2nd Encounter

Second Encounter, also known as Original Encounter, is the official name for the map set used by the SNES port of Wolfenstein 3D, as well as the Mac, Jaguar, 3DO and Apple IIGS ports. It is made up of 30 condensed levels selected from the PC set, edited mainly to fit the limitations of the SNES. This is also known as The Claw of Eisenfaust in the Japanese version of Wolfenstein 3D.

History

These levels were originally developed by id Software for their SNES port of Wolf3D. Due to system limitations and changes in the engine, instead of including all 60 levels in their entirety, 30 levels were selected and then condensed to accommodate the SNES' lower memory. A few other changes were made as well, such as changing Gretel Grosse, Otto Giftmacher, and General Fatface to Trans Grosse, the Ubermutant and the Death Knight. Further changes were made to the SNES version to comply with Nintendo's censorship guidelines, specifically the removal of all blood, changed actors for the dog and Hitler, and Nazi imagery. These changes were not carried over to the Jaguar or 3DO ports - they were uncensored like all other versions of Wolf3D.

In 1994, MacPlay released their own version of Wolfenstein 3D, programmed by "Burger" Becky Heinemann. This version was almost completely different from the PC version. Aside from running in an engine more similar to the SNES version of Wolfenstein 3D, it featured 128x128 sprites and textures and much higher quality sound and music than the DOS version.

MacPlay, seeing an opportunity to maximize profits, decided to release the SNES level set as the registered version of their port of Wolf3D, using the first level cluster as a 3 level demo (First Encounter), and then eventually release the entirety of the PC 60-level set virtually unchanged as the complete commercial version, known as Third Encounter. If purchased at a store, this did not affect customers much, but for those that registered the game from the First Encounter, this could have been extremely expensive, not to mention a bit cheap as the 30 level Second Encounter set was merely 30 modified levels from the PC set. This eventually led to low sales of the Mac version of Wolfenstein 3D.

In 1998, a long awaited port to the Apple IIGS was completed by Eric Shepherd, a former employee of Logicware along with Burger Becky. This is based upon both the Mac and SNES code, and has compatibility with most MacWolf scenarios.

Level List Table

The picture shown here is a table by Laz Rojas, showing each Second Encounter map and each corresponding PC map.

Unofficial Ports

• Second Encounter ECWolf port - by Executor
• Second Encounter Hi-Res version - original port by Executor, hi-res version by AstroCreep
• Macenstein 3D - by Andy_Nonymous
• Wolfenstein 3D: Claw of Eisenfaust (SNES to ECWolf port) - by AstroCreep