This review contains spoilers
Hugh. Not Hugh as in Hue or Hugh Neutron but Huh-gah, as in a sigh.
So, where do I start? Every now and then, I'll get an FPS where the mouse just does not gel right with the game, whether it be sensitivity or mouse smoothing or what, but for some reason I've had so many games seem so misoptimized and apparently I'm not the only one with this problem but I'm putting it all down here. Vertical sync. Vsync. Turn it off. It worked, that's all I can say.
My dad is someone that plays with his mouse set up an unbearable sensitivity anyway so this might fit him. You know what else my dad plays? Wolfenstein. At least, the older ones. I remember when we moved and he decided it was time to update his gaming catalog since most of his were 5+ years old with classics like the Quake trilogy, Doom 3 and Unreal but one of the games he picked up was Wolfenstein 2009. And oh boy do I have just as fond memories playing that game as he does. It's not the best reviewed game either, heck, I didn't even play it for myself but you better believe that every time he loaded up that game I was right there next to him. I'd pull up a chair, sit on the floor, heck I'd even stand and watch him play, I loved it.
I remember one time I heard him booting up the game and the pitter patter of the gunplay while I was in the shower. I can't say that I've taken a faster shower in my lifetime because I believe that might've been around the time he finally beat the game. Everyone talks about how Bioshock made this and that with all these neat powers and stuff but- you know what, this review isn't for that game, let's skip a little bit ahead. Of course, I was excited when New Order dropped except…my dad found a new game. I bought him the game around release and he still hasn't played it to this day and that was kind of our thing and I wasn't interested in the game he was playing (still playing actually, it's an MMO) anyways, I decided to carry it on anyway because from what I've seen of trailers and pictures, you get a laser gun. That's all I needed to know.
I'm familiar with id's style of gameplay with Doom and such, in fact, I've played the demo of New Colossus and may even recall the mouse problems to be apparent in that as well but I saw this for free on Epic and practically jumped for joy. One of the things that sets this game apart from the others in its franchise is that it tries to lean more into the futuristic stuff as well as Blazkowicz' character.
It's nifty to have the enemies with blue electric coming out of their helmets every now and then, it makes for a good symbol when shooting from a long distance.
As for story, I just raved about 2009's game but I couldn't read you back the story, just what you do in the gameplay and I feel like this might be a similar thing, the opening isn't all that great, it's kind of average war game material, not much of an opener in my opinion and if you really wanted me to dive in why, I actually played the beginning twice.
So it's pretty linear, there are things here and there that you can go off track and collect but the first level is the most linear part of the game in my opinion. If it was story driven or had a setpiece or something that would tie it all together, it'd be fine but it felt stagnant to me, nothing impressed me and had this not had the name attached then I might not have picked it up based on that alone. The plane wasn't much to me.
The game itself is split into two depending on who you choose to keep from dying at the beginning but that decision doesn't feel earned, it's kind of an all or nothing kind of deal, don't give me lame half excuses to pick one character over the other, that's just not fair. So what I jumped out of a plane and this guy happened to be there? So what the other guy threw a grenade one time and I tried to calm him down? Either build them up to make the decision that much more painful or don't give me any context at all. That's from a narrative point of view.
You see, it seemed like it was banking on its gameplay being good enough that you'd give it a pass like for the reason Blazko gets knocked out, a piece of shrapnel blows out of the hole, cuts the back of his head in the funkiest groove imaginable then lets him float out at sea, what is that? And I mean, I expect silly as well as seriousness, it's a game about cyborg nazis and one of the most over exaggerated nazi hunters but I feel the silliness is misplaced here and there.
But it picks up, the scenario they give to you afterwards is actually pretty cool. Someone who ends up injured and in a hospital/asylum, seeing these guys who put him here but not being able to do anything and stuck that way until you're pushed to the brink to either break out or die, then team up with a nurse. I just find that so cool, it's one of the reasons I look up to MGS5's intro so much.
Characters become meaningful (for a while), some even a little more so than others, like Caroline. She was actually introduced in 2009's game and she was carried over so if you didn't know her story, you get the gist here but it's a lot more meaningful if you played 2009 despite being a separate canon (but for some reason just isn't available on any storefronts...)
You can dual wield, I know I mentioned the laser gun and how that was all you needed to sell me on this game and yeah, it is fun when you use it, but it's still limited to certain areas and certain things. I also had a bit of trouble towards the end with getting the wires to line up so it'd actually cut the fence but it was still pretty cool.
There are actually a few side missions here and there but I can't help but feel that there should have been more, like maybe one after every mission. I mean they're mainly just fetch quests inside the base but that's just it, as an overall product, it teases its potential but didn't quite hit the bar for me. It would've been really cool to expand on that asylum idea and have him involuntarily kill, like seeing a nazi will trigger it and kick off the rest but no. Then they have these interesting side characters like Bombate who's there…but that's it. Or in my case, J (it depends on which playthrough you're on) but he gets introduced and you don't get to talk to him until later to which he explains that he doesn't even like America and explains why and how he just hates Nazis more, challenging Blaskowicz' pro American ideals but then the next time we see him he plays the Star Spangled Banner as if "Yeah, he got over that." there was no growth or anything there (there didn't need to be) but it just seemed rushed or shoved aside. You can have those types of things where they're shorter but what then when you don't go too deep into any of it? I was kind of disappointed by that ending because it all sounds so cool when you put it on paper but then in action, it just seemed like another level, like "That's it? Oh well", it didn't feel like a proper end for any of the characters. So it didn't win me over with playing the other later entries but maybe I'll give RTCW a try some time.
So, where do I start? Every now and then, I'll get an FPS where the mouse just does not gel right with the game, whether it be sensitivity or mouse smoothing or what, but for some reason I've had so many games seem so misoptimized and apparently I'm not the only one with this problem but I'm putting it all down here. Vertical sync. Vsync. Turn it off. It worked, that's all I can say.
My dad is someone that plays with his mouse set up an unbearable sensitivity anyway so this might fit him. You know what else my dad plays? Wolfenstein. At least, the older ones. I remember when we moved and he decided it was time to update his gaming catalog since most of his were 5+ years old with classics like the Quake trilogy, Doom 3 and Unreal but one of the games he picked up was Wolfenstein 2009. And oh boy do I have just as fond memories playing that game as he does. It's not the best reviewed game either, heck, I didn't even play it for myself but you better believe that every time he loaded up that game I was right there next to him. I'd pull up a chair, sit on the floor, heck I'd even stand and watch him play, I loved it.
I remember one time I heard him booting up the game and the pitter patter of the gunplay while I was in the shower. I can't say that I've taken a faster shower in my lifetime because I believe that might've been around the time he finally beat the game. Everyone talks about how Bioshock made this and that with all these neat powers and stuff but- you know what, this review isn't for that game, let's skip a little bit ahead. Of course, I was excited when New Order dropped except…my dad found a new game. I bought him the game around release and he still hasn't played it to this day and that was kind of our thing and I wasn't interested in the game he was playing (still playing actually, it's an MMO) anyways, I decided to carry it on anyway because from what I've seen of trailers and pictures, you get a laser gun. That's all I needed to know.
I'm familiar with id's style of gameplay with Doom and such, in fact, I've played the demo of New Colossus and may even recall the mouse problems to be apparent in that as well but I saw this for free on Epic and practically jumped for joy. One of the things that sets this game apart from the others in its franchise is that it tries to lean more into the futuristic stuff as well as Blazkowicz' character.
It's nifty to have the enemies with blue electric coming out of their helmets every now and then, it makes for a good symbol when shooting from a long distance.
As for story, I just raved about 2009's game but I couldn't read you back the story, just what you do in the gameplay and I feel like this might be a similar thing, the opening isn't all that great, it's kind of average war game material, not much of an opener in my opinion and if you really wanted me to dive in why, I actually played the beginning twice.
So it's pretty linear, there are things here and there that you can go off track and collect but the first level is the most linear part of the game in my opinion. If it was story driven or had a setpiece or something that would tie it all together, it'd be fine but it felt stagnant to me, nothing impressed me and had this not had the name attached then I might not have picked it up based on that alone. The plane wasn't much to me.
The game itself is split into two depending on who you choose to keep from dying at the beginning but that decision doesn't feel earned, it's kind of an all or nothing kind of deal, don't give me lame half excuses to pick one character over the other, that's just not fair. So what I jumped out of a plane and this guy happened to be there? So what the other guy threw a grenade one time and I tried to calm him down? Either build them up to make the decision that much more painful or don't give me any context at all. That's from a narrative point of view.
You see, it seemed like it was banking on its gameplay being good enough that you'd give it a pass like for the reason Blazko gets knocked out, a piece of shrapnel blows out of the hole, cuts the back of his head in the funkiest groove imaginable then lets him float out at sea, what is that? And I mean, I expect silly as well as seriousness, it's a game about cyborg nazis and one of the most over exaggerated nazi hunters but I feel the silliness is misplaced here and there.
But it picks up, the scenario they give to you afterwards is actually pretty cool. Someone who ends up injured and in a hospital/asylum, seeing these guys who put him here but not being able to do anything and stuck that way until you're pushed to the brink to either break out or die, then team up with a nurse. I just find that so cool, it's one of the reasons I look up to MGS5's intro so much.
Characters become meaningful (for a while), some even a little more so than others, like Caroline. She was actually introduced in 2009's game and she was carried over so if you didn't know her story, you get the gist here but it's a lot more meaningful if you played 2009 despite being a separate canon (but for some reason just isn't available on any storefronts...)
You can dual wield, I know I mentioned the laser gun and how that was all you needed to sell me on this game and yeah, it is fun when you use it, but it's still limited to certain areas and certain things. I also had a bit of trouble towards the end with getting the wires to line up so it'd actually cut the fence but it was still pretty cool.
There are actually a few side missions here and there but I can't help but feel that there should have been more, like maybe one after every mission. I mean they're mainly just fetch quests inside the base but that's just it, as an overall product, it teases its potential but didn't quite hit the bar for me. It would've been really cool to expand on that asylum idea and have him involuntarily kill, like seeing a nazi will trigger it and kick off the rest but no. Then they have these interesting side characters like Bombate who's there…but that's it. Or in my case, J (it depends on which playthrough you're on) but he gets introduced and you don't get to talk to him until later to which he explains that he doesn't even like America and explains why and how he just hates Nazis more, challenging Blaskowicz' pro American ideals but then the next time we see him he plays the Star Spangled Banner as if "Yeah, he got over that." there was no growth or anything there (there didn't need to be) but it just seemed rushed or shoved aside. You can have those types of things where they're shorter but what then when you don't go too deep into any of it? I was kind of disappointed by that ending because it all sounds so cool when you put it on paper but then in action, it just seemed like another level, like "That's it? Oh well", it didn't feel like a proper end for any of the characters. So it didn't win me over with playing the other later entries but maybe I'll give RTCW a try some time.
Reviewed on Jan 22, 2023