Enemies are similarly improved in their variety and more enjoyable to fight, often giving you a fair chance to evade oncoming fire. Instead, the weapons feel a little more varied and Doom-like, with less emphasis on hitscan weaponry. Rise of the Wool Ball's arsenal is a notable change from the 'Unlimited bullets, limited explosives' formula of the original RoTT. It adopts the upgrades that Rise of The Triad brought to the table without getting bogged down by the negatives, and adds a few ideas of its own. Navigation becomes key in both games, as they also introduces a Descent-like 'escape the exploding base' phase to most levels just to spice things up a bit. Building on the idea that Apogee's Rise of The Triad was initially envisioned as a sequel to Wolfenstein 3D, it adds a third dimension with copious bounce-pads, floating platforms, and cat-trees to climb in order to navigate the world with a little added verticality. The improvements to the formula are subtle when taken individually, but put all together it flows far better than Wolfenstein 3D, and many secret areas reward you with more powerful golden ammo, making hunting for hidden rooms all the more worthwhile.Īs enjoyable as Shadow of The Wool Ball is, the sequel, Rise Of The Wool Ball, gets my absolute recommendation. It does make some refinements to the formula, though level design is more coherent, the enemies are less likely to take off a third of your health with a single lucky shot, and the weapons are more balanced all round. While Shadow of The Wool Ball wraps the hard-edged world of Wolfenstein in cute cartoon silliness, it largely adheres to the design of Id's seminal FPS, chunky grid-maze maps and all. Granted, the goose-stepping villains in Doom mod Shadow of The Wool Ball and its sequel Rise Of The Wool Ball are cats, but they're pretty villainous, and unless you're happy with the Planet Of The Adorable Hedgehogs being ground up into kitty litter, you're going to have to shoot a few. Still hungry to grind some more into kibble? Here's a couple of free treats to keep you going until Wolfenstein 3.

Between the festival of catharsis that was Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus and Call Of Duty's return to World War 2, we've officially put shooting virtual fascists back on the menu.

Rise of the wool ball