Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (2017)

Blazkowicz, una máquina perfecta de matar nazis y enamorado de una mujer igual de antifascista, lucha por un futuro mejor con una tecnología ancestral oculta, con base en un submarino nuclear alemán, un viaje a la luna y en silla de ruedas. Da igual lo absurdo que creas que puedes hacer una historia, Wolfenstein siempre te sorprende.

Te mentiría si te dijese que esta entrega es completamente rompedora e innovadora, y que revoluciona la saga por completo. Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus es lo que uno esperaría, más nazis que matar de nuevas formas distintas y más creativas con un plot muy loco y un humor absurdo. Sin embargo, precisamente esto es lo que hace brillar a esta secuela, es una obra que no pretende reinventar la rueda, sino hacerla más redonda. Bethesda ha sabido medir perfectamente el alcance y las pretensiones del título, desarrollando un lanzamiento para aquellas personas que disfrutaron del anterior.

A pesar de que la historia me ha parecido poco elaborada, esto se justifica con el cariño que se ha puesto al desarrollo de personajes. William Blazkowicz sigue siendo la misma máquina perfectamente entrenada para matar nazis, pero en esta entrega tiene sus propias reflexiones y preocupaciones, especialmente por su querida Anya. A su vez, la relación entre el resto de personajes está bastante trabajada, haciendo interesante los diálogos y las interacciones, algo que muchos títulos olvidan o le restan importancia.

Por otro lado, el gameplay, si bien en línea con lo comentado antes no es revolucionario, funciona, es bastante disfrutón y ofrece una amplia variedad de formas de desmembrar fascistas. Sigue siendo la misma fórmula que hemos visto en otras ocasiones pero ofreciendo el suficiente cambio en los niveles para que no resulte repetitivo.

En conclusión, espero que nunca pase de moda matar nazis y podamos ver nuevas entregas de Wolfenstein tan divertidas como esta (we don't talk about Younblood).

NB: Microsoft, which owns Bethesda, is at time of writing under boycott by the BDS movement due to its role in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. I had already begun playing this game when that announcement was made, and as it's not one of their big live-service games I didn't feel continuing to play it was meaningfully supporting the company. That being said, if you have not already purchased this game please don't.

I've been having a hard time with games lately.

I started Baldur's Gate 3 in July of last year and I just finished the Steel Foundry, aka the worst encounter design in the game that has fully made me stop caring and now I just want to get this thing done; my save file says I've played for 87 hours, but the PS5 says I've played for 101, because that's how much I've had to save scum when hours of work didn't pan out because some NPC got themselves killed or I found out actually I have to do this other mission first.

I used to break out Tony Hawk's Underground and play through it in a day, on Sick Mode. This last play-through started several weeks ago and has had me feeling stumped multiple times, and I think "Combo the City" may have fully defeated me (besides which even if I beat it that just means I'll eventually have to do the final "Beat Eric's Best Line," which is just the same thing but harder.)

And don't even get me started on Bloodborne (seriously, don't, I've got a 3-part essay planned for that if I ever actually finish it.)

But Wolfenstein II, I thought, would be different. The first game was a fun romp, a fast-paced action power fantasy about killin' Nazis with your pals, and boy could I use some of that. Well, turns out Wolfenstein II is actually kinda hard. Like, way harder than the first game. There were times when I simply did not understand how I was supposed to progress through a seemingly impossible scenario. I remember liking the stealth sections in the first game, but here there are always so many moving parts I think I maybe did two or three of them successfully, the rest inevitably devolving into a near-death bloodbath or just me running through to the next checkpoint because I'd hit my limit on how many times I was willing to try the same fight over and over. And to be clear, this on standard "Bring 'em on!" difficulty.

Eventually I'm at what I don't realize is the last fight of the campaign. And it's hard. And I die. And I die again. And I die some more. And I change my strategy. And I die some more. And I change my strategy again. And I die some more. And I find out that right behind where my save was starting me are armor and health pickups and the giant laserball weapon and I'm like "Ooooh, that's what I was supposed to do" so I grab those and overwrite my save and go back in and die again and again and again and then I do the unthinkable and I turn down the difficulty. And then I die again and then I think one more time and then I finally beat it. And then cleaning up after the battle I find out there was a whole tunnel system underneath the arena that I didn't know about and that probably would've been really helpful and I'M JUST SO FUCKING DONE.

I am 31 years old, I have chronic pain in my hands, I have very little free time during which I actually have the energy to play a game (and like, there are other things I want to do with my time as well), I have a long list of games I want to play and that list will never get substantially shorter because there will always be more and at some point, or rather, at this precise point, I really have to ask myself, "What do I get from the game being hard?"

Yes, there is the satisfaction of solving a particularly tricky puzzle, or beating a boss not because you leveled up enough but because you actually learned their moves and developed an effective strategy, or just the immersion of a character whose supposed to be good at getting out of a tough situation getting out of a tough situation.

But that's never been the primary thing I want from a game. I want novel mechanics, evocative music and visuals, fascinating worldbuilding, engaging characters, a story I actually care about, and, ideally, I'd like to have fun. And I can get all of that on easy mode. There is a solid argument to be made that, as my patience and physical capabilities dwindle, all a game being hard does for me is make me spend more time with it and enjoy that time less. I wanted to enjoy Wolfenstein II. And I could have. So why didn't I do that for myself?

Anyway thanks for coming to my gaming midlife crisis, Wolfenstein II's a pretty good game if you like starting a revolution against Nazis, though I can't imagine that would be relevant any time soon.

p.s. The War Map missions are an interesting idea but the game gives very little incentive to engage with them unless you just really want more game. It would've been nice if they interacted with the campaign more, or had interesting narratives of their own.

p.p.s. Not gonna talk about Sigrun. I'm just not. I refuse.

p.p.p.s. I think what really started me tilting on this game was when I had a really good run going in the Wolfenstein 3D arcade cabinet and then I got the elevator room and I opened it and didn't see anyone and I even like peered around the corner but clearly I didn't peer far enough because I walk in and get murked by a Russian and I didn't know you could actually save your game in the arcade cabinet so it starts me all the way back at the beginning of the level with no weapons and I was like well I might as well be dead then.

p.p.p.p.s. I feel sorry for everyone who played this with Wyatt instead of Fergus.

p.p.p.p.p.s. Is most of this game a dream? I mean, that doesn't seem like something they would do but...I feel like there are reasons to believe that may be the case.

p.p.p.p.p.p.s. The U-boat is way too easy to get lost in, I shouldn't have to fill in the minimap all over again every time I come back there but even then it's just a maze and it's so hard to like go through it systemically and make sure you're talking to everyone to get their little side missions.

I had only ever played action-FPS games within the Call of Duty series (starting from the first one—I think the last I played was the first Ghosts). I used to enjoy watching the cinematic campaign and the storyline. Even though I have a good PC (for both work and fun), I recently got myself a Switch Lite and it’s already become my little favorite. I decided to pick up some games to play on it, partly just to test how portable each title feels on the device.

About the game—briefly—I had never played other titles in the series before. It’s a more violent series than your average FPS, with an interesting premise: a dystopia where the Nazis won. There’s a mix of some serious themes and some humorous moments. Some of the “humorous” bits are funny and all, though kind of silly (e.g., a drunken party scene during a birthday celebration, or an animal with the head of one creature and the body of another). Other moments didn’t feel necessary at all (e.g., the scene of two characters having sex inside a vehicle).

There’s another provocative moment that maybe carries deeper meaning. In one scene, a female character—who has a romantic relationship with the main character and is pregnant—bursts into a shootout topless, covered in blood. While I’m not a fan of gratuitous nudity and sex in media, something about this scene caught my attention: the possible reference to the painting Liberty Leading the People (La Liberté guidant le peuple, Delacroix). Maybe it's just my imagination, but if that was intentional, it would actually be quite brilliant—something profound hiding behind what initially appears to be mere physical sensationalism.

The moments that show Europeans, Americans, and others uniting against Nazi totalitarianism are very well done. It’s sad to see how we still deal with forms of totalitarianism today, and unfortunate that the West is so fragmented. I won’t go into politics, but it’s fair to say that Gramsci and others did a pretty good job in subverting the culture and inherited values of the West. There's still a spark left in the fight for liberty—nothing could be more Western and European than that (and I’m Brazilian, a South American who was colonized by Europeans, and I’m deeply grateful for that. Otherwise, well, just look at some documentaries about isolated Brazilian Amerindians and you'll see—they haven’t changed in over half a century. So, today's Brazil, which is already pretty bad, would be unimaginably worse).

Anyway, it’s an ode to the Democratic Rule of Law, to individual freedoms, and so on. It might not feature idealized characters, but rather brutes, drunks, and promiscuous folks—but it's what we’ve got to stand up to Hitler in this story. It makes us reflect on the dark times we live in, with increasing taxation and growing rifts between states (my friend, nothing worse than that—we saw something similar right before the World Wars. This thing of excessive taxation is totally anti-liberal). When you’re my client, we’re all smiles and handshakes; but once suspicion sets in and business turns sour, the sword hilt creeps ever closer to the hands that once clasped in peace. May God protect and keep us...

Back to the technical aspects of the game! I was surprised by how good it looks on the Switch Lite. It’s impressive that a little device with 2015 hardware (intentionally capped by Nintendo to preserve battery life) can run the game so well. I found the lighting good, some reflections and effects nicely done. The textures suffer, and the resolution is what takes the biggest hit. To be honest, I use the Lite at home—I’m not really going out much (this is Brazil, after all—there’s still a risk you go out with your device and come back empty-handed...). Even so, I like to have games on the system just in case I visit a relative or something, and during those moments when there's not much to do—people are napping, for example—I can play a bit.

So, I say all this because I recognize it’s a general compromise for portability on pretty outdated hardware. And viewed that way, it’s actually quite good. But we have to be honest about the resolution. I'm not young anymore—30+—and even though I don’t have vision problems, some areas were really hard to see, especially the more open ones. Everything gets too blurry, and it’s terrible—it feels like I have vision issues, and it really strained my eyes at times, especially in an FPS where you try to spot enemies at a distance.

What I’d recommend is lowering the difficulty. I’m not a hardcore gamer, and playing on Normal, I found the game quite challenging. Normal felt more like Hard. When I switched to Easy, the pacing improved (and then it actually felt like Normal, haha). I changed it halfway through because I was more interested in finishing the game and seeing the story unfold. Doing so made it more manageable—I could charge into enemies and afford to take more hits from personal mistakes than the higher difficulty would allow.

Note: It took me about 11h 46m to finish the game.

So yeah, that’s it. I wanted to write this review to praise the Switch port and point out its weaknesses in case someone is considering buying the title and wondering if it’s worth it.

One of the best FPS in the class. The gun play is really fun, you can versatile everything you want. I really loved the weapon development idea what's new for me in the series. There's a lot of option how the player want to achieve a map. Really loved that creativity what they brought into the mechanics. The story and the cut scenes were cool and loved the dialogues between the side characters and all of the happenings in these scenes.

In a nutshell I have a lot of fun with this game and really like it in all aspects. This was a perfect point to ending the story what the previous game began.

There was only one thing what i didn't really love (the music was perfect): I think something is wrong with the sound design...it was way much worse than the previous game...here usually i have no clue where's the steps come from...and the music volume in action scenes overtake the other sounds.

Kill them all...get this game...you won't regret it if you like the genre.

After the cliffhanger conclusion on The New Order, The New Colossus picks up on the turbulent story of William "B.J." Blazkowicz, the gun-wielding nazi bane. After joining the resistance movement in Europe, recovering ancient artifacts that would be the key for retaliation and landing decisive strikes on the nazi military forces and facilities, Blazkowicz would find himself crippled again - more badly than before. This time, the game momentarily takes trips down the memory lane throughout the story, touching upon his shaken childhood and shedding light on his dysfunctional, nuclear family. Besides the physical handicaps that he has to negotiate with over the initial chapters, the thoughts heard from him highlights his internal struggles, with a sense of helplessness that spawned from watching his comrades falling to the overpowering regime and exposing his human limitations.

The New Colossus gets the strength points passed on here from the previous title, what with the liberty to approach the levels that suits you best; either stealthy way to pick off enemies one-by-one like silent death walking or doing the balls-to-the-wall gun-blazing through the frays. And knowing myself, I usually go by the former method, since it's still satisfying executing the foes unnoticed... These choice factors gets complemented with the modular weapon upgrades, for the exploratory gamers gets their rewards due with upgrade kits scattered throughout the levels.

I don't have much nitpicks out of this that stick out like sore thumbs on this, although I already miss the old perk requirements since overcharging my health to 200 does nothing extra out of the practical. The game does pull off some neat, cinematic narrative, get more exciting and pulling new twists in regards to the story development, gameplay and new characters. Besides, you get to meet Herr H and have memorable experiences however you choose to go by.

Apologies beforehand. This will probably end up being a long read, but I’ll keep it spoiler-free.

After loving my time with both The New Order and The Old Blood, The New Colossus was the last title of the new Wolfenstein saga left for me to play (I’m excluding Youngblood from this conversation). And even though this was - understandably - the most technically realised game of the trilogy, it was my least favourite one. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it: for all intents and purposes, TNC still achieves important continuity: its awesome gunplay, intuitive enough structure and in-your-face gory violence, which are part of the series’ trademark, are all there, and visually, even though it’s far from being the most atmospheric entry, it’s amazing to play through. I will, however, argue that the level design feels more confusing than in previous entries, that the stealth mechanics feel somewhat like an afterthought, and that the unnecessarily frustrating level of challenge is made worse by poor game indicators. But these issues aren’t big enough to stain what was in the whole a very enjoyable gameplay experience.

The biggest problem, for me, is that this game feels divided in its motivation. For as much as TNC manages to be a satisfying FPS, it also tries to be a narrative ride that, despite its many over-the-top storytelling segments, still means to be taken seriously. I can’t shake the feeling that, intentionally or otherwise, the game ends up getting itself wrapped in a socio-cultural message that not only does very little to make it enjoyable, it also also further underlines its inconsistencies. The cutscenes are often overly long and not particularly interesting, some characters are almost portrayed as a stereotypical caricature, Blazcowicz’s internal thoughts sometimes seem like a dumbed down version of previous entries, and even though the game is clearly split into two different parts, the ending seems obviously rushed and, in a sense, anti-climatic. There is a quasi Tarantino type tone throughout the entire story, and this I’m sure was intentional, but what separates Tarantino’s work and TNC is that, unlike the game, by refusing to become hostage to social or political constrains, his films are (usually) uncompromising in its approach and storytelling. Consequently, the story in TNC ends up looking cliched and somewhat under-explored. This contributes to the feeling of annoyance when you conclude that the time spent telling an inconsistent, globally lukewarm tale would be much better used in actual shooting gameplay. Yet, at the same time and as contradictory as it seems, there are absolute gems to be found in this story, ones which evoke humour, surprise, shock and repulsion, and some of which feature what is arguably one of the sickest, most psychopathic and ultimately accomplished villains I’ve encountered in recent videogame experiences - easily the best in the entire series. This, along with the fact that some of the characters do end up growing on you, makes TNC’s story a difficult one to rate as a whole.

In the end though, adding all this up resulted in an overall enjoyable experience that I can’t help but recommend. For me, The New Colossus is a 7.5/10. I definitely ended up having fun with it and, interestingly enough, reflecting upon its underlying tones more than I thought I ever would. But I can also absolutely understand why this seems to have become the most divisive game of the entire saga.

It has been a long time since I played the first Wolfenstein, so kudos to the devs for putting the "previously on Wolfenstein" montage at the beginning. Granted, even with that my memory of the first game is fuzzy at best. I remember it being fairly standard alternate history sci-fi. Robot dogs, lasers, that sort of thing. Things get cranked up a notch here.

Now, alternate history stories about the Nazis winning are hardly unique. The previous game was pretty standard there and so was this one...at first. Parts of this game, particularly the main villain, are deeply disturbing. Well, the whole game is disturbing but the scenes I'm talking about turn it up to 11. And then there comes a point where a switch gets flipped and the whole rest of the game is that level of crazy. All culminating into a pretty badass ending.

Gameplay-wise, it was a bit of a mixed bag. I was playing on the "experienced normal" difficulty and found the game fairly challenging. At first, I thought the best method for killing a room of enemies was to stealth it as much as possible then gun my way through the rest. Eventually, I figured out it was more effective to sit at the entrance to an area and just shoot immediately, using the entranceway as a kill zone. But I still died a lot, although not enough to be truly frustrating.

The guns felt just right. You have six main guns, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. You can pick the ones you like best and focus on upgrading those. Each weapon (and your grenades) has 3 upgrades and upgrade kits are fairly scarce, so choose wisely early-game. Plus there are heavy weapons you can carry around temporarily, with limited ammo.

The skill system was nicely implemented too. You earn skills by doing certain tasks like stealth kills or headshots. You get buffs from the skills you earn, encouraging you to use a wide variety of tactics as you play. It's a great, natural way to introduce some variety into the gameplay.

Partway through the game, you get to choose between 1 of 3 upgrades that determine how you access certain areas. I took one that let me squeeze through small spaces, but the other options were double jumping and breaking through weak walls. Plus a few other bonuses, but you can't actually see those until after you pick the initial upgrade. Kind of a mixed bag with this because the upgrades I didn't initially pick came with features that I really missed, like slowing down time when you open the weapon selection. It made the game feel a little clunky, but since it was by design it felt a bit odd.

I really picked this game up for two reasons: it was on sale and I wanted something I could beat in a weekend. That every cutscene becomes a head trip about 6 hours in was just icing on the cake. I wouldn't say this ranks among my favorite shooters, but that's just because it's in a bit of a weird place gameplay-wise. It's not a hard, realistic shooter but it's not a run and gun "I'm invincible" thing either. Wolfenstein II is very much in the middle and it slides back and forth between both ends throughout the game. But it's very well made and certainly worth your time if you're an FPS fan.

Kills, good gunplay, OST is good, graphics are amazing. I really enjoyed it and liked it.

The only thing that I should say is... even it is a good game, Wolfenstein is (maybe, I don't know, just my opinion) just the same things over and over again. I feel that Bethesda should leave Wolfenstein for a while and try with another thing. I mean, they can use a lot of things! The game is good and fun!

Anyways, if you want a shooter that you can enjoy. I recommend Wolfenstein II.

BTW: for PC gamers, it crashes a lot.