When Doom was being created, unfortunately, it spelled the end of their peak team dynamic. While John Romero and Carmack were coming up with brand new ideas and killing demons in new and exciting ways, Tom Hall was picking up some pieces of what he wanted to be the next Commander Keen game. The problem was that the rest of the team were a little burnt out on Keen, wanting to move on and explore new depths with the engine they perfected since Wolfenstein 3D's launch. Tom Hall was demanded to resign and he did so with a heavy heart, but he found work at Apogee.
With a new team and a new goal, they made a game that... defies many counts of gaming logic. They went full force into weird mode with it and somehow Rise of the Triad became a bit of an oddity in the gaming space of the 90's. Believe it or not, I played the shareware version. My brother found the disk at a local software store and the clerk looked the other way because he would get in trouble for giving it to a minor. We were serious gamers and they knew our dad.
To say we were perplexed is putting it mildly. This game had so many mechanics you would never think would be in a game in the first place. As a child, obviously I had no idea one of the creators of Doom made this. Nor did I have any idea that this was supposed to be Wolfenstein's official sequel. Why they didn't have the rights to do so is confusing, seems how they published the first game.
The layout was completely different in so many ways. All of the enemies were just guys wearing hats shooting guns, for the most part. You actually platform in this game with trampolines. The weapons range from dual pistols that don't run out of ammo, to a missile launcher that makes fire tunnel through the air in multiple directions. Apparently, this was made due to a mistake that was made in the coding, and they decided to keep it as its own weapon. God bless them for it.
There's food called priest's porridge and you can shoot a missile near it, heating it up to give you more health. God mode gives you the power to just fire energy from your hand while making weird slow motion deep voice sounds like you're otherworldly. It's just a strange little game with mechanics that you would never think would be in a game. When you shoot enemies, they can hold up their hands and beg for their lives. If you don't kill them, they will go for their gun and try to kill you. There's even men who are lying on the ground, acting dead like you've been through there before. They will wait until you get close and pop up to shoot you.
This game is challenging for a number of reasons. One of the main ones is the idea of complicated platforming in an early FPS shooter. Using the trampolines to go across moving platforms and robot drones flying around your head shooting you, it gets rather stressful. This is abundantly used in ROTT Extreme and is one of the reasons it's so infamous. The levels in either versions of the game are already vast and hard to navigate.
Okay, so when I say the game isn't like Doom, that's not entirely true. On the surface, it looks like a very different game, but looking close at the wall and floor textures, you'll see some of Doom's influence. Yes, the fact that it's an FPS is inherently Wolfenstein and Doom, but then there are the blood puddles and the red skies in levels. The more you get into it, the more it has a Doom aura while being its own very unique game. The human and robot enemies have more of a realistic quality, but the science fiction theme keeps it grounded in a more fantastic universe. This is especially true when you start in on the magic.
Yes, magic is in the game. You get a magic wand which you'll need to fight the mages. Yes, there are mages and even a magic user boss battle at the end. This is clearly Tom Hall's influence, among other things. It really just goes to show that Doom could have been plenty entertaining if they followed Hall's design. While his themes didn't click with Doom, they certainly brought about something that still lives to this day. This game gained a cult following, and even spawned some sequels and a remake. This game can get very unforgiving, but it's nothing compared to the Extreme Version. Will I review ROTT Extreme? No, honestly, I think I can beat maybe 5 levels and that's from using level cheats to get through a few very infuriating obstacles. It's a fun experiment but only to dabble with. If you consider yourself hard enough, go forth and get Extreme. Virtua Extreme!
