This game was special. Bombastic yet introspective, hyper-violent yet soulful, this latest Wolfenstein reboot was carried by its character work, most notably the reserved, righteous Nazi-killer BJ Blazkowicz. Sublime aesthetic, earnest emotions, and most evil bad guys ever make for a hell of an action-adventure experience. Gameplay-wise, its reception is probably the benefactor of both the changes made to its direct successors and the timing of its release. If DOOM (2016) had been DOOM (2013), The New Order might have seemed limper. If The New Colossus (which I haven’t played) hadn’t leaned into cutscenes and stripped BJ of his health, or Youngblood hadn’t gone co-op with levelled enemies (yucko), the combat foundation established in this first game would have either become stale or been surpassed, rather than actively made worse. As it is, its fun enough, better viewed as an improvement of the trends common to seventh-gen singleplayer FPS.
The combat is also the most obvious weak point of the experience. By the final stretch of the campaign I’d tired of it, turning the difficulty down to cruise through the rest of the experience. It’s uncomfortable in a way that feels like a failure on the part of the game rather than my own – too many cramped or uninteresting levels, enemies that aren’t that interesting to fight, an unwillingness to let you off the leash with your full arsenal. For all the willingness to get crazy, you spend a lot of time shooting a fairly standard assault rifle. It would also be nice if you didn’t have to press square to pick up every single little piece of ammunition, armour, and health.
I like to end these reviews with a “wish”, recognising something genuinely great or at least offering promise and potential, putting that to the fore as my conclusion. Here, it’s less something to do with the game itself, and more the path of their developer. MachineGames has made five games in this iteration of the Wolfenstein series. I’m not too fond of where they’ve taken it after such a promising first step, and I can only hope they can recapture that form with Indiana Jones and whatever IP they’re allowed to go hard with after that.
The combat is also the most obvious weak point of the experience. By the final stretch of the campaign I’d tired of it, turning the difficulty down to cruise through the rest of the experience. It’s uncomfortable in a way that feels like a failure on the part of the game rather than my own – too many cramped or uninteresting levels, enemies that aren’t that interesting to fight, an unwillingness to let you off the leash with your full arsenal. For all the willingness to get crazy, you spend a lot of time shooting a fairly standard assault rifle. It would also be nice if you didn’t have to press square to pick up every single little piece of ammunition, armour, and health.
I like to end these reviews with a “wish”, recognising something genuinely great or at least offering promise and potential, putting that to the fore as my conclusion. Here, it’s less something to do with the game itself, and more the path of their developer. MachineGames has made five games in this iteration of the Wolfenstein series. I’m not too fond of where they’ve taken it after such a promising first step, and I can only hope they can recapture that form with Indiana Jones and whatever IP they’re allowed to go hard with after that.