Catacomb 3D

[Pix]

#8353

I thought I’d have a look where it started and play Catacomb 3D before we get into Wolfenstein. It’s surprisingly close to Wolfenstein in a lot of ways but a little more bare bones. Only one weapon, no doors to open except those with keys, one ludicrously short looping bit of music for the whole game. There are some things we don’t see in Wolfenstein though with an inventory for health potions and 2 weapon powerups. I have to say that the game isn’t especially fun from a modern perspective. The combat is mainly stunlocking enemies while spamming the fire key – it gets very old before the end. Particularly with the later enemies who must take 20-30 shots to take down. Some of the level design is obnoxious also – e.g. teleporters that throw you back 5 levels if you walk into them! Even turning is really slow, not a great feature in an FPS. Turning around to take down an attacking enemy takes a crazy amount of time. It was a bit slow on a 286 in general – I should have picked something faster. The EGA graphics looked perfectly OK at least, the step up to VGA for Wolfenstein didn’t improve things all that much, although I do gather that VGA ran faster.

All in all, I wouldn’t particularly recommend playing this. It’s relatively short at least so can be finished in a couple of hours by anyone curious. I remember Wolfenstein being a lot more fun although the only major difference between them is the level of polish to the gameplay itself.

[TigerQuoll]

#8357

Catacomb 3D is a sequel to a an earlier top-down game by Id called simply “catacomb”, which is actually a pretty fun little ditty.
Problem was they kind of just translated everything directly from this to the 3D game, including level design. The maze-like levels and backtracking worked well enough in 2D, because you have a broad overview, but I agree it’s absolutely maddening in Catacomb 3D.

I much prefer the Catacomb Abyss. When Id parted ways with Softdisk, they left the Catacomb IP behind, and Softdisk made, in my opinion, a quite fun sequel with the same engine. (The other two in the series by Softdisk, Armageddon and Apocalypse went off the rails a bit I think)
The levels are more detailed and easier to navigate, the gameplay overall feels much less barebones, and I’ve always felt it has a pretty good atmosphere.
The turning is still a bit slow though…

[Mike]

#8358

Yeah, I remember enjoying Catacomb Abyss too. There’s also CatacombGL if you want a source port to make the game feel a tiny bit more modern
https://github.com/ArnoAnsems/CatacombGL

[fastwinstondoom]

#8370

I doubt Catacomb 3D will ever get its own episode so it would maybe be a good idea to talk abit about it on the Wolf3D episode. It is basically were ID tested out how to make their first person shooter games, right?

[Mike]

#8378

I think Hovertank is part of that too.

They have to get to Catacomb 3D someday! There’s only so many FPS for DOS, even if it takes them another 10-15 years lol