Since it came back to game pass I decided to finish the playthrough I had started back in 2019 on PC, I had 1 and 1/4 level left, this game is a mixed bag, the story and characters are great, the game sets an incredible tone, honestly some of the best writing in videogames to me, but the game runs out of steam halfway through.

I still remember the first levels of the game, specially the New York nuclear wasteland, the town in which you can see KKK members interacting with Nazis, etc. really interesting alternate history concepts (I don´t advocate those ideologies though), but the locales get stale for me after the halfway twist, Venus is such a disappointment, felt like going through a boring lab instead of actually being on another planet.

The story is strong the whole way through, but the gameplay isn´t, I thought I would struggle with only having half health on the first half, but I didn´t, somehow I struggled more in the second half, don´t remember if in the New Order your character dropped to the floor if a grenade hit you, but I found it to be really annoying, reminded me of Mass Effect´s 1 stun animations but worse since in this game the first person perspective makes the camera shake when falling feel much worse.

If I remember right the game also introduces at the halfway point the extended legs/destroy walls/go bellow doors mechanic, which felt completely pointless, the game only lets you choose one, but you can still complete or get to the same places anyways like there are some parts where you have to go through a door and guess what you can destroy it, go bellow it or above it, it just made the level design worse to me, I regret choosing the extended legs, they felt really clunky.

I originally dropped the game because the levels were getting boring to explore, (I had 100% explored the first levels, lost the interest to do it on the second half ones), and getting back on the game after almost two years the last two levels were boring and stale in the design and presentation department.

Supposedly The Old Blood and the other expansion are better, so I am looking forward to that.

Apprezzato:
-Suspense. Ci sono diverse sezioni nel gioco nella quale la tensione è molto forte, mi viene in mente ad esempio l'inizio o la scena al bar. La regia conduce perfettamente questi momenti e le scene sono ben scritte, sono le sezioni in cui il gioco da il meglio di se.
-Missioni secondarie. Il primo gioco oltre la storia principale non aveva nient'altro da fare. Wolfenstein II introduce delle missioni obiettivo secondarie abbastanza carine, caratterizzate dalla possibilità di approcciarsi alle situazioni in modi differenti.

Non Apprezzato:
-Gameplay. C'è stato un miglioramento in quanto a quantità, non si può dire lo stesso invece della qualità. Il gameplay rimane sostanzialmente invariato e circoscritto alle solite possibilità tali e quali presenti in The New Order. Se giocato successivamente al primo capitolo di questa saga reboot può risultare infatti estremamente pesante.
-Esagerazione. Il titolo precedente era estremo, volutamente sopra le righe ma sempre con una certa classe. The New Colossus invece a tratti sembra una parodia del primo capitolo, alcune scene sono davvero troppo estreme, al punto che sfociano nel ridicolo.

Conclusioni:
Wolfenstein II purtroppo non ha corretto le mancanze del primo titolo, anzi a dir la verità ha anche perso qualcosa. La sensazione è quella di avere tra le mani il solito sparatutto, che cerca però di distinguersi dal resto del genere con un'ironia molto forte, che funziona a momenti ma per il resto ridicolizza decisamente il gioco. Questo capitolo mi ha fatto perdere l'interesse per la saga e non penso giocherò i capitoli futuri, consiglio di fare lo stesso anche a voi e, se vi siete salvati da questo, di saltare anch'esso.

I've been loving my time as a newcomer to the Wolfenstein franchise. I thoroughly enjoyed The New Order, and despite feeling let down by The Old Blood, I still enjoyed what it had to offer & had been very eager to see where Machine Games took B.J.'s story in the next game... Although, I feel like this may be the most forgettable and boring of the three so far.

I went into this game, expecting a pulse-pounding revenge story that never lets down, but the fact is that it's just too slow paced for no real reason and the whole "taking down Irene Engel" plot is barely active in the game and ends up being incredibly underwhelming (which is a shame, since she was such a fun hateable villain).

There are a fair few story beats that simply get dropped too early on or go nowhere, as well. B.J. had a very interesting internal battle going on, feeling as if he was nearing the end, but the last half of the game ignores that whole thing and it's almost as if it never happened; and the whole B.J. becoming a father subplot also left so much to be desired, narratively.

I did enjoy the smaller stuff, like wandering the streets of Nazi-occupied America, listening in to all of the citizen's stories on how they are taking to their new lives, such as struggling to learn the newly compulsive German language. The surprising "cameo" was great fun. I also love B.J. as an action protagonist, and there are some great emotional pieces involving him and his rough upbringing (but again, this is all in the early half of the game).

But I would even say that the gameplay is very disappointing. What's carried over from the first game is great, like the dual-wielding gunplay and the bloody violence. However, as a sequel, I expected more fresh and new stuff in these areas, but it's more or less just the same...

Even the stealth, which was a welcome surprise for me in The New Order, plays out the exact same way... Only this time, it's heavily hindered by the abysmal level design. Pretty much each and every level felt like I was simply walking through corridors after corridors; the majority of which seemed to be the most generic metal-looking hallways you can think of. The gameplay felt very linear and restrictive, and there was barely any visual variety either - all of which takes away from the appeal of going stealth. It's odd, as I felt The Old Blood really took stealth in a solid direction but The New Colossus backtracks far too much in that regard.

Even forgetting about the stealth approach, going guns-blazing was also hindered by the level objectives always feeling the same. I felt like every level was "okay, got to find this MacGuffin" while either choosing to go the stealthy route or full-on action hero. The game as a whole just simply didn't do much for me, I guess.

Although, I highly respect anyone who has managed to complete the campaign on any of the higher difficulties, as this was one tough game!

Overall rating: 4.5/10

at several points in the duration of the new colossus, i have to admit i enjoyed it more than the new order. that's not a reflection of the quality of the new colossus - everything is worse here - but it's a reflection of the fact that i can play this kind of game on PC now. no doubt in my mind if i had played this on console i would have thoroughly hated it. mastery of doom '16 and even eternal on console is achievable, because despite being pc games at their core the tenets of their mechanics (forward momentum at all costs, easily defined hurtboxes and hitboxes, hit and run strategy, weapon chaining, enemy prioritization) are within the realm of gamepad execution. ultraviolence, demanding though it is on a pad, remains an exhilarating affair. wolfenstein, with its emphasis on overwhelming the player, is far too reactive to have struck such a balance. your reliance on headshots and general precision is too great, your movement too improvisational and prone to jerking around, your fight against enemies who can rip you apart is breathless and unabated, all while no resources exist to readily replenish you. these games are simply more at home in this environment. so i did end up having fun, with the difficulty tuned up to my liking, at times greatly so, but there's a paucity of virtues here actively enabling that enjoyment. everything here feels like a first draft, so there's not actually a lot of refinement to the formula, but rather a feeling that things have been pared down, particularly with regards to stealth - not only are your approaches generally more restrictive due to less intricate level design, but your objectives are placed too 'conveniently' (ie the commander, who may call in reinforcements if alerted, is almost always just before the next segment of the level) for their consequences to matter. this also ends up greatly frustrating in the case of the titles optional ubercommandos, equipped wIth kampfpistoles that can easily knock you down and slug you while you're getting up, forcing you to restart several of those segments from the point of origin.

some of the loudest umbrage concerns the issues people have levied with the titles level design, actually. and its true that exploring this cluttered, often inadvertently abstruse geometry often yields little purpose or reward, and sparks no imagination. there's a moment halfway through when you gain access to one of three movement options, for instance, and as soon as you think levels will open up as a result, what ends up happening is the next barrier to progress will simply have three methods of progression all literally right next to each other (in this case a gate, a vent, and a window) to accommodate you and make sure you didn't have to look too hard. even beyond several frustrating incidents like this, in general i think this games problem has less to do with its errant level design and far more to do with its lack of meaningful escalation. the worst offender of this would have to be the final level reusing one of the opening levels environments to do much of the same, culminating in a shrewd arena fight that's only a little bit more taxing than its predecessors, and before you know it the games abruptly over in ten minutes. but there are several instances of this kind of deflation, partially a result of the games lack of evolution and scale. a dream sequence played out for subversion hardly feels like a climax because anyone paying attention can recognize it's a dream; a trip to venus that invokes the aesthetics of doom hardly feels as playful, missing the spark of adventure often found in the new order; a title depicting revolution spends so little time with any perspective that isn't BJ's.

that last point is crucial, because the new colossus is endlessly hokey. any intriguing subtext raised in the first half is promptly dropped in the second, where the game quickly becomes more embarrassing by the stage (either be a machismo-laden power fantasy or don't, stop interrogating this thread half-heartedly especially if you're going to contradict all of your imagery). configuring its assault on nazi ideology through a lukewarm 'the old shall perish at the hands of the progressive young' lens or, worse yet, a game about abusive parenting, ends up really cartoonishly flattening a great deal of the games narrative threads and stakes. BJ, the only mover and shaker in the story, is the only perspective afforded any material representation, so despite being a story about revolution enlisting all walks of life one never gets the sense they're truly liberating anyone, changing anyone's ways of lives, or making any sort of impact. by the time the game resolves what little conflict against its antagonist it had, and it closes on a truly awful cover of a song i won't be spoiling, it becomes apparent it couldn't have ended any other way.

don't be surprised if this eventually turns to 1/5, is all im saying (it did, i can't stand this kind of superficial treatise that people regard highly that nevertheless remains every bit as regressive and annoying as other works before it). discussing whether or not a game has 'aged' mechanically often gives me pause, in part for me because it's difficult to definitively say that they can, but wolfenstein II is an instance of an all-too common type of game: one that has aged narratively. and it's only going to get worse and worse from here on out

Wolfenstein the New Order and Old Blood were two total thrillrides full of action, carefully constructed set-pieces and a whole load of Nazi killing. Both however did have some issues that while not game ruining, did come close to derailing things.

Unfortunately this sequel takes those issues and expands them to the point where its difficult to ignore them. Plot cutscenes drag on, even with skippable areas, it still feels like the game often comes to a grinding halt.

What also makes the game come to a grinding halt are the stealth sections. For a game so gun-ho at times, it really forces you hard into some of the stealth sequences, especially during the Venus base mission. Get spotted? Say hello to robots and death machines swarming over you that'll drain your health in seconds. Its not fun and this is made even worse by the lack of UI assistance in detecting where shots are coming from.

Having to replay moments over and over in this manner makes what should be another 4/5 or even a 3.5 out of 5 into a rather standard 3. Its still fun but theres a lot of moments that just take you out of the action and for a game like Wolfenstein... That feels wrong.