the 3 sequels in a similar way, with fixed framerates.

It is a real shame that F1GP 4 looks like it will remain the last game in the series. Microprose was disolved by its parent company shortly after the game was released. However, F1GP4 is still just as playable today, and I still have it installed and play it sometimes. The modding community really support the 4th game well and over the 10 years since its release they have developed more detailed car models, new circuits added to the F1 calender since the game was released, and much higher quality texture maps that make the game look good even today. And best of all they have been releasing year updates that include all the cars (model designs and texture colour schemes) plus circuits for each year. So even though the game was released back in 2002, you can get mod packs to race newer years in F1. I think 2006 is the newest... however even cooler is the ability to mod it for older years, including a really nice 1982 mod, with all the cars and tracks from that era. And a 1979 mod is in development.

Anyway, another game that also showed up the Amiga on release was Wing Commander, although the later port to AGA and CD32 did a really good job, but still not as good as the PC version.

I didn't know there is new circuits for GP4. The cars yes, i saw some updates, but not circuits. Cool.
GP series, specialy from GP2 to GP4 was a very good game, i don't remember to see telemetry in other game. and it realy worked,
i have good memories of loking at the movement of suspension to see if i could put it harder or not. To see the distance the car was to the ground.
It was very good.

The physics engine is still considered better than many even today. It was definitely a close simulation.