Wolfenstein

This sequel to "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" from 2001, is just an attempt to fill the plot with new kind of enemies, that's all. OK, now... The game is pretty good when it comes to the graphics, gameplay and other stuff as atmosphere and music. It's pretty easy to play again as agent BJ Blaskowitz. They kept it faithful to the older games by putting the small stuff like... gold, the gold brought extra points, now we got points again, and together with gold there are top secret files, also gives you points. OK, that's cool, because with the gold, and after every mission, you get paid, and with your money, you can upgrade your weapons and go back to action to get some of Germans. Those are cool things... now the bad... OK, first of all... AI is somewhat bad, even if you are playing at hard, it's still pretty easy to kill your targets no matter what. Second, russians. Don't get me wrong here! I don't have nothing against them! But, I think that they are too much in the game, they are just too much. I expected only Americans and Germans. Now, the thing which is very important in video games and, here it goes bad... the plot. At the beginning of the game, Blaskowitz acquires a strange medallion that allows him to move through objects, to move fast, to shield himself and so on... and besides Germans, the new enemies are creatures from other dimensions... it's like I'm playing "Wolfenstein: Dimension X" I found all that pretty redundant. And I really think that they should have kept ghosts and demons. OK, it's not that bad really... but could have been better.

Since id Software already put the development of Quake 4 in the hands of Raven Software (the studio that is mostly known for shooters such as Soldier of Fortune, Quake 4, Take No Prisoners) it should come to no surprise that id Software would let the next Wolfenstein installment getting developed by Raven Software. They know how to make games, and they certainly know how to make shooting-games.

The game's story takes place right after Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and if you pay attention you might find some references to that game. The game runs on a heavily pimped version of the Doom 3 engine, and while the leveldesign is not always stunning, the game does have a good deal of nice imagery and overall eyecandy. The controls are taken straight from Call of Duty (at least on the Xbox 360 version), which is actually not a bad thing since that control setup works very smooth and it makes it easy for you to pick up and play. To me that is something that is crucial in a Wolfenstein-game. You can upgrade your weapons anytime in the town with silencers, scopes, etc. Its too bad that it feels a bit as if the game almost forces you to push on to the next mission, so its easy to miss a dealer who sells these upgrades.

One of the announced features of Wolfenstein is that throughout the game you collect cristals, which let you enter a certain dimension called the Black Sun. Basically it means that you can slow down time, use extra firepower (handy for taking out shielded enemy's), use a energy-shield, or simply use special sight to look into the other dimension to search for hidden doors or weak spots on enemy's or walls. This works quite well, although this does make the game a lot easier then it already is (even on highest difficulty its still pretty easy to gun your way through the singleplayer). I would say that someone relatively experienced with shooters will get through the campaign in about 2 days.

The biggest flaw for me is that Wolfenstein has a very weak AI. Most of the enemy's will just run into your fire. They will duck for cover when they need to, but its still easy to take them out especially with the Kar rifle. The enemy's do get more challenging in large numbers though. The boss-battles are really awesome and a big highlight of this game. With every boss you need a certain type of strategy to defeat them, and they make a nice interruption from the typical run-and-gun gameplay.

In the sea of first person shooters that are out today, its hard to find any good games that stands out. You can definitely see and feel that Raven Software tried something different with Wolfenstein, but still wanted to incorporate enough story to satisfy the fans. When you shoot down a Nazi-soldier you can even sometimes hear them yell "mein leben!", which is a clear ode to the classic Wolfenstein 3D. I wouldn't call Wolfenstein a great game, but its definitely a good game for fans of Wolfenstein or overall fans of off-beat WWII-shooters.

The ending of the game even makes me wonder about a sequel...

This game is a direct sequel of "Return to the castle Wolfenstein" and you assume the role of agent B.J Blazkowicz again. And this game is fun. The AI of enemies is almost none and they are pretty easy to kill even on hard mode (there is alsoUber mode) , but they are plentiful. The final boss was quite tough though. The game uses checkpoint save system, which I sometimes found annoying especially in harder places. Weapons and special powers in the game can be upgraded, but there is never enough cash to purchase them all, so you have to choose. Some upgrades were pretty useless - like silencers. They never worked for me. Also there are some side missions, which you can skip. They are short and quite easy, but still worth playing for some extra cash for upgrades. The graphics look good, but there is one things that spoils it. One of the first powers you get is called "Veil". Using it you move faster, easily spot enemies, see in dark places and can spot hidden items and passages, so there is no reason not to use it most of the time. The problem is that is using it everything looks very greenish, so most of the game you see through the green filter. Overall it's worth a try.

Just like its predecessor "Return to Castle Wolfenstein", made in 2001, this game perhaps doesn't meet the high expectations but it's certainly a playable game, with a couple of nice challenges and additions tot the game-play.

Things all looked fine for this latest Wolfenstein establishment with it's good looking trailers and game-play footage that promised a challenging game, with awesome new weapons and challenging enemies. But well no, it doesn't really meet its high expectations, which is mostly due to the game engine the game is using. It uses the same game engine as the 2003 game "Call of Duty". I loved "Call of Duty" but its a 6 year old game already, so seeing exactly the same game engine and style of game-play in a 2009 game seems just like an odd and outdated thing.

Of course the graphics are more advanced looking though. While "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" was a game that perhaps concentrated more on the horror aspects of the series, this game focuses more on the action and more science-fiction like aspects. It's a faster game with more action and the storyline takes you to all different kind of places, set in different dimensions as well.

For this game you'll find a couple of magic crystals throughout that will give you certain powers. You can see enemies that are in a different dimension and look through walls, or you can slow down time or shoot through shields or create a magic shield of your own. You'll most likely only get to use these powers though when you really need them. They otherwise just don't seem awesome or helpful enough to use constantly throughout the game. After all, the game above all things of course still remains a shooter, rather than a strategy game.

There are still a couple of monsters to fight but they seemed more like science-fiction characters to me that actually villains that creep up on you or zombies that try to suck the life out of you. It's just not a game with scare moments or a creepy atmosphere.

Luckily there also are some more advanced damaging futuristic weapons. With some you can blow away enormous enemies, while others will zap your opponents to small pieces. These weapons are always fun to use, though you'll probably end up not using them too much throughout, since ammo for it isn't around just anywhere and you just never know when you might really need your most powerful weapons.

New and a fine addition to this game is the fact that you can buy upgrades for all of your weapons. These upgrades variate from weapon accuracy, to ammunition capacity and the strength of the weapon's their impact. These upgrades can only be done at a fixed place though in town, which you have to travel to first. Since I didn't liked walking to town much I simply didn't bothered with any of the upgrades. It wasn't about over halve way through the game that I finally started buying some upgrades because it became more difficult to kill certain enemies with my current weapon's state. The upgrades do make a big difference though and it also adds more to the fun of the game.

Between playing the different levels and missions of the game you get to walk around freely in a town called Eisenstadt. This is supposed to give you a more kind of walking around freely feeling but it worked just mostly annoying for me since you often have to travel long distances, also since you'll often just get lost. It was also annoying that every time you re-entered the town you had to first blast to a group of enemies over and over gain, of which some of them would often take lots of time to clear out before you can finally start a nice mission again.

The story-line of the entire game is quite good and it makes you want to go on playing. The enemies in the game often hide behind things when you start to shoot them and they are often in big groups, which makes this an enjoyable and somewhat more challenging shooter. Some enemies that show up are quite hard to kill and take some skill and some of your special weapons and powers to kill off. The end bosses are also all overall challenging enough and it's guaranteed that you'll not walk through this game without ever dying. The more experienced and hardcore gamer will probably finish the game relatively soon though but still the game provides plenty of fun to play it for a couple of days or weeks straight.

A good enough and certainly playable addition to the Wolfenstein franchise, though "Wolfenstein 3D" still remains king!

7/10

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