Shazam!
08-24-2009, 01:41 AM
Wolfenstein (WS) is a FPS developed by id and published by Activision for the XBox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. It runs on id's tech 4 engine, the same that powered Doom 3 and Quake 4.
William Joe 'BJ' Blazkowicz returns to once again stop the Third Reich from using the supernatural and occult Black Sun power to gain world domination in the midst of WWII.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ee/Wolfenstein_%282009_video_game%29.jpg
I've been a big fan of the WS series and have waited for this one a long time. Return to Castle Wolfenstein is one of my all time favorite shooters, and I recently replayed it to gear up for the new one.
As BJ, you are helping a local resistence group in a fictional city in Nazi Germany. There you acquire various missions from resistance agents and then set out to the locations to complete the various levels and defeat the Nazis. This was supposed to be done in an open world type manner, but it doesn't work as well as say Far Cry 2.
You have your usual stable of weapons from the era, and some awesome prototype Nazi technology at your disposal. Upgrades are available using gold you acquired in the missions, to raise your aim and accuracy for example.
You have special abilities with an amulet that allow you to access another dimension called The Veil. You can see special paths that are normally blocked, defeat some supernatural enemies, etc. It also provides you with some powers, like bullet time and shields. It all feels kind of tacked on to me to just seperate WS from other FPSs.
The story, like it's predecessor, has a scifi B-movie feel to it. The game can probably be beaten in about 10-12 hours.
The enemy AI is decent enough and sometimes overpowering by sheer numbers only as opposed to good AI.
WS looks very good, especially the Veil has some great lighting and shadows and everything animates well, but not as great as other top-tiered FPSs. Maybe it's because the enhanced id Tech 4 is showing it's age. It has some cool battle moments and is very gritty and bloody violent.
The sound, a staple of the WS series is very good, the guns bang and boom and crack very loud and violently as they should. The music is good.
The multiplayer runs on the Quake Wars engine, and has three multiplayer modes, deathmatch, objectives, and stopwatch with different classes. I just don't see it having the same boom as say, again, Activision's other massively popular FPS, CoD.
I can't help but feel without the Veil powers and the pedigree name, WS would be just a run of the mill FPS with little to stand on. It just doesn't have the WS feel to me, it's almost like a lesser CoD clone with some powers to have it stand out. I don't know, with all the time this was in development, I expected better.
7/10
Rated M for Mature- Strong language, Blood and Gore, Intense Violence
If you have never played a WS title before and crave a lengthy FPS campaign and if you can deal with dated visuals, pick up Return to Castle Wolfenstein instead. You can get it for $5. The PC version may visually outperform the PS2 and XBox (playable on 360 too) versions, but the console versions have tacked on levels, new missions and features, tons of weapons, great sound, and the single-player missions can take over 20 hours across over 30 levels. Plus, you get the original Wolfenstein 3-D!
William Joe 'BJ' Blazkowicz returns to once again stop the Third Reich from using the supernatural and occult Black Sun power to gain world domination in the midst of WWII.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ee/Wolfenstein_%282009_video_game%29.jpg
I've been a big fan of the WS series and have waited for this one a long time. Return to Castle Wolfenstein is one of my all time favorite shooters, and I recently replayed it to gear up for the new one.
As BJ, you are helping a local resistence group in a fictional city in Nazi Germany. There you acquire various missions from resistance agents and then set out to the locations to complete the various levels and defeat the Nazis. This was supposed to be done in an open world type manner, but it doesn't work as well as say Far Cry 2.
You have your usual stable of weapons from the era, and some awesome prototype Nazi technology at your disposal. Upgrades are available using gold you acquired in the missions, to raise your aim and accuracy for example.
You have special abilities with an amulet that allow you to access another dimension called The Veil. You can see special paths that are normally blocked, defeat some supernatural enemies, etc. It also provides you with some powers, like bullet time and shields. It all feels kind of tacked on to me to just seperate WS from other FPSs.
The story, like it's predecessor, has a scifi B-movie feel to it. The game can probably be beaten in about 10-12 hours.
The enemy AI is decent enough and sometimes overpowering by sheer numbers only as opposed to good AI.
WS looks very good, especially the Veil has some great lighting and shadows and everything animates well, but not as great as other top-tiered FPSs. Maybe it's because the enhanced id Tech 4 is showing it's age. It has some cool battle moments and is very gritty and bloody violent.
The sound, a staple of the WS series is very good, the guns bang and boom and crack very loud and violently as they should. The music is good.
The multiplayer runs on the Quake Wars engine, and has three multiplayer modes, deathmatch, objectives, and stopwatch with different classes. I just don't see it having the same boom as say, again, Activision's other massively popular FPS, CoD.
I can't help but feel without the Veil powers and the pedigree name, WS would be just a run of the mill FPS with little to stand on. It just doesn't have the WS feel to me, it's almost like a lesser CoD clone with some powers to have it stand out. I don't know, with all the time this was in development, I expected better.
7/10
Rated M for Mature- Strong language, Blood and Gore, Intense Violence
If you have never played a WS title before and crave a lengthy FPS campaign and if you can deal with dated visuals, pick up Return to Castle Wolfenstein instead. You can get it for $5. The PC version may visually outperform the PS2 and XBox (playable on 360 too) versions, but the console versions have tacked on levels, new missions and features, tons of weapons, great sound, and the single-player missions can take over 20 hours across over 30 levels. Plus, you get the original Wolfenstein 3-D!