The Original Wolfenstein Is Way Funnier With Real Physics

Back when id Software first released Wolfenstein 3D, widely regarded as the Nazi-blasting grandpappy of the first-person shooter genre, I doubt they imagined it’d one day be turned into… this.

Super Wolfenstein HD is a modern reimagining of id’s classic, but instead of taking after the best cinematic shooters of our time, HD cribs notes from Minecraft and its lo-fi indie ilk. This means you can now bust down Wolfenstein‘s iconic blue corridors with a shovel, because fuck walls.

The blocky, now polygon-rendered (instead of artificially 3D) enemies are fully physics-enabled, and they’re prone to toppling over like jello-legged toddlers if a knife or bullet so much as grazes them. You can also run into them and just push them down. You’re not in too much danger. They have horrible aim. Actually they don’t really aim so much as they run at you flailing madly and just so happen to have guns in their hands.

If you’re really worried, though, you can just shoot/knife the guns out of their hands. Then they just kinda do this for a while:

It is, as you’d expect, hilarious. After falling down, enemies writhe around on the ground for a few seconds, but not in, like, a disturbing way. Rather it’s like they’re turtles trying to breakdance. They’re almost adorable, honestly.

That is when you knife them a second time.

Super Wolfenstein HD is short and simple, but extremely amusing throughout. It also feels surprisingly good, especially when it comes to knife throws. Knives arc just right, and when they land in baddies’ boxy bodies they go tumbling end-over-end. It was a very gratifying response to my attacks, so much so that I rarely used any other weapon.

Except the shovel.

The shovel doesn’t do much damage, but if you clobber dead enemies with it they will either a) drop all the knives you put in them, b) suffer a horrific physics glitch that causes them to explode like the heart of a dying black hole, or c) both. Observe:

Protip: DO IT ALL THE TIME.

Super Wolfenstein HD really is worth a few of your minutes, though. Fortunately, it’s also worth zero of your dollars, by which I mean it’s free. Give it a go here.