Wolfenstein: The New Order (2014)

It may seem unlikely that I recommend Wolfenstein: The New Order, after what I am about to say about it, but in the end, it still is a fantastic game.

Wolfenstein: The New Order plays in the semi-fantasy setting of the Nazis winning the war. The way the developers projected this in the game is actually pretty realistic. The technological advances, the way they may be treating the world from that point, the fanatism it is all there.

The story of Wolfenstein is extraordinarily strong. It really changed from a Nazi shooting gallery to a Nazi shooting gallery with interaction between characters, beautiful upgraded graphics and sounds, and a main character you actually give a sh!t about. The perks and collectibles throughout the game gives it something extra and the whole game is filled with hidden story from the past and present and letters from citizens and soldiers who all tell something about the changing of the world as we know it.

But for me, there were a lot of moments that I could throw the game out of the window (if I still used discs) and many times when I repeated the question ”But how??”, throughout.

The first issue is the frame rate. Although most of the time the game runs steady at 60 fps, it has a lot of drops on certain moments, I thought it was my hardware but other players with better machines experience it too. Some people cannot get above 30 fps without tweaking the whole game.

The second issue with this game is the load times. Oh my god, they are the longest I have ever experienced, apart from Grand Theft Auto V (nothing beats that, nothing). I played the game on a SSD drive and still it took forever to load. When I died, I was eating my nails in frustration because of the loading.

The last issue I found are the perks. They give you a nice bonus for completing them, but the problem is that the game is way too short to unlock them as you progress. This means playing chapters over and over again to gain them, sometimes because a certain level is the only way to get a specific perk. I needed to search for walkthroughs and exploits to gain the demolition perks, those were impossible without the proper trick. Because of this, it ruined some of the fun I had with this game.

Another thing is that the AI is incredibly stupid. They are mindless walking guns who fire endlessly on sight. If you use stealth, you can kill the whole Third Reich all by yourself by just crouching to them in plain sight and stab a knife in their throats.

But overall, despite the problems and mindless grinds, it is still a pretty good game in which the developers want to tell you a powerful story. You can see that they made a revolutionary change with this game compared to the other parts of the series and for the story alone, I enjoyed it.

I would still recommend it.

Having been a massive fan of the 1992 Wolfenstein and the 2001 reboot, but away from the FPS scene from far too long, I finally decided to delve into the new Wolfenstein trilogy, meaning The New Order, The Old Blood and The New Colossus (I’m excluding Youngblood from this conversation as I don’t intend to play it). And after finishing TNO in about 16 hours, all I have to say is bravo! This is how you bring a franchise back with flying colours. Solid story, likeable characters, great overall pace, an in-your-face, no BS attitude, and a really satisfying combat are the main standout elements of this entry, and they all combine for a (quite) challenging and ultimately rewarding Nazi killing experience. On top of all of this, as a bonus, all the weapon models in the game look absolutely fantastic and have a great sense of weight to them.

I couldn’t recommend TNO more. Even if you’re not the biggest fan of the FPS genre - I’m certainly not -, there’s a decent chance there may be something here for you to enjoy. This is a 8.5/10 in my book.

Wolfenstein: The New Order is great. I love the setting, the characters, the gameplay, the music, everything about it is just muah!

The setting is so cool. The Nazis find and utilise incredibly advanced Jewish technology to create robots and laser guns which they use to defeat the Allies, nuke the USA and win WW2. That setup is so perfectly crazy for this kind of game. The characters are so great as well. All of them feel just over-the-top enough to feel like they belong in this universe. B.J. Blazkowicz is one of the best action game protagonists I've seen, up there with Master Chief and Doom Guy. Max and Klaus are a great duo, Caroline is a brilliant resistance leader, Set is basically a meme between me and my friends ("hello shimshon yingele yingele"), Fergus is a brilliant sidekick, yeah, they're all great. The villains are as well. Bubi was a good, if underdeveloped, tertiary antagonist, Frau Engel was creepy and disturbing, and Deathshead… oh boy, that is the most perfectly over-the-top villain in any videogame ever. His lines are delivered so well that it's both hilariously extreme and creepy at the same time. Thank you for existing, Dwight Schultz. The character design leaves little to be desired as well.

Don't even get me started on the gameplay. The weapons feel so good to shoot with. The noises they make feel powerful and, well, like a weapon. The gunplay is smooth and easy to master and it feels satisfying to shoot people. I'm not a murderer I swear the gunplay is just so great. The ability to unlock attachments and perks for weapons helps you to build your playstyle into one that suits you. Want to go quiet and sneak in from the shadows? Just knife a few guys and you can throw your knives for silent ranged kills and there are perks if you want to develop that playstyle further. Alternatively, if you want to play as a tank and just charge straight in with dual wield assault rifles then go for it! It's one of the most fluent, adaptable FPS games that I've played. Plus, the inclusion of collectables like the gold and records and the ability to unlock bonus modes with the enigma codes will keep the completionists happy.

All in all, Wolfenstein: The New Order is one of the most fun FPS games I've played in recent memory and I would highly recommend it.

4.5/5

This was decent but not great. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't slightly disappointed.

I mean just think of the premise. Nazi's won the war. That should make things really interesting. And it does. For a little while. Then after that theres not much else to be wowed about. Its just kind of a pretty run of the mill take-down-the-government story.

The gameplay was fun but its not anything revolutionary. Just what you would expect from an fps released at this time.

The locations were definitely cool. Especially to see what the nazis have done and also those newpapers you come across are pretty intriguing ,showing how the world has changed under their rule.

The two things that let me down the most was the story that didn't really have much going for it and the ending. You can tell that they wanted the ending to have an emotional punch. But it just fell flat.

In the end this is a decent game. But I can't help thinking of what it could have been.

It was a nice introduction to the PS4 for me, I had fun playing it. The story was good, but I didn't think it was particularly special, as some people in the online space seem to think (think Reddit, Metacritic users.)

It was also a fun shooter, and the game can be completed rather quickly. Perhaps the reason why I simply enjoyed this game and didn't think it was "amazing" was perhaps due to the fact that FPS isn't my preferred genre.

All in all, from the perspective of someone who prefers RPGs and is a lover of Zelda, I can say that I had fun playing Wolfenstein. But if you're someone with my preferences, and you want to play a shooter, I would recommend trying something else.