Wolfenstein: The New Order is a game about trying to take down the Nazis after they win the war. Blah blah blah.
Gameplay - 7/10
The gameplay was great at some times and horrible at others. I enjoyed fighting regular enemies, and the occasional dog.
However, melee combat is boring and I really didn't enjoy fighting the mechs or heavy enemies as their health was inconsistent.
I had no indication of how much damage they had taken, and how much health they had so the first encouter I wasn't even sure whether I was damaging them or not.
Not to mention sometimes a heavy enemy would die in 1 rocket blast, and sometimes it would take 3 to kill them. Sometimes I could facepummel enemies with a dual-shotgun and sometimes two magazines wasn't enough to take them down.
This problem even extending to bossfights like the final boss, where I didn't actually know how much health he had since the mech didn't seem to become more and more damaged as I played so I was just trying to shoot at him.
The bossfights were cool for the most part, but the final boss fight was a MAJOR let down.
For the most part the difficulty was good (I played on I AM DEATH INCARNATE! difficulty), however because enemy footsteps aren't loud enough I would end up dying in cheap ways where enemies managed to sneak behind me.
Also, I died about 3 times because of friendly fire. I understand the appeal of friendlies being able to damage you in they get in range of you, however maybe they should've less damage against you than regular enemies.
I like the perk system for the most part, but I didn't like the cover system. It just feels clunky to use, especially on higher difficulties and got me killed several times. The only reason I used it is to level up perks.
Story, World and Characters 8/10
The worldbuiding is great, you get loads of little newspaper snippets and articles you can read to get a feel for what the world is like.
Not to mention german versions of pre-existing music and hidden letters.
I seriously doubt EVERYONE would've been this evil if Germany actually won WWII, I'm glad that they decided to go all in on this idea.
The story starts out quite strong and goes off the rails a bit with secret organisations and space stations, which was fine the main problem was the main villain.
He appears TWICE in the game, and other than that does nothing else at all. Yes the villain is cruel and horrible, but not prominent at all in the game.
At some point you also get the option to save one of two people, unfortunately this option doesn't really affect much and Fergus' timeline is objectively better.
It feels more like a cheap way to get you to play the game twice.
Other than "Deathshead", the other characters were all cool and all had their moments to shine. My favourites are obviously William and Anya.
Graphics and Audio 6.3/10
I had no problem with the graphics and in fact they looked quite good, same goes for the music. My favourite being the German liscenced music placed in there to add worldbuilding.
For the most part the SFX and voice acting were good. Unfortunately, sometimes audio was a little too quite. I didn't always hear English dialogue and quiet footsteps meant enemies could easily sneak up on me in a gunfight and kill me.
Also, maybe they could've used sound a bit more effectively to show that enemies were taking damage or to show what health they were add. Such as a beeping sound when a mech is on low health.
Replayability, Value for Money and Extra Content 7.5/10
The game is very linear and features decent gunplay.
At first, the game gives the appearance of essentially being able to be played twice with very different experiences, however that is not true. The timelines are not different enough to warrant another 10 hours of my time.
However, despite that if you DO plan to replay the game then the extra timeline makes a second playthrough a lot better I'm sure.
Value for money is decent, especially if you buy on a sale.
The collectibles range from really intersteing like Ramona's audio logs to stupid like the Nazi gold.
There is a really cool big side puzzle for nerds, however I won't ever do it because it requires me to get all of the "enigma codes" which just results in a fuck ton of collectibles.
Innovation, Impact and Technical Execution - 6/10
There isn't much innovation outside of the dogs as enemies.
They tried to make a cover system which wasn't very good. They tried to make electro-weapons which were the worst weapons to use in my opinion.
As for impact, I really don't know and I really don't care, I might just remove "Impact" as a metric I measure since I really don't know enough about the gaming industry and its history to know what games had a large impact and which ones didn't.
Technical execution was okay. No bugs, which was great however like I said earlier quiet footsteps and shitty cover system and janky enemy health.
Overall 70/100 - "Inhale... Count to four..."
I really did enjoy this game despite some of its jank and I will look into the sequels released for this game in the future.
Gameplay - 7/10
The gameplay was great at some times and horrible at others. I enjoyed fighting regular enemies, and the occasional dog.
However, melee combat is boring and I really didn't enjoy fighting the mechs or heavy enemies as their health was inconsistent.
I had no indication of how much damage they had taken, and how much health they had so the first encouter I wasn't even sure whether I was damaging them or not.
Not to mention sometimes a heavy enemy would die in 1 rocket blast, and sometimes it would take 3 to kill them. Sometimes I could facepummel enemies with a dual-shotgun and sometimes two magazines wasn't enough to take them down.
This problem even extending to bossfights like the final boss, where I didn't actually know how much health he had since the mech didn't seem to become more and more damaged as I played so I was just trying to shoot at him.
The bossfights were cool for the most part, but the final boss fight was a MAJOR let down.
For the most part the difficulty was good (I played on I AM DEATH INCARNATE! difficulty), however because enemy footsteps aren't loud enough I would end up dying in cheap ways where enemies managed to sneak behind me.
Also, I died about 3 times because of friendly fire. I understand the appeal of friendlies being able to damage you in they get in range of you, however maybe they should've less damage against you than regular enemies.
I like the perk system for the most part, but I didn't like the cover system. It just feels clunky to use, especially on higher difficulties and got me killed several times. The only reason I used it is to level up perks.
Story, World and Characters 8/10
The worldbuiding is great, you get loads of little newspaper snippets and articles you can read to get a feel for what the world is like.
Not to mention german versions of pre-existing music and hidden letters.
I seriously doubt EVERYONE would've been this evil if Germany actually won WWII, I'm glad that they decided to go all in on this idea.
The story starts out quite strong and goes off the rails a bit with secret organisations and space stations, which was fine the main problem was the main villain.
He appears TWICE in the game, and other than that does nothing else at all. Yes the villain is cruel and horrible, but not prominent at all in the game.
At some point you also get the option to save one of two people, unfortunately this option doesn't really affect much and Fergus' timeline is objectively better.
It feels more like a cheap way to get you to play the game twice.
Other than "Deathshead", the other characters were all cool and all had their moments to shine. My favourites are obviously William and Anya.
Graphics and Audio 6.3/10
I had no problem with the graphics and in fact they looked quite good, same goes for the music. My favourite being the German liscenced music placed in there to add worldbuilding.
For the most part the SFX and voice acting were good. Unfortunately, sometimes audio was a little too quite. I didn't always hear English dialogue and quiet footsteps meant enemies could easily sneak up on me in a gunfight and kill me.
Also, maybe they could've used sound a bit more effectively to show that enemies were taking damage or to show what health they were add. Such as a beeping sound when a mech is on low health.
Replayability, Value for Money and Extra Content 7.5/10
The game is very linear and features decent gunplay.
At first, the game gives the appearance of essentially being able to be played twice with very different experiences, however that is not true. The timelines are not different enough to warrant another 10 hours of my time.
However, despite that if you DO plan to replay the game then the extra timeline makes a second playthrough a lot better I'm sure.
Value for money is decent, especially if you buy on a sale.
The collectibles range from really intersteing like Ramona's audio logs to stupid like the Nazi gold.
There is a really cool big side puzzle for nerds, however I won't ever do it because it requires me to get all of the "enigma codes" which just results in a fuck ton of collectibles.
Innovation, Impact and Technical Execution - 6/10
There isn't much innovation outside of the dogs as enemies.
They tried to make a cover system which wasn't very good. They tried to make electro-weapons which were the worst weapons to use in my opinion.
As for impact, I really don't know and I really don't care, I might just remove "Impact" as a metric I measure since I really don't know enough about the gaming industry and its history to know what games had a large impact and which ones didn't.
Technical execution was okay. No bugs, which was great however like I said earlier quiet footsteps and shitty cover system and janky enemy health.
Overall 70/100 - "Inhale... Count to four..."
I really did enjoy this game despite some of its jank and I will look into the sequels released for this game in the future.