Top 5: Reaons the creators of Wolfenstein 3D were strange

As a statistics-obsessed teenager from the Australian middle class masses of the 1990s, I spent a considerable amount of time in front of screens. Some of this was watching State-based One Day cricket, some of it was spent watching NBA basketball, but a lot of it was spent playing PC-based computer games & then compiling numbers on my results afterwards.

It may sound a little sad, but it was better than listening to Snow.

Some of my preferred early games were flight simulators, which was actually quite sad, as I (generally) was only allowed to 'play' for 1 hour per day & the majority of this hour was spent checking altitude.

All this changed when I discovered Wolfenstein 3D, one of the first, first-person shooter games that I came across and one that would change my world.

A one-handed life in a 2-dimensional world.  What's not to love?

For those who never moved past flight simulators, Wolfenstein 3D is a game in which your character is imprisoned by the Nazis in World War 2, but manages to overpower his guard & take his gun.  You then run around the prison (a castle), killing lots of Nazis and making your way to freedom.

It was great. It made me feel more like this:

Recently, I discovered that there was a Wolfenstein 3D application that I could download on my phone and I revisited the distraction of my youth with glee.  What I found, though, was that there were some quirks in the game that I hadn't really thought of before, being:

5. The healing power of chicken and dog food
During the game, your character can (and almost certainly will) get shot by the Nazi soldiers / guards, as well as bitten by their dogs. This causes your character to lose health points (you start with 100% health, because that's how all prisoners are OK!) which can lead to your character dying once 0 health points are reached.

To ensure you can keep going through the game, plates of roast chicken and dog food are left lying around the prison, which your character can eat to replenish their health points. 

Now, I've never been shot (except through the heart when I gave love a bad name) and I really do love a bit of roast chicken, but I very much doubt that it carries healing power to overcome bullet wounds.  And while I've never really been into dog food in any measurable way, I also doubt that its any substitute for a kevlar vest.

Above, the Nazi equivalent of morphine.  May explain the result of the war.

4. The German approach to chicken and weaponry
While on the chicken theme, it is worth noting that the aforementioned miracle-healing chicken are literally strewn throughout the castle.  They must have had some crazy rotary service going overtime just to ensure that (seemingly) every room had that lovely smell of roast chicken and rosemary.

Similar to the approach to presenting roast chickens seems to be the approach to weaponry and ammunition.  Various weapons and spare 'clips' of ammo are placed all over the castle, and not in hard to reach spots, they are often in the middle of the floor; right next to the chickens. 

Did none of these guards think to stock up on ammo, or at least clean up a bit?

The option of a delicious and readily available Holy Grail being readily available brings me to my next point...

3. The emphasis of discipline in the Nazi party
As your character moves through the castle / prison, you come across a large number of Nazis who are standing around, seemingly to shoot at escaping prisoners and take care of other standing around duties. The latter being almost entirely what these guys do until you are right up in their face.

That's right, these prison guards don't run to the next room where they can hear unexplainable gun fire, they just stand around next to their plates of chicken and clips of spare ammo.

I also love how surprised they look when you start shooting at them.

Even when you enter the room, they run in your characters general direction (often in a 'strafe' pattern, making them harder to shoot & showing they aren't just vegetarian loafs who refuse to clean up), occasionally stopping to shoot at you.

These soldiers are so disciplined, they never go for extra ammo or run for a chicken when you shoot back at them.

2. The Nazi approach to strong and weak soldiers
The castle is 'guarded' by several different types of soldiers, or more accurately, has several different types of soldiers standing around in it.

The main difference of these soldiers are their uniforms (brown vs blue vs 'special character' uniform), their weapons (hand guns vs machine guns) and their response to bullets being shot into them (die quickly vs die not-so quickly).

Now, I'm no expert on standing around in castles, or how it should be best done, but I would hazhard a guess that your soldiers that are more susceptible to death from being shot should be better armed, while those who seem to be as bothered by being shot as they do about magical roast chickens probably only need handguns (or maybe just knives and forks - they could also help with the chickens).
 
1. That idle hands brought down the Nazis
World War 2 is one of the most documented War in history, with hundreds of books and films on the conflict, including specific battles, published.  The most commonly accepted reason given for the downfall of the Nazis was their incursion into Russia & inability to be stretched across great distances and fronts.

Seen here, a Nazi killin' mofo

The creators of Wolfenstein 3D seemingly would have you think otherwise. 

After all, who would house only 1 prisoner in an entire castle that is full of ammunition, healing chickens, spare arms, and disinterested and slovenly guards? A country at war that has too much time on its hands, that's who.