Ahhhhhhh. Good old Wolfenstein! I remember many late nights on the OG XBOX, playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Good times. That game had an incredible class-based multiplayer and a single player campaign that was tough, long and enjoyable. Then along came the new CG trailer of Wolfenstein with some much improved animation and graphics, and even some disintegrating Nazi’s! This one looked like it had some potential right? Well, hopefully this review will help you decide if you want to awaken the Nazi-killing inglorious bastard within yourself once more.
The campaign mode actually took me by surprise. It had a open-world kind of feel to it, and had all the mechanics and graphics of a title like Call of Duty. Mix in a little sci-fi like super-powers, and a couple really interesting bosses, and this campaign was actually pretty enjoyable. Although I missed the death-traps and creative enemies (dog’s with Gatling guns anybody?) and the general challenge that the old-school Wolfenstein provided, I still think it’s one of the most solid FPS campaigns I have played to date. Campaign being the key word there.
I really liked the way the weapons were laid out. Similar to Bioshock, you can upgrade your weapons to house more ammo, increase accuracy, attach a scope etc. Not only do the physics of the weapons change, but the physical appearance as well. What starts out as a simple bolt action rifle with slow reloading, becomes a super-badass sniper rifle by the time it’s upgraded. Same goes for all the other weapons, my personal favorite being the assault rifle. It starts off looking like an AK47, but by the time it’s fully upgraded, it looks like something out of Starship Troopers! It’s a nice change from developers who try and over-think weapons that just end up being cheesy and worthless. There is even a few super-weapons you get later in the game, one of which literally disintegrates enemies into melting bones. Yea, I said melting bones. What’s not to like about that?
But that’s where the fun stops on this one folks. I can honestly say that this game is a rental at best, simply because the multiplayer blows goats. Talk about lag! WOW! You will not believe how bad the connection fluctuates during gameplay. So bad that you will see the connection “bars” constantly bouncing all over the place, with the host of the game keeping full connection. Might have been fun for him but for everyone else? Not at all. It’s really bad and almost makes the game damn near unplayable. Several times my floating dead body would spawn in third person view, and I could levitate it as if I was moving and strafing. The hit-detection is awful, the and the graphics and frame-rate take a serious dive in comparison with the single player game. Kind of a shame as the single-player portion of this game was solid and really fun. There is a Call of Duty style leveling system, and the same upgradeable weapons you will find in the single player game, which is executed well as an idea, but the atrocious gameplay sends this one plummeting downward.
All in all, this new blend of Wolfenstein is definitely not on par with the Wolfenstein of old. Give this one a rent at least if you are looking for a decent single player campaign experience. Fans of the classic Wolfenstein titles beware, this multiplayer is downright awful. I must say, Raven Software has really impressed me as of late, developing some great titles. It’s a shame that either they didn’t have the time, or the resources to build both the single and multiplayer versions of this game because had the awesome effort transferred over to the multiplayer, this one would have been a winner.
** Stay tuned for the Game of the Year: Batman: Arkham Asylum review
-DIGGITY OUT
The Gamer Report 