Wolfenstein combines the best of old-school shooters with a few 'new-school' game mechanics to make an exciting, satisfying science fiction Nazi-monster-blastfest.
In our now largely Duke Nukem-free world, Wolfenstein's action hero B.J. Blaskowicz is the reigning king. He's got the looks, the attitude, and the weapons. The only thing missing from his arsenal are spiffy one-liners and a pair of shades.
As Blaskowicz, you are dropped into the war-torn city of Isenstadt to investigate the Nazis' occult dabbling -- which, if our b-movie and video game-based educations serve us well, generally never leads to anything good for anyone -- including the Nazis.
You learn of Nazi experiments with mysterious crystals and a bizarre, extra-dimensional world called The Veil. The Nazis, as always, want to tap the power of the Veil for World Domination -- which leads to a dizzying array of crazy weapons, monsters, and other horrors that you'll gleefully mow down by the dozens.
Check your brain at the door and enjoy the ride
Leave thinking behind for Wolfenstein and just enjoy thrill ride of mayhem that is yours to create. When the enemies come, they come in droves, and the enemy AI is decent, so they'll generally put up a good fight.
Enemies make good use of the environment, and aren't shy about using grenades to try and flush you out as well as flanking tactics to corner you.
Too bad it won't help them much. Although you have quite a few tactical options available to you (courtesy of your ability to carry an infinite number of weapons and an assortment of handy magical Veil-based powers, which we'll get to in a minute), Wolfenstein heartily encourages kick-in-the door-guns-blazing assaults -- and B.J. has more than enough firepower to pull them off.
Combat environments are highly varied, and include such areas as the war-torn city streets of Isenstadt, a humble farm (hiding a secret underground Nazi base), caverns of an ancient ruined dig site, and a Nazi airship, to name but a few.
Early in the game Blaskowicz gains an artifact that allows him to tap into a mysterious dimension called The Veil. The Veil-powered artifact gives you a variety of abilities, two of which are basically a bullet-time mode and a shield mode.
You can also 'enter the Veil' to gain a slight increase in movement speed, and take advantage of 'Veil vision' which makes it easier to see enemies and helps you reach secret areas through doors and ladders that can't be used unless you're in the Veil. You can detect these areas when you're not in the Veil as long as you watch for the signs -- a faint shimmering ladder, for example, or the Dark Sun symbol inscribed on a wall.
Veil abilities are found and unlocked through the course of the first 1/3 of the game. In addition, like all
the weapons in the game, Veil abilities can be upgraded and improved over time. You have a small meter of Veil energy that drains when you use Veil powers, but fonts of Veil energy for restoring your reserve are plentiful in virtually every level.
Borrowing a little from RPGs
Weapon upgrades are fun and hugely important -- they keep even the standard weapons in the game from getting dull. An MP40 machine gun fully upgraded with the silencer, accuracy and damage upgrades is still a great weapon to have at your side -- especially when your particle cannon is fresh out of ammo.
Wolfenstein also gives you plenty of time to hunt for secrets, both in missions and in-between. In between missions, you can freely explore the city of Isenstadt. An in-game map shows you the way to your next objectives and the locations of contacts and safehouses where you can meet contacts, get your next mission, and spend your loot on weapon upgrades at the black market.
Of course, Nazis tend to roam Isenstadt too, so you'll still need to spend some time now and again taking out a dozen or two to keep the streets safe.
And there are plenty of nooks and crannies within Isenstadt for you to explore for gold (used to buy weapon upgrades), Tomes of Power(used to upgrade Veil powers), and Intelligence, which unlock weapon upgrades and also include bits of information fleshing out the game's story.
Multiplayer
Although we focused primarily on the single player campaign, Wolfenstein's multiplayer is decent too, although only eight maps are included.
Similar to many current multiplayer shooters, Wolfenstein uses a class-based system. You can be a soldier, medic, or engineer, and through the course of playing you can unlock weapon upgrades that remain with you from game to game. There are three basic map types: Team deathmatch, Objective (get somewhere and blow something up, generally), and Stopwatch, which is a type of timed objective-based map.
It's not ALL good...
Ultimately, Wolfenstein's shortcomings are few, and none large enough to ruin the fun. Perhaps the worst offenses Wolfenstein commits are a couple Sins of The Console, which are:
- Checkpoint-based saves
- Clunky user interface in the weapon upgrade screens that could have been better adapted to the mouse.
In addition, we found the city map to be a little confusing from time to time. We couldn't always figure out exactly where to go, even using the map.
But as far as checkpoint save game systems go, Wolfenstein's is about as good as they get on the PC. Wolfenstein saves generously, and an untimely death never resulted in the "AAAargh" pirate noise that follows your death and precedes replaying the last 15-20 minutes of a game. (We never had to replay more than about 5 minutes.)
Overall
Aside from these issues, Wolfenstein's strengths greatly outstrip its weaknesses, and the checkpoint saves and other quibbles were easily forgiven. None of these issues were ever showstoppers.
Wolfenstein has all the hallmarks of a triple-A shooter: great graphics and sound, solid and never boring game play, and top notch production values. It executes nearly everything perfectly -- blending some new but familiar game mechanics judiciously borrowed from other games, and successfully combining them with classic action-oriented, FPS shooter fun.
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