So I ordered Wolfenstien pretty much as soon as I was dragged off the demo stand at last years Eurogamer Expo at Earl’s Court.
It was by day the best game I played there all day.
Firstly, let me just mention that I come form a generation where FPS’s were health based (a figure) not hit count based over a period of time (CoD) and they were predominantly single player focused.
With these tow things in mind, you may understand where WS is coming from, it’s not CoD. You’d think that’s obvious but some people are expecting modern warfare 15 or something that is trying to steal it’s thunder. It’s not, it’s trying to be a late 90’s FPS with modern graphics and sound.
I bought the Xbox One version, must have played about 5 hours of it last night and it’s very very enjoyable, besides the good looking cut scenes and atmospheric music/sounds, it’s so far playing as the demo did back last year.
Three elements of the game that I will just quickly explain that wont give away too much for anyone wanting to pick the game up.
Firstly - Secrets; Back to the good old days of rooms behind paintings and secret pathways that sometime lead to treasure or a better/different way of progressing through the levels.
Secondly - Stealth or guns blazing; This is great, you can either go all out with dual wielding sub machine guns or creep your way through with knifes, both have, certain perks to the way you do things which in turn unlock certain abilities once you clock up certain milestones, I wont touch too much on that but there is a skill try with abilities to unlock and paths to mould your character in.
Thirdly – Generals; Or officers or whatever you want to call them. Each group of Nazi’s or squad, will have a leader, if he is alerted he will call for back up and will continue to do is until he is killed. Kill him first, no back up, kill him stealth and he will also give out some secrets for the areas that he is protecting, very good and adds a great balance to the stealth vs Gun’ho play style.
The game also has tales to tell which you have to choose from early on, thus giving a different play through the second time around.
Due to the way the games plays out, with sections and areas this all works very well.
It’s not the best game ever made, I’m not saying that, but a game doesn’t have to be to be fun or enjoyable and for me it’s a breath of fresh air from the normal action FPS type game.