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Boot Disk: Return to Castle Wolfenstein


Sometimes you just need to sit down, slide a floppy into your A: drive, and enjoy gaming retro style. We know this all too well! That's why we have a list of the best and brightest from days long gone. These are some of our favorite games of all time, and we're sure that you'll love them as much as we do, if not more. Welcome to Boot Disk, and enjoy the retro ride!


Wolfenstein 3D is a fun arcade-like shooter that is considered one of the fathers of the modern first-person shooter. Roaming around a castle with an arsenal of weapons killing nazis and mecha-Hitler can't be bad, after all. That's the kind of ridiculousness you expect in a videogame! In 2001, however, id decided that it was about time to revisit their ancient classic and give it an update. Whether it's remake, re-imagining, sequel, or prequel, Return to Castle Wolfenstein is that remake and it's one of the better shooters of the early 2000s. The graphics still look alright, the level design is inspired, and the multiplayer component ridiculously good, so diving into the world of Nazi butchery after all these years isn't that bad of an idea.

QuakeCon 2009: Checking out XBLA's Quake Arena Arcade and Doom II


While Big Download is a PC gaming site first and foremost, two upcoming games from the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade might be of interest to PC gamers as well. The exhibit floor at QuakeCon 2009 had not one but two games based on previous id Software PC titles in playable form.

One is Quake Arena Arcade, the XBLA version of id's 1999 multiplayer shooter Quake III Arena. id actually announced plans for such a game at QuakeCon in 2007 but it's finally looking like it will be coming out fairly soon (although no release date has been announced). The game itself is being ported by Pi Studios and on the show floor it looks terrific. We were told that the game actually has some slightly higher polygon counts for the levels and characters than the original Quake III Arena so purists will have little issue with the game's looks.

So why get Quake Arena Arcade when you can play Quake Live (also based on Quake III Arena) for free on your web browser? Well, one reason is that this game is fully "M" rated; that means when players die on screen you see gibs and blood rather than the "disappearing in a flash of light" thing you see when you kill players in Quake Live. The other reason is that in addition to all of the levels in Quake III Arena, Pi Studios has created a whopping 12 all new levels unique to Quake Arena Arcade. Oh and did we mention that there are plans for even more downloadable content for the game after it's released?

Check out the other XLBA game based on an id Software classic after the jump:
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