If you’re thinking that releasing Wolfenstein 3D on Xbox Live Arcade after both Doom and Duke Nuke’em 3D is a backwards way of doing things then you’d be right. Activision haven’t even bothered to tidy up the visuals, which is a bit of a cheek seeing that both the 3DO and Atari Jaguar versions had redrawn sprites. But this isn’t a complete waste of 400 Microsoft points, and for three good reasons.
1) Making progress through the castle unlocks new weapons and credits to use in the new Wolfenstein game that’s due out at the end of the year. Just keep hold of the save file until it’s released.
2) There’s a degree of nostalgia to be had. This is as primitive as first person shooters get – everything takes place on one level (so no stairs, basements, etc) but ID still managed some decent level design. The sound effects were advanced for their time too – the Nazi guards shout out in German and the weapons sound rather meaty.
3) The achievements are pretty easy to unlock. In fact, you can get a not-to-be-sniffed at 70G by finishing the first level. That’s providing you do it on the hardest difficulty, killing every enemy, finding a secret room and collecting all the treasure along the way.
Of course, there are much better ways of blowing 400 Microsoft Points. Worms and Zuma come to mind. I guess it depends if you have fond memories of playing this in way back in 1992 or not. I think I was probably too busy playing Sonic 2 on the Master System.