Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Mike Escobar

Very few modern games have the pedigree that id’s Wolfenstein does.  The legendary creator of such classics as Doom and Quake is almost singlehandedly responsible for creating the first person shooter genre with Wolfenstein 3-D way back in 1992.  FPS’ have matured just a little bit since then, and we’ve had the opportunity to see the series’ hero, B.J. Blazkowicz, a couple of times.  Some of these returns have just been okay (Spear of Destiny in 1993) and some of them have been downright incredible (Return to Castle Wolfenstein/Enemy Territory in 2001).

Although their games haven’t always been perfect, id has constantly led the way in regards to innovation and quality of FPS games.  Whether it’s the creation of multiplayer game modes like deathmatch and capture the flag or just teaching us that killing Nazis and demons (and each other) in creative ways never gets old, id has remained the industry leader.  In teaming up with Raven software and announcing the first new Wolfenstein game in nearly a decade, we were bound to have very high expectations, and in many ways this title meets or exceeds those expectations.

The first thing you’ll notice when you load up Wolfenstein is that the visuals in this game are absolutely beautiful.  Everything is terrifically detailed, from the environments to the character animations.  It’s the attention to detail that make such a huge difference in this title.  For example, when you begin a conversation with an NPC to start (or continue on with) your mission, their eyes will follow you around and they’ll turn to face you as they give you information, even if you’re moving around the room.  When you explore the sewers under Isenstadt (the city that all the action revolves around) you will get drenched by water dripping from the ceiling, creating a spray of droplets across your screen that slowly wipe away and then disappear.  Fire effects are also very well modeled, whether its fire spreading across the city from burning vehicles or the mayhem you spread using the flamethrower, there is plenty of eye candy to enjoy in this game.

Level detail and design is another area where the title shines.  While the first few levels feel very small, about midway through the single player campaign the levels get huge, making for a smooth, contiguous feel to the game that the earlier, shorter missions tended to break up.  While not every single thing is destructible in the game, the majority of furniture, walls, etc. are, reacting to gunfire and explosions, and even to you bumping into them as you walk by.  Of course there are the omnipresent bright red drums that explode when you shoot them, damaging everyone near by.  I believe the barrels are actually required to be in all FPS games by federal law.  Regardless, immersion is the name of the game here and Wolfenstein excels at it. 

The death animations of the Nazis (and your allies) have a ton of variety so you never get tired of mowing them down.  The developers even tied many of the death animations to the sound effects, so if you happen to shoot a Nazi in the neck not only will you be rewarded with a fountain of blood, you’ll also hear them gurgle as they die.  Best of all, if you shoot a Nazi elsewhere you will often hear him cry out “mein leben!” bringing back all sorts of memories from earlier Wolfensteins.  Good stuff and just part of the reason this game has received an “M” rating.

The sound quality is definitely one of the high points of this title.  The levels all have environmental sound effects that feel just right.  The farm level is a quiet countryside where you hear the sounds of a nearby stream, birds chirping, and the underbrush rustling as you sneak through it.  On the flip side, the cannery is a constant cacophony of sound, with the rattle of machinery, a nearby train yard, heavy weapons testing, and firefights all trying to drown each other out.  The sound work sets the tone perfectly for each of the levels and adds immeasurably to the game experience.  The one complaint I had about the environment sounds is that they completely go away whenever you go to swap weapons.  Your enemies can be in mid-rant when you decide to switch from your machinegun to your sniper rifle and all sound will cease.  Not a huge deal, but it definitely breaks up the gameplay and is a minor distraction.

The voice acting is actually very good throughout, with a couple minor exceptions.  Your character, B.J., is ably voiced by Peter Jessop, but the rest of the cast lays on the fake German accents a little heavily at times.  The development team definitely put forth  the effort into having a variety of voices and accents for the entire game, so it’s not like you hear the same person speaking over and over.  The only issue I had with the voice work was with General Zetta, who unfortunately is one of the main bad guys so you end up hearing from him quite a bit.  Apparently the actor was taught that the more gravelly a person’s voice is, the more evil he is.  "This must mean that Keifer Sutherland is Satan himself, but I digress…"P>

The other sound-related complaint I had was not so much with the quality of voice acting, but rather how it is implemented.  For many of the missions you will have some sort of guide leading you to a rendezvous point elsewhere in the city.  Your guide will lead off, moving from cover to cover, checking around corners for Nazis and waiting for you to catch up to him.  So far, so good, and a cool mechanism for getting you to your mission.  The problem starts when you don’t sprint after your guide immediately.  Your guide will whisper to you something along the lines of “Hurry up B.J., you must come zis vay!”  Your guide will say that over…and over…and over again until you run up to him.  Well if you’re running through a city loaded with hidden items and passageways and something catches your eye, you’re going to go check it out.  Just be prepared to feel like a teenager that was supposed to take the trash out ten minutes ago and Mom has caught you watching TV.  That’s right, it’s nagging central.

The default control scheme for B.J. is pretty much standard, with the L1 button zooming in, R1 firing your weapon, x to jump, triangle to use an object, square to reload, and circle to crouch.  The controls are fully customizable, but anyone familiar with first person shooters will be able to pick up a controller and play immediately due to the standard control layout.

This does bring up what many people will call the major “problem” with this game – almost without exception, current first person shooters have some sort of cover mechanic.  This allows for the character to run up and lean against walls or other objects to get the maximum protection from enemy gunfire.  Usually included with this gameplay mechanic is the ability to blind fire from cover and lean around corners.  Wolfenstein doesn’t employ any of these abilities, only letting you crouch, sprint, and jump as the options available for controlling your character.  In my opinion this does not hurt the gameplay at all, but some will consider this a step backwards in this genre and choose to pass on an otherwise excellent game, which is unfortunate.

At its core Wolfenstein is all about killing hordes of Nazis, usually with a very thin excuse for killing said Nazis, but how much of a reason do you need for killing ‘em right?  Wolfenstein does a good job of following a coherent plot involving the Third Reich, the Thule Society, and the existence of something called the Black Sun Dimension. 

The game starts off with a well-executed cutscene aboard the German destroyer Tirpitz as it is about to launch a devastating missile attack against London.  It is there that we are introduced to our hero, B.J. Blazkowicz as he sabotages the attack and escapes the ship in Indiana Jones-esqe style, along with a strange medallion…

Back in London, we see B.J. reporting in to his superiors about the strange amulet and it’s even stranger powers.  B.J. is informed that this amulet has something in common with a not-so-secret project being run by a General Zetta in the German town of Isenstadt, deep behind enemy lines.  Since this has the potential for being a supremely powerful weapon that the Allies couldn’t possibly overcome, they send in one man – you.

Once you arrive in Isenstadt you are immediately greeted by black marketeers who give you a short overview of the state of the city, as well as their part in it.  You quickly find out about the local resistance fighters and go to meet them, engaging in small firefights along the way.  One of the real beauties of this game is the way the town changes as you progress through your missions.  Obviously at the start it is the weakest cannon fodder Nazis patrolling the town, and they only provide a moderate challenge to you.  As the story progresses, you can uncover orders from the German high command stating that the streets will now be patrolled by larger groups and include heavy troopers, which can be a nightmare to face.  You’ll also find the resistance fighters are out more often, as they have been emboldened by your successes.  While not a true sandbox-style game, the openness and way that the city changes due to your actions makes for an engrossing gameplay experience.

After meeting with the leader of the resistance you are sent to your first mission outside the city, at the dig site.  It is here that you initially encounter Wolfenstein’s main selling point, the Veil.  As part of the dig site mission, you acquire your own medallion, finding out that it is a relic of the Thule Society that allows you to enter the Veil.  The Veil is also known as the Black Sun dimension, a shadowy parallel universe that the Nazis hope to harness the power of to create ultimate weapons.  B.J. learns that he can enter the Veil and use that power to give him all sorts of advantages in combat, such as slowing time, seeing hidden objects, and increasing the damage of his weapons.  All these advantages are limited by the amount of dark energy he has available, but this energy can be recharged quite easily by standing in pools of energy that exist in both dimensions.

"The Veil is easily the coolest feature in Wolfenstein, providing a gameplay twist with tons of potential.".  When you press down on the face buttons, your view is overlaid with a greenish tinge, revealing entrances to hidden areas and ladders to access the town’s rooftops.  Enemies are also far easier to see when you’re in the Veil, like having magical night vision goggles.  You fight as you normally would while in the Veil, with one more twist – small floating creatures called Geists exist there.  They won’t attack you unless you kill too many of them, instead they just float around minding their own business.  The really cool part is they act like mini floating explosive barrels, so whenever they congregate around a bunch of your enemies, just shoot one and they’ll explode/electrocute them all while you sit back and enjoy the show.  Be careful though, if you kill too many of them the Geists will turn on you, and believe me, they are a pain to fight.  The good news is that if you accidentally kill one too many of the Geists you can just drop out of the Veil and they can’t reach you.

After returning from the dig site you meet Wolfenstein’s third faction (fourth if you count the black marketeers), the Golden Dawn.  The Golden Dawn are the modern day keepers of mystical knowledge that have been protecting humanity from the dangers of the Black Sun dimension.  At this point all the factions are set and you are free to pursue your own path through the game.  You will have missions available from both the resistance and the Golden Dawn as well as individual missions available throughout the town.  These one-off missions are not very common, but they help flesh out the plot and provide you with the opportunity to earn some extra cash.

Speaking of cash, there are three types of resources that you can acquire on missions and while running around town – gold, intel, and power tomes.  Gold is self-explanatory and gives you currency to purchase weapon upgrades at the black market.  Wolfenstein has an excellent system for handling upgrades to your weapons and Veil abilities.  At the black market (and in your journal) you can see what every upgrade is, how much it will cost and what mission you have to complete to unlock that upgrade for purchase.  You are frequently warned that there is not enough gold in the game to purchase every upgrade for every weapon, so you must plan your purchases wisely.  You are aided in this by being able to sell the upgrades you own back to the black market at half price.  Let’s say you don’t need that extra ammo upgrade for your starting machinegun any more.  Just sell it back and get some cash you can use towards buying the add-ons for the super weapons you get later in the game.

Intel is another type of resource that serves several purposes in the game.  Intel covers everything from love letters to memos posted by the high command.  Some of these just add a little bit of flavor to the game, but others provide important hints on what the Germans are working on and how to best combat it.  Every piece of intel you find is voiced by the different characters in the game, which is a really nice touch.  A love letter from a local girl to a German soldier leaving for duty is ready by a sultry female voice while orders for the guards at SS Headquarters are read to you in a gruff German accent.  Again, there’s that great attention to detail that makes this such a good game. 

I did have one issue with the way intel is handled though.  When you pick up the individual pieces of intel, you hold down triangle to “read” them.  This will pop up a picture of what you’ve found, whether it be a typewritten sheet of paper, a clipboard with a guard roster, or a blueprint of a new weapon being developed.  The voice actor will then begin to read the intel to you, with you having the option of pressing x to go to the second page of the intel or pressing circle to return to the game.  Far too many times I would press x to see the next page of text and have a nearly blank sheet of paper with two or three words at the top!  I kept wondering why they couldn’t have just enlarged the document a tiny bit (there’s plenty of room on-screen to do this) and get rid of the “next page” option altogether.  It might seem like a minor thing, but it did get annoying after while.

The final type of collectible item is the power tome.  These mystical relics are far fewer than gold or intel, but they unlock upgrades to your Thule medallion which can have a huge impact on your powers.

With no cover mechanic present, combat is a throwback to the earlier days of FPS’, like Quake or Unreal Tournament.  This is not a bad thing at all, but it might take some getting used to as many gamers are now in the habit of being able to use those techniques.  The use of the Veil and the variety of the enemies in the game are what make combat in Wolfenstein so special.  As you progress through the story, you’ll encounter a wide variety of enemies that will test how quickly you can think and react, not just how quickly you can mash down the fire button.  The heavy troopers may seem invulnerable to damage until you enter the veil and realize that the two small vents on their back are their weakness (you can also discover this from intel).  The assassins on the other hand, are invisible until they attack and take no damage from you while you’re in the Veil.  The only way to take them out is to drop out of the veil immediately and start pouring bullets into them when they get close to you.  The boss fights also offer some unique twists to combat and will make you think about how to overcome them.

Multiplayer in Wolfenstein consists of three different modes – Team Deathmatch, Stopwatch, and Objective.  For Team Deathmatch you race the other team to rack up the required number of kills while in Stopwatch you have to perform certain tasks in a limited amount of time, like retrieving ammo for a disabled tank and then using it’s gun to blow open a bank vault so you can rob it.  In an objective match you either attack or defend an objective for a set amount of time to be able to win the match.

There are three separate playable classes in the multiplayer game; Medic, Soldier, or Engineer with each class having their own weapons and veil abilities.  As you might have guessed, the Medic can heal and revive downed team members, the Soldier has a wider variety of weapons available and is tougher than the other classes, and the Engineer has the ability to construct things like barricades and turrets.  Wolfenstein has shipped with eight different maps to play on, all with their own tricks to learn and sniping spots to find.  With matches of up to six a side, the maps remain nice and tight without too much space.  There’s nothing worse than jumping into a team deathmatch and spending most of your time looking for someone to shoot, but this isn’t a problem with Wolfenstein’s well-constructed levels. 

The bottom line though is how well does multiplayer play?  I’m very happy to report that the multiplayer experience is rock solid.  The levels are well-designed and set up to prevent spawn camping, and all the classes have something to contribute in each game type.  You definitely won’t want to run matches of any type where you’re missing any one of these classes.

Upgrades for each class in multiplayer are set up a bit differently than other shooters, with every weapon being unlocked for each class from the very start.  The player begins as a rank 1 private and gains rank with more experience.  As you perform actions in multiplayer matches you earn money that can be spent on upgrading your weapons and abilities after each match.  You receive cash for kills, using your abilities, and winning the match.

With so much history behind the Wolfenstein series, it can be quite difficult to live up to the legacy of the games that came before you.  The latest entry in the series does a fantastic job of this, from its gorgeous graphics to its solid story line; everything is well thought out and well executed.  With the potential for additional multiplayer maps thrown in, this is a great value overall.

Gaming Trend Score

90

1. Graphics: 95
2. Audio: 90
3. Controls: 85
4. Gameplay: 93
5. Value/Replay: 85
6. OVERALL:90