The Nazi Killin’ Business is Boomin’
Wolfenstein Review
Kaegan Stogsdill
Wolfenstein: The New Order hits the right beats at the right
time. Developer Machine Games’ strictly single-player title emphatically fills
the need for a story driven shooter on the next generation consoles.
Wolfenstein is a game that could have fallen into the campy and generic, but
instead it takes a step forward and tells a refreshing story with old-school
shooter mechanics.
The New Order has you play B.J. Blazkowicz while he takes on
Nazi’s of all forms. After a series of early events, Blazkowicz is fatally
injured causing him to fall into a coma. Upon waking up 20 years later, the
player learns that the Nazi’s won World War II, and Blazkowicz is left to fight
his way back into Berlin with a small group of rebels. The story hits on
emotional beats that don’t necessarily elevate it to the pantheon of games
storytelling but it does enough to separate itself from the generic label.
When Blazkowicz isn’t single-handedly plowing through the
Nazi army, he shows glimpses of a soldier struggling with the horrific things
that he has seen during his time at war. He’s not just a silhouette instead,
he’s a human having very real human reactions to the happenings around him.
This Nazi rampage surprisingly broaches sensitive topics
with a real look at things that the Nazi’s were known to do. The killing of the
mentally handicapped, the concentration camps and the experimentation on
prisoners are gruesome to see at times, but so was the war it’s portraying.
While the story does enough to justify a play through, it’s
the world building that is truly enticing. There is a lot to do in every level
of Wolfenstein, whether it’s collecting enigma codes that offer other modes, or
reading newspaper clippings about what’s going on in the world. There is easily
an average of 8 collectibles every level strewn across its campaign.
As an admittedly slight history nerd, playing the game’s
alternate history timeline had me questioning what else was going on outside of
my gameplay experience. What happened with Japan and Italy? What happened to
the United States in the war? All of these questions are answered through
various collectibles hidden throughout the levels. I found it more rewarding
than just a standard dead drop of information featured in other games because
it added to my experience.
Wolfenstein is a franchise that’s been around for over two
decades. The franchise’s roots are firmly planted in the first-person shooter
genre and is widely regarded as the original pioneer. Machine Games decided to keep these old
school roots with some of the design choices. Things like gaining health, armor
and ammo requires an actual button push instead of the typical modern automatic
pick up when walking over the item. This can lead to annoying button mashing
while walking through the environment but it also has a positive effect. I
spent a great deal of time checking levels in every nook and cranny, which lead
to me finding collectibles.
Shooting feels like what a first person shooter should feel
like. It’s intuitive and weapons feel good. There is a nice variety of weapon
and the perk systems let’s player customize to fit their play styles. Do you
like to go in guns blazing? Then work towards the assault perks. Are you more
of a stealth player? There’s throwing knives for that. It’s a fun system with
useful boosts that had me play to complete the whole perk system to get the
entire feel for the game.
With Wolfenstein, players can look to get about 12-15 hours
out of the experience if they take their time. I spent about 19 hours, but that
was on the hardest difficulty and exploring the world completely. This brings
us to two of the slightly larger problems I had with the game. On the hardest
difficulty, sometimes the enemy A.I. would feel cheap. This problem could be
mitigated by lesser difficulties but in my limited play through on the normal
setting, it felt like the problem still reared its ugly head every so often.
Also, sometimes the enemy A.I. is just dumb. This led to me playing stealth
more often than not because enemies wouldn’t recognize dead bodies and it made
it easy to sometimes clear a room without firing a non-silenced bullet.
That being said, Wolfenstein gives the player so much. It’s
not exactly a masterpiece but at this point in the console generation it’s
definitely a pick-up for anyone looking for a good first-person shooter
storyline. There’s a lot more that could be said for Wolfenstein: The New
Order, but most importantly, after finishing the game I only wanted to jump
back in again. In a genre that has moved away from the World War II era and
story only games, Wolfenstein is a much-needed refresher.
+ Strong world building
+ Long Length
+ Replay value, loads of collectibles
+ Old School Mechanics
+ World War II
- A few tedious fights
- Occasionally dumb A.I.
- Average narrative
- Cheap A.I. in harder difficulties
8.5
Reviewed on Playstation 4
