Wolfenstein 3D Part II: Rise of the Triad

id Software has recently licensed GreyMatter to work on a sequel to the old 1992 game, Wolfenstein 3D. This new title, "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" uses current technology, and should be a fun new chapter in Wolfenstein lore. However, that wasn't the first attempt at a "Wolfenstein 3D II" game.

As some of you may or may not know, Rise of the Triad began it's life as nothing more than an expansion pack for Wolfenstein 3D. The original full title of the game was "Rise of the Triad: Wolfenstein 3D Part II". It was to use the same game engine code as Wolfenstein 3D, and have new levels, art, and characters. As time went on, the Wolfenstein 3D name was dropped, and the project became much much more than just an add-on for Wolf 3D.

Recently, in an old file here at 3D Realms, we found the original team design spec from Tom Hall in September of 1993, which contained episode descriptions, an outline of where the storyline was to go, and new features in the Wolfenstein game engine. We now bring you this document, along with some graphics from the game back then. You can see how Rise of the Triad's early design spec carried through in several areas to the final product.

The page has artwork, comments on the document, as well as some comparison graphics of a couple of game characters in their original incarnations, as well as what they looked like in the final game release. If you're into Rise of the Triad, you should check this out!

Posted by Joe Siegler at 3:15 PM

Apogee & 3D Realms Icons

In another item from the historical department, we have a new file available. It's a collection of Windows icons based on our games. This collection covers a wide range of our titles, from Balls of Steel, to Paganitzu, to Shadow Warrior, to Mystic Towers, & Arctic Adventure!

This is a pretty cool (and free) collection of Windows icons - so go ahead and download the package - you might find some cool ones in here you've never seen before.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:15 PM

Another Scott Miller Sighting

Monday morning, and with this new work week comes another new interview with Scott Miller. This time, it's with the site "Max Payne Zone". Their interview with Scott covers the usual topics, although as it's a Max Payne site, the questions are more geared towards Max Payne. Scott covers Duke Nukem Forever briefly, too - and touches on the reasons behind the media blackout. Here's a sample:

mpzone: First, the media blackout - Why won't you release any new screenshots or information on Max Payne and Duke Forever? Just look at games like Halo - by releasing weekly updates their fanbase gets bigger and bigger.
� scott miller: Two points:

o Duke Nukem is already known, so there�s no need to build up player anticipation and awareness for this brand. Halo doesn�t has a previous hit game in the series to rely on.
o We in fact will release a lot more info about the game before it�s released, but we want to wait until the a few months before the game is released, not six months or more.

There's plenty more to check out, so head over to MPZone's interview with Scott Miller now!

Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:00 AM

Duke Nukem Forever FAQ Updated!

Dukeworld has updated the official Duke Nukem Forever FAQ with some more tidbits that were posted on our forums recently by George Broussard. Check it out.

If you're interested in Duke Nukem Forever information, the Dukeworld Official DNF FAQ is the best place to learn about it. If your question isn't in there, then the information probably isn't known.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 6:30 AM

Duke & Dorks

No, this is not a story about some of the more zealous of our fans , it's a story about another appearance of Duke Nukem in an online cartoon.

This time out, it's a toon called "Dork Tower", and makes a reference to Duke Nukem's supposed "influence" in mass media. Check out the full cartoon by clicking on the thumbnail to your right.

Thanks to John Keefer of Gamespy for letting us know about this.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:40 AM

It's Miller Time Again!

Today, the site Eurogamer has posted Part II of their interview with Scott Miller. In the second part, Scott talks more about "The Duke Franchise", as well as some of the Duke3D developers, God/Take 2's acquisition of the Duke games from Infogrames, to his views on where the industry is going. Here's a sample (Scott's talking about the acquisition of publishing rights by Gathering/Take 2):

"Quite simply when Infogrames bought our publisher GT Interactive, they brought a new mindset and working relationship that didn't fit with us very well, so it was agreed by us and Infogrames to part ways. We then contacted several top publishers who we thought would make a great new partner with us, and Take 2 won with the highest bid for the publishing rights. However, this is not for the entire Duke franchise, still entirely owned by 3D Realms, but for the publishing rights to Duke Nukem Forever and the entire back catalog of Duke Nukem games already under the publishing umbrella with Infogrames."

Posted by Joe Siegler at 4:46 AM

It's Miller Time!

Today we bring you a couple of interviews with our own Scott Miller. Scott is one of the owners here, and founded the company 14 years ago in his bedroom!

The first is from the site Eurogamer - the article is titled "Reaching Apogee". In it, Scott talks about the early days of the company, the creation of the name "3D Realms", as well as Scott's views on the industry and where's is going. Here's a sample:

Scott did have some reservations about continuing to use the term "first person shooter" though, telling us that "the term FPS is now sorely outdated, because many of the games I listed are not pure shooters, nor are they first-person games. I think we should adopt a better catch-all term like '3D Action', or 3DA for short. A side-benefit of this change would be removing ourselves further from the use of the word 'shooters', which only hurts our industry's reputation."

The second is an article over at Stomped, in which Scott isn't the main focus, but is one of several game industry folks who are quoted in the article. The article, entitled "Not Brought to you by the Letter M" talks about various proposals to restrict where and how "M rated games" can be sold. Here's what Scott had to say about this:

"The problem with the ESRB is that all violent games end up in the M category, but there's a big difference between a game that deserves to be M rated, like Kingpin and Soldier of Fortune, and a game like Unreal Tournament, which shows cartoonish violence and doesn't depict pain and suffering. The ESRB, if it were applied to TV shows, would rate any show with human blood, like ER, with an M rating, but by MPAA standards ER would be more appropriately rated PG-13."

Scott has more to say on this issue, including his thoughts on the creation of a new rating to help address the issue he talks about here. Make sure and check out both of these articles, and you can also hit our Interviews page to look at some past interviews with our staff.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 10:20 AM

More Fan Stuff

Today, we updated our fan page with some more submissions from the fans out there. Today's batch of submissions brings us some Duke Nukem sketches, a couple of Commander Keen drawings, as well as parodies such as the Yoda/Duke picture shown to your right.

We also have a few Winamp related downloads. There's a DNF skin collection download, a Rise of the Triad Winamp skin, as well as a Shadow Warrior fan song, which was made in the mold of our own Lo Wang's Rap.

Make sure and check out all these things, as well as our older fan submissions at our fan page today. We're always looking for more fan items, so if you have something you think we should have on our pages that you've created, check out the details on our fan page.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 4:20 PM