Was six episodes of killing the third reich just not enough for you? Would you like to fight some more zombies and increasingly powerful supernatural beings? Well, here you go, not only did ID Software make the first episode of Spear of Destiny, but they outsourced to Formgen Corporation for the sequels lumped in with it. While the game sold rather well and the sequels met with some fairly bad reviews for shoddy graphics, that is only the beginning of what is really wrong with the entire sequel itself.
The real problem was, as great as Wolfenstein 3D turned out to be for its time, it was also rather long and the quality dipped near the end. In fact, Episode 6 was rather exhausting, especially if you're having a full run of the game. This did not do the game any favors when Spear of Destiny came out. There were a number of players that were more than willing to return to the trenches and kill more of the Axis. The vast majority, though, had already had the full run and approached with a lot less enthusiasm.
It was more of a good thing, but it was also more twisting and turning halls with a lot more annoying closets full of SS, guards and officers. Then, there is the return of the mutants and there inlies one of the game's biggest flaws. The mutants were easily one of the worst things about the first Wolfenstein 3D release. Wolfenstein 3D's original Episode 2 was a lot easier when you just went to kill the doctor. His many range attacks are easily avoided and he has around the same amount of HP as the other bosses. The mutants, on the other hand, make no sound to alert you of their presence. They begin shooting almost immediately whether you see them or not and two shots up close is more than enough to take your health all the way down.
Including them in this sequel was an abysmal decision and the game suffers as a result. Once you get into the levels and the hallways, you get the good old Wolfenstein feel. If you haven't played in a long time, it's passable. You even get a good sense of nostalgia as you finally start finding the bosses within the levels. Their designs are rather different, but that's nothing compared to the next episodes. Formgen's designs were very, very strange all around and that only started the problems.
The new weapon designs, level designs and boss designs throughout Spear of Destiny's sequel episodes (sequels within sequels) were all just flat out off-putting. This was where the series took a dip for most everyone involved. Yes, it has a following and yes, there are fans who will live and die by the original Wolfenstein 3D games, but the guns look like cheap toys! They look like poorly made plastic renditions of the original guns. That may sound like a nitpick but it is so distracting. People compared this to a poorly made fan mod of the game, and there were already numerous fan made mods that were better than Spear of Destiny's sequel episodes.
The supernatural elements they added did bring an interesting flavor to the game, but it is just not worth the effort to reach the bosses. It is a slog to get through these maze levels of very similar tiling and even more similar array of guards, SS and officers that all of the games are riddled with. Needless to say, Wolfenstein 3D is good, but Spear of Destiny needs tiny doses. It's still your run and gun third reich killing fun and it's playable. That's right, one good thing you can say about Spear of Destiny is that it is Wolfenstein and it is playable. Try it for yourself and remember, if you need to, you can drink the floor blood. Virtua Grosse.
