| Platform | OVERALL |
|---|---|
| PlayStation 4 | 7.60 |
| Overall | 7.60 |
|
Wolfenstein was the first ever first person shooter, which means there was a time when it was a cutting edge franchise. Fast forward twenty years later and Wolfenstein struggles to find an identity, seemingly coping elements from all other popular first person shooter. The New Order is what I like to call a Frankenstein game, one where you can clearly see parts of other games all stitched together to make some “new” monster of a game. That is not necessarily a bad thing, every once and a while multiple elements can come together and form a fun gameplay experience, which is the case with The New Order. The first impression of Wolfenstein comes with your character, BJ Blaskowitz, on a plane watching a heavily scripted battle which makes it feel like this will be a Call of Duty like experience. You are told exactly what to do as excessive explosions and death defying acts occur all around you. Once the initial sequence is over you are given a gun and you begin exploring the core gameplay. Cover plays a major part, there is an entire button dedicated to allowing you to peak out of cover; so much for classic Wolfenstein action of old. Weapon fire feels well enough but my first reaction was that it was missing some power but at least shooting works as it should as enemies react correctly to weapon fire. After killing a few Nazi’s you are introduced to the perk system which in principle works better than in execution. Nearly every action performed is tied to some unlockable perk; for instance getting knife kills allows you to carry more knives. Being stealthy gets allows you to walk faster while crouched. Using assault rifles unlock perks for faster reloads and more ammo. The system has the right idea, reward the player for playing a certain way but ultimately it is way too simplistic. The demolition and stealth perk trees will be finished well before you are halfway through the game if you play smart. The assault perks you earn naturally. None of the rewards are game changing; they usually just augment what you already have. Without the description of what the perk unlocks one would probably never notice that anything changed. The good news is the core gunplay is a blast to play and the stealth aspect adds a nice additional option to the combat. Levels can be approached in a few different ways, usually a more direct combat oriented route or one where you enter a duct and can stealthy get through the level. These mechanics have become increasingly popular in FPSs lately as games like Far Cry, Crysis, and others have the stealth or fight options. I wouldn’t say Wolfenstein offers the best mix of stealth and action because every time there is an option it feels heavily scripted. For instance you walk into a room and the guards are clearly turned around and moving in a pattern which invites stealth. There never felt a moment where the player creates stealth, it always felt like there was an invisible guiding hand telling you when it is best to shoot or be stealthy. The strength of Wolfentstein The New Order is that while none of the game elements are groundbreaking or the best of their kind, all elements come together in a well-made game that never really has any down moments. The action remains steadily exciting from start to finish with well-designed setpieces, story beats and new enemy types constantly being introduced. Your arsenal begins with normal assault rifles but slowly grows to include crazy electro guns, laser rifles, and dual wielding shotguns of death which rip enemies in half. The story drags you around many different locations and scenarios that keep the level design fresh. There are even moments of decent puzzles and a few very quick vehicle segments. I love it when I don’t exactly know what to expect from the next room and Wolfenstein gave me that thrill of not knowing what the game would throw at me next. The level of quality remains constant from start to finish, there is never a section of the game that makes you scratch your head and wonder what the hell the developers were thinking; this is a well-designed game. Way too many FPSs do not understand or care about enemy variety or boss battles, thankfully this one serves up great examples of both. Besides the normal Nazi grunts there are all sorts of mechanical monstrosities that the Nazi use. Some are mech like robots, others are full mechanical hounds. One boss battle has BJ going up against a building sized four legged mech, impressive to say the least. In the stealth sections there are commanders which if you stealth kill gets you highlighted marks of the map where the collectibles are located. They also have the ability to call in reinforcements so you will want them dead first. Some enemies are almost too powerful and took almost every bullet I had available at the time leaving me to charge some electrical guns in certain charge sections scattered around the level. The charging slowed down the pace a bit but created some tense strategic moments. This is a single player only FPS which is daring in of itself in these days of tacked on multiplayer to every game. The campaign can take about 8-10 hours so it is of decent length and has an intriguing storyline which is about the last thing I expected from a Wolfenstein game. The New Order takes place in an alternate reality 1960s where the Nazis won World War II. The world is now a totalitarian like state and only a handful of underground rebels remain to fight the Nazi empire. The strength of the story is actually the characters; Blazkowitz is an interesting main character which has more depth than most FPS muscle heads. In between levels you get to explore the rebel base and talk to the various members which make up the colorful cast of heroes and serves as a nice break to the action. The villains hold up their end of the story as well, I mean come on they are Nazis, how hard is it to make a compelling Nazi villain. Well there are quite a few that you will want to kill in horrible ways after all the pain they put you through. The story hits all the right beats of a big time action film but with just enough heart to not be silly. Wolfenstein has a few interesting secrets and extra modes to pad out the whole experience. There is a fantastic dream sequence where BJ is transported into the original Wolfenstein 3D. There are of course collectables all around, the neat thing is some are tied to a code breaker like puzzle which unlock brand new modes. One mode is called 999 mode where you have max health and unlimited ammo in a super hard version of the game. Other modes are serious challenges, one where if you die the game save gets erased. These modes are neat additions; none really change the content of the game but for those who want to master the combat these modes will allow for maximum challenge. Graphically this is clearly a last generation game simply running on max settings on the PS4. It runs smoothly, I can’t tell you the frame rate exactly but it could be 60FPS, it runs smoothly at least. Environments crumble when there is loads of fire power around and enemies explode in nice red chunks as you blast them to pieces. There is some issues with the sound mixing, sometimes the guns do not sound loud at all. Certain explosions get muffled by the music. I believe there might have been a patch to fix it so it may not be an issue right now. I can say that I am genuinely surprised at the level of quality seen throughout Wolfenstein. It may have no real original ideas, it doesn’t even have a gameplay hook, but it makes up for it with compelling action and level scenarios. Personally I am not a big FPS fan, the ones I love combine other elements besides shooting and focus on actual level design. That is exactly what Wolfenstein New Order accomplishes, to a lesser extent than the best in the genre but it is a quality effort. |
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Posted by Dvader Thu, 05 Jun 2014 07:11:47
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robio (1m)
Fuck. that. shit.
Other than that it sounds fun.
It's highly intelligent in its design and influence from the source material, while being enjoyable enough on its own mechanics.
It's a kick in the head to the FPS genre, just as Bloodstorm was, but with a literary bent.