Catacomb 3-D: The Descent

Right away, I understand there is an entire debate that could be had regarding the true birth of the first person shooter genre. There are games that came out before Catacomb 3-D that could claim to hold that crown. But most of them carry some additional baggage or quirk with them that result in a potential disqualification, or point of debate. So, for brevity's sake, let's assume that Catacomb 3-D is the first every first-person shooter. Predating Wolfenstein 3D by several months, this simple little game sets the most basic ground rules without containing any actual shooting at all. You don't have a gun. You've just got your hand that shoots out fireballs. And that's about it.

Well, that's not quite it. Catacomb 3-D does contain some collectible power-ups to help you on your way. A bolt attack fires multiple fireballs, a nuke power-up sends high damage fireballs in every direction, and cure health potions are places around in abundance. Secret walls can be blown to reveal secret areas, and keys must be hunted down to continue. It's a very, very basic formula that is repeated by games to follow, such as Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and so on and so forth. As such, it comes to no surprise that this game was created by the same people who would go on to found Id Software.

Yes, an unassuming game about a wizard crawling through catacombs to fight a lich holds a very real claim to the crown that Wolfenstein 3D claims to hold. But is it any good? That's a difficult question to answer, because the game is so incredibly simple and dated. For starters, the enemies in this game are all essentially the same thing, just retextured and given more hit points. There's no strategic difference between an orc, troll, or demon. They all run at you, and you shoot them until they die. Some just take -considerably- more shots than others. Really, the entire game can be spent mashing the fire button during every encounter and stockpiling every power-up attack in the game for use against the final boss, Nemesis. There's no thought whatsoever.

The level design, as a result, is quite mazey. Key hunting can take a little bit of time, depending on your aptitude for navigating 3D mazes. However, there was one interestingly innovative aspect to the progression in Catacomb 3-D. As you progress, you continue to find scrolls that give some hints. Eventually, you come to a point where these hints matter, and you're at a crossroads with no indication of where to go. Unless you've been reading your scrolls. The scrolls will tell you which level to warp to, how to get out of it, and then what to do afterwards. This was remarkable for the time, and even to this day would stand out as a solid gameplay inclusion. A brief break from simply going from level 2 to level 3 did a lot for my appreciation of Catacomb as a whole.

But, that aside, Catacomb is still an absolute button masher with very outdated controls, still years away from proper mouse look. It's a game that exists in a very interesting position in history, but is probably only worth a full playthrough by those who are either hardcore retro junkies, or have a vast appreciation for the history of FPS games in general. You can smile because it happened, but you might not necessarily smile while it's happening to you. Still, it opened up the doors for bigger and better games, and it demands a certain amount of respect regardless. Even if it isn't that fun to play.