You're practically a secret weapon since you escaped torture in Castle Wolfenstein. Nobody gets post Nazi guards better than you. That's why your commanders have a favor to ask: deliver apackageto the Fuehrer. The Underground has smuggled a bomb into a closet inside the Fuehrer's Berlin Bunker. Now it's up to you to move it to a secret conference room, set the timer… and escape. And that won't be easy. The bunker is crawling with elite stormtroopers. Any one of them will trip the alarm at the least suspicion of trouble. But you're not worried—You're ready for what ever it takes to win this war. You're ready to go Beyond Castle Wolfenstein. — Package Blurb
This game was written by Silas S. Marner as a sequel to
Castle Wolfenstein and released in 1984
by Muse for Apple ][,
Commodore 64 and Atari 800. A PC version followed
the year after. Interesting enough, the Apple ][ and DOS versions
got new, slightly more realistic, graphics, while Commodore 64
and Atari were still a stick figure theatre. The title screen was
different too: though it always featured an open suitcase with
explosives (the package
),
this suitcase was drawn very primitive on the Atari
and Commodore, but rather slick and 3D on Apple and IBM.
Gameplay was less action-oriented and more advanced than in the original Castle Wolfenstein. Read the following excerpt from the manual—some of it reminds me of games like Wasteland:
As you roam from room to room, trying to find the closet that contains the briefcase with the bomb and then the Fuehrer's conference room, you will have to show the proper pass to the guard when he demands to see it. If you show the wrong pass he will continue to demand that you show your pass. At this time you can either try again to guess which one he wants or you can bribe him with money. The guards seated at desks can be bribed also,—for information, which they'll give in cryptic phrases whose meaning you must decipher.
You can shoot the guards, but if any other guards see or hear you shooting your gun, they will trip the alarm to alert the whole bunker. If you kill a guard, you can drag the body away, out of the main thoroughfare, to conceal it from the other guards. If you have a dagger you can kill them silently. The guards will set off the alarms if they see a body, or if they are at all suspicious, and unless you can find a way to disable the alarm system, they will all come after you.
Many of these features—the Wolfenstein 3D archive explicitly mentions silent attacks, dragging dead bodies, and changing uniforms—was originally coded into Wolfenstein 3D but later removed because they were too complicated in a 3D game. Maybe it's a pity that the Wolfenstein series lived on as an FPS and not as an RPG.
With many more gameplay features, the same adrenaline rush, and more innovative ideas, BCW improves upon Castle Wolfenstein in every respect. With the addition of alarms and dagger, you can no longer afford theshoot everything in sighttactic of the original. This makes BCW probably the world's firstthinking man's action game.Oh, and in case you are wondering, id Software licensed the name for their mega-hit Wolfenstein 3D from this venerable series. Truly a game that stands the test of time—two thumbs up, way up!
I tried to play the PC version of this game, but it seemed to run way too fast even on my IBM PS/2 50. Maybe it's a better idea to play one of the other versions with an emulator. The Beyond Castle Wolfenstein Project addresses this problem: its aim is to make the game playable on computers of any speed. Be sure to explore the site thoroughly while you are there, it has heaps of interesting info.
