Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Auctung!! Wolfenstein Review



First Wolverine, now Wolfenstein, at this rate Raven's next title surely will be "Wolfgang Puck's Fantasy Cook-off"; that may actually be better than this new version of id's classic shooter, Wolfenstein.



As a direct story-driven sequel to 2001's "Return to Castle Wolfenstein", "Wolfenstein", finds you again in the persona of the famous BJ Blazkowicz, a highly decorated member of the OSA (Office of Secret Actions of course).  Your mission is to infiltrate the heart of the Reich, bent on discovering evidence they Nazi's may have stumbled upon a new and mysterious power, the Black Sun energy.  But wait, YOU also have access to an array of powers almost out of the gate, gaining access to The Veil, a dark parallel dimension full of geists and other creatures that you can only see while in this mode.  Yes, already we've added in parallel worlds, and mysterious powers, that allow you to slow time amongst other things.

Continue reading for our full review



Gameplay is straight-forward FPS here, no frills, no thrills.  Adding to the mix are various puzzle elements that allow you to employ your newly gained Veil powers.  Sight, Shield, and time can be manipulated to assist in your missions. But this is really just a standard FPS.



The game does have a bit of an open-world element to it, with the hub world Isenstadt, a small town in Germany, that you can explore between missions you take for various factions.  I think it's due to this more mission-based structure that has it feeling as if's not able to hit the marks it's aiming for.  Over time you'll also collect gold pieces, and you can upgrade your weapons stats, like accuracy and reload time, etc.



It's not that the game is bad, or unplayable or anything...it's just forgetable.  You'll play through this game, maybe tinker a bit into the multiplayer, and move on.  Unless you're really into the game, which I presume some of you will, you won't even spend much time replaying, or losing hours to the multiplayer component.  It's a perfect case of it's biggest strength (the brand-name) being it's biggest weakness; the Wolfenstein Legacy has such a high bar to meet.



As far as Multiplayer goes - you really get a few modes that are really beginning to show their seams; Team Deathmatch, Objective and Stopwatch.  Nothing to write home about, especially given the plethora of other, more satisfyingly deep shooters out there.  You'll play this for the single player campaign if you play it at all.

Overall, Mashbuttons gives Wolfenstein a 7 out of 10.  A good-enough time-filler before the Fall's onslaught of bigger, more AAA titles; but just barely.

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