Wolfenstein: The Old Blood - Thoughts

There's been a lot of games released last year that have been given life again in 2015. Dark Souls II saw an upgrade in Scholar of the First Sin (which allowed me to experience its exquisite DLC kingdoms), Shovel Knight got its Plague of Shadows addition, and even Destiny saw a face lift with The Taken King. The only one I feel like (briefly) covering is Wolfenstein's standalone expansion, The Old Blood. Here we head back in time to storm the eponymous Castle Wolfenstein; jumping back into BJ's shoes for some bombastic shootouts made me realize why it's one of my favorite FPSs of all time.

Gone from The New Order is its emotional story-driven pacing—BJ is given a job to do and spends little time futzing about. Where the original game had an ebb and flow to its narrative, The Old Blood is predominantly anchored to action, featuring a huge amount of open playgrounds for you to sneak and/or shoot through. There are some clever alternative scenarios here and there, like the stealthy opening and tense moments where you're deprived of your weapons, but for the most part the sound of muzzle fire will be the score to your slaughter symphony. The action takes a questionable turn at the second act of the game, where combat becomes a bit slower and less frantic, but the first act (and its climax) provide unabashed Wolfenstein mayhem. Dual wielding auto-shotguns and watching my foes turn into crimson mist has been the most fun I've had with a gun since using the alternate fire on Half-Life 2's pulse rifle.

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood has one goal—take The New Order's scrumptious gameplay and serve it to you on bigger and more elaborate dishes. My only disappointment is that it feels hollow without BJ's chatter, the experience not nearly as impactful as its predecessor (the "inhale" stuff and Rudi's tirade during his fight were the only evocative parts to me). However the game doesn't seek to replace The New Order but rather expand it, offering more situations to try out your improv firearm skills and crack some Nazi skulls. It's fun and bloody excursion that continues to showcase MachineGames' mastery.

Wolfenstein: The New Order - Thoughts

[contains slight spoilers]

While I concluded that 2009's Wolfenstein was fairly unremarkable, 2014's sequel Wolfenstein: The New Order is quite the opposite. Machinegames took a big gamble by altering the standard formula, adding a pulpy edge to BJ Blaszkowicz's formerly plain narrative—but it succeeds! Europe's alternate future is a grim, dystopian world where the Nazis have infested every corner, the resistance against them diminishing slowly day by day. Despite ludicrous advancements like cyborg dogs and lunar bases, it's a setting that remains horrifyingly lifelike as well as tremendously engrossing. Oh, and the game is a ton of fun to play too.

The New Order shares Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon's unfortunate folly of greeting the player with a turret section of all things (possibly the worst way you can open your game), but past the linear prologue the action really takes off. Scenarios will alternate between stealth, shooting and bouts of dialogue, the designers carefully making sure that each portion never overstays its welcome. After large fights you'll be treated to some captivating discourse and the moment your bloodlust begins to wax you'll be back in a concrete compound with some soldiers to slice up. There are some miscellaneous issues that will unavoidably stand out: cutscene transitions are jarring, stealth sections are largely shallow (Nazi soldiers make murmurs of curiosity upon finding an ally's corpse rather than trigger an alarm), and the lack of manual checkpoints means the game will send you struggling through difficult hallways over and over again. While these issues slightly mar the experience, The New Order remains fantastic at its core.

At this core sits the riveting gunplay, being one of the most holistically satisfying shooters I've experienced. Weapons are large and have a good weight to them, there's a smart judge of how much ammo is allotted to each gun, and upon being shot enemies animate as if they feel the bullets shattering their bones. Even with a small arsenal available (there's about six arms) it never becomes grueling to switch back to the standard assault rifle and burst into a room, both guns blaring raucously. A couple of minor variations exist to shake-up the routine FPS load-out—the shotgun is less powerful than you'd expect but holds 20 shells, the assault rifle has a rocket launcher add-on, and your laser cutter becomes stronger as you find enhancements. The rifle is perhaps the only useless armament, bereft of bullets for the majority of the journey and being outclassed by the multi-targeting the laser cutter, but it gets plenty of screen time on the moon.

Despite its Nazi-crushing exterior the game is shockingly heartfelt, with many of Blaszkowicz's inner monologues and interactions feeling strikingly thoughtful. From important story beats to some of the small conversations you'll overhear, there's an interesting array of subjects touched upon. At one point I was traveling through the sewers and overheard a man talking to a woman, telling her about his vacation in Africa with his wife, and the woman asks whether or not her favorite animal—the elephant—was still there. The man replies that he didn't see any, and the dialogue ends; the potential extinction of elephants in Africa is an extremely minor detail added to the world but paints a great picture of the Third Reich's recklessness towards anything but their own progress. Foot-soldiers are also commonly portrayed as nothing more than privileged men in a uniform, abstaining from using childish, dehumanizing derivatives. Of course it doesn't excuse their crimes, and there's some utterly demented commanders in charge of their forces, but it's nice to see the game approach something like Nazi infantry with such honesty.

The plot also does a good job at changing scenery changes often, ferrying you from one great locale to another. From a ruined bridge to a mock-concentration camp you'll engage with legions of soldiers, and from murky aqueducts to a surreptitious Hebrew hideout you'll spend time exploring and poking at the scenery. The comparisons to Half-Life 2 are surprisingly apt in this regard, as the game does its best to tell a story while keeping the setting varied, ending the tale on one hell of a heart-pounding climax. In direct contrast to Wolfenstein's final boss, The New Order's mechanized monstrosity shows how to make a nod to the older games while adding flourishes of its own, especially regarding the intense final phase. The melancholy ending that comes afterwards is pitch perfect, and caps off the experience most appropriately.

You'll find few big budget games in 2014 as full of charm, brutality and heart as Wolfenstein: The New Order (let alone a combination of all three). Machinegames did the impossible and made the bulky meathead of a protagonist actually likable without peddling some kind of sob story background, rarely forcing his emotions throughout the hardboiled journey. The guns take center stage despite the minimal assortment of them, although this isn't too surprising given the developer's pedigree. The New Order is a solid, frantic outing through and through, and quite possibly the best Nazi-killin' game yet.
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Logo obtained from: edge-online.com

Wolfenstein - Thoughts

Raven's Wolfenstein feels a bit like an artifact caught out of time. Despite Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare's influence on the first person genre, BJ Blaszkowicz's rompin' stompin' Nazi killing adventure plays closer to the older style of post-Half Life shooters, like 2001's Return to Castle Wolfenstein and 2006's Prey. Despite feeling intentionally "old", it nevertheless makes new advancements in its mechanics and gameplay, giving it the feel of both eras... though at times perhaps the worst of the two.

Right out of the gate, the strangest thing to note is the inclusion of three connected hub areas in an otherwise linear FPS. All the main missions consist of a single path but in the hub town you can pursue side quests and engage in random battles that will break out between the Third Reich and Isenstadt's resistance. The Nazi forces will continue to expand and evolve as you move through the game, stronger enemies making more frequent appearances until you find yourself fighting more supernatural soldiers than grunts. It would be a great addition to a largely "by-the-books" game, if not for the fact that you gain almost nothing from combat.

XP is commonplace in most modern shooters but in Wolfenstein the only way to get stronger is to upgrade your armaments with golden trinkets—a non-replenishable commodity which can be hard to find. Scrounging around in corners and side areas can net you a couple hundred bucks every now and then, but you'll largely have to pick and choose which upgrades to apply since the gun enhancements can get very pricey. If you could get cash off of regular units there would be more of an impetus to fight them, but as it stands you'll only want to encounter them if you're not tired of shooting hundreds of soldiers already. And shoot many, many enemies you shall, as the design does little other than drip-feed you humanoid drones to plow through at every opportunity it can provide.

The game is at its funnest when you get to utilize your heavier weapons, each one feeling astonishingly powerful (the flamethrower in particular deserves a special mention, as it's an absolute beast [especially compared to Far Cry 3's dinky blowtorch]). The Particle Cannon and Tesla Gun are my favorites—the former used to render foes into dust with a terrifying shriek and the latter a portable Nazi-barbecue grill at close-range. The problem however, is that the ammo for these big boys is quite scarce, limiting your equipment primarily to the standard assault rifle firearms that drop from lower tier units. Buying ammo is unwise considering your income is limited, so you're left waiting until you can pilfer said munitions from the specialty units or finding stockpiles before boss fights. Speaking of, most of the boss fights can grow particularly vexing, especially the final one (while being a good callback to the id's archaic shooter, the routine nature of it drains the fun).

The most wild game mechanic comes in the form of your Veil abilities, adding to the shooter a peculiar metagame of resource management as these powers are crucial to your survival. There's something inherently entertaining in slowing down time, applying double damage to your weapon, and frying men alive with the Tesla Gun as you barrel into a densely packed barracks... though the Veil powers don't last long. Besides that it's a shame that shooting with the regular arms doesn't feel that engaging, the gameplay further dampened by the bottleneck design of certain encounters. There's also a World at War style grenade spam that compounds the issue, where more than three seconds behind cover prompts a toss (one section of the Castle stage saw me besieged by five grenades at once). When your supplies are maxed out the firefights can be quite fun but otherwise the action slows to a crawl.

Besides the gameplay, the story and visuals are pretty par for the course (I will admit that the Nazi zepplin does have a great steam-punk interior). Altogether Wolfenstein is a strange-yet-straightforward game with some good ideas surrounding some bad ones. Towards the end it starts to play to its design strengths more, sending a variety of its supernatural soldiers at you mixed in with the grunts, but by then you've likely had your fill. If paranormal Nazi killing is your jam you'll feel right at home throughout Blazkowicz's wacky adventure, but other than that it's largely unremarkable.
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Images obtained from: wolfenstein.wikia.com, newgamenetwork.com, ngohq.com, miikahweb.com,