I never played the original Wolfenstein. I played Doom, and Doom 2, and Quake, and Quake 2 etc, but somehow missed the very first Nazi blaster, the one that kickstarted the whole PC first-person shooter ball rolling, the ball that Doom popularised and became synonymous with. Still, I don't mind. I did once install it and was so put off by the piss-poor graphics and limited movement available (like the original Doom, no jumping, no ladders, no looking up or down, etc) that I ran about a bit, got shot and uninstalled it again. I didn't play it for the same reason I wouldn't go back and play through Doom again; namely, FPS gameplay developed a whole set of golden standards a few years later (the excellent Quake series, for example) that were then used as the template from then on in, along with all of their new gameplay innovations - Wolfenstein is like getting into a Ford Model T after you've been blazing around in a Lamborghini Murcielago for months. Novelty value carries it for a few minutes, and then you get pissed off and want to be able to bunny hop and rocket jump and so forth.
Skip forward a few years and the awesome (yes, even nowadays, still awesome) Quake III had just come along and redefined the standards for the genre; slick graphics, unbelievably frantic gameplay, superb atmosphere and, above all, gameplay that was so well balanced, so sleek, so effortless that it sucked you in and chewed your skull like a Rottweiler until you became one with its electronic wizardry and had to be physically removed from the monitor and mouse in order to even eat or shit. Along come Raven Software and the revamp of the Wolfenstein name with Return to Castle Wolfenstein (RTCW). It used the Quake III engine, so looked superb; it featured lots of Nazis experimenting with the supernatural and high tech weaponry (that you could obviously steal and use), and payed homage to classic war films like Where Eagles Dare with its' whole German castle theme. It was brilliant, and the Enemy Territory multiplayer game based on it was good enough to keep you hooked after you'd finished the single player campaign.
Skip along again, past Doom 3 and Quake 4, past Quakewars, past Far Cry and Bioshock and other genre-redefining games, and Raven again feel that we are ready to enter the world of Agent BJ Blaskowicz (no, I don't know why they named him BJ either; maybe it was an in-joke that was amusing to the programmers themselves for about ten minutes - "Oooh look, he keeps asking for a BJ! Titter!" - but it's just weird now) with the 2009 game entitled, simply, Wolfenstein. I was expecting a lot from this, because RTCW was a brilliant game that really hit the spot for the time; I was looking forward to a really good post-Bioshock adventure FPS - the stuff I had read about being able to buy upgrades for your weapons at your own rate and to customise your character's supernatural Veil powers had me quite excited, and the idea that you could choose the missions you wanted and essentially play in a big sandbox German town, taking missions from various different factions appealed enormously. Add in that the first impressions are that where RTCW was paying homage to Where Eagles Dare, this one is definitely channeling Raiders of the Lost Ark in places, and I was practically salivating as I installed it.
First impressions were good; the graphics were certainly detailed, and movable objects clattered about demonstrating physics when you bumped into them or blew them up, the sounds were atmospheric. The voice acting seemed a bit strained, however; it was like they'd just dragged people off the street and given them a script and told to 'sound German' in some cases. A bit uninspiring after the brilliant voice acting on many games these days. The controls also seemed to slip up a little. I'm used to running by holding down the 'run' key - in Wolfenstein you tap it, and then you are running. Unless you stop, in which case you revert to walking when you start moving again. And you revert to walking if you hit an obstacle (of which there are many). If that wasn't frustrating enough, when you are running the screen sways alarmingly from side to side as though Blaskowicz is shambling along in some kind of drunken stagger. I used to laugh and point at friends who tried to play FPS games and complained of motion sickness, to someone who practically lived inside the 3D environment of Battlefield 2, wandering around the landscape seemed quite natural to me. This swaying, lurching movement, however, never failed to make me feel as though I was about to chuck my guts. Consequently I spent most of the rest of the game walking everywhere, or using the Veil to speed myself up (a very cavalier way to squander one's supernatural resources, I know, but meh, whatcha gonna do?)
The open-ended game I had been looking forward to didn't really exist, I soon realised. You can indeed upgrade your weapons as you see fit - but certain upgrades are only available after you have completed certain missions, and many of those missions you have to do in a certain, fairly linear order, which precludes the idea of a sandbox FPS. You have a tiny amount of flexibility in how you want the game to play out, but it's not what I was expecting, and there are nothing like the game-changing consequences of your actions or the order you play the missions in that made Bioshock so spectacularly gripping. They might as well have just remade RTCW and painted on prettier graphics, that's how linear the storyline is as it unfolds.
The AI in the Nazis and their attendant monsters is fairly poor. Compared to other games such as the FEAR series, where the AI soldiers actually try to outflank you or hide, the Nazis don't really seem to have any brain cells beyond self-preservation. They make a token gesture to vaguely step behind cover most of the time, but never employ anything more sophisticated than that. The weapons you get to shoot them with are, however, quite wonderful.
You start out with the old faithful of WW2 games, the MP40 submachine gun; good in close quarters, not so hot over distances; the K98 bolt action rifle that can be equipped with a sniper scope, improved rifling and a silencer to make it the ideal sniper rifle (also, for bonus gore, upgrade it with large bore too, and blow Nazis arms and legs off with it - if you're into that sort of thing. And I am. So there.); and the MP43 assault rifle which is much better over distances than its smaller counterpart. These guns are conventional, but still very effective. As you will happen upon common Nazi soldiers a lot in the game, the MP40 remains just as effective at ventilating them as itwas at the start of the game, which is a very good bit of game balancing - too many games feature starter weapons that you never ever use when you get further into the game as they are worse than useless against the endlessly scaling monsters you have to face. Wolfenstein however chooses to make the weapons all sensible, and all useable no matter where in the game you find yourself.
The more exotic weapons are a Tesla Gun which can electrocute multiple adversaries at close range; a powerful particle cannon; a panzerschreck (missile launcher); a flamethrower, and a powerful Veil-driven cannon that blows it's targets into dust. However the most interesting addition is the Thule Amulet. This artefact can be powered up with different crystals and allows you to activate special powers during gameplay that slow down time, giving you access to bullet time, throw up an impenetrable shield around yourself, or empower your weapons to shoot through shields and, with upgrades, through cover and walls. It works superficially like the Plasmid system in Bioshock, except that the Veil powers are more add-ons to your conventional weapons than offensive weapons in their own right. The graphical efect of entering the Veil powers is downright awesome, made of awesome, in fact. The world itself rolls back to reveal a garish otherland where streetlights seem to be emitting boiling luminous smoke, and people glow, and where curious creatures bob along inoffensively, looking for all the world like giant fleas. Very impressive.
So the gameplay is linear and dated, the controls are a little flawed and the run option is useless unless you have no stomach at all. But despite that it manages to be a huge amount of fun. It somehow defeats the drag factor of the negative aspects of it and sticks to what it knows best; gameplay. It's slick and easy to pick up, the weapons are superbly scaled and a joy to use, even a fairly good player will be challenged by the toughest difficulty mode, and you keep wanting to have another crack at it. I managed to finish it in a week, but where other gamers will wander round marvelling at the scenery and graphics, I tend to go into adrenaline panic mode and run (or walk briskly in the case of Wolfenstein) around, madly shooting any bad guys who pop up and making for the exit as fast as is humanly possible because I might get blown up if I stand still for too long...
In summary, a jolly good blaster, don't expect too much flexibility out of it but it's a good romp. Don't think of it as a District 9 of a game; it's more of an Alien Resurrection, somewhat formulaic, but inexplicably good fun despite that. If you enjoy FPS, and don't mind the lack of sophistication of Bioshock, then Wolfenstein will go down well, I think.
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