While it has been since 2009 when the gaming industry saw an installment in the Wolfenstein series, it's also a franchise that dates back to the 1980's. Wolfenstein: The New Order is aiming to bring back the greatness that has been Wolfenstein over the previous three decades.
Recently, we had a chance to go hands-on with this first-person shooter. The particular demo we went through pitted us hanging against a castle-like wall. We scaled the wall and shot enemies that came out of the windows parallel to us.
Adding to the interesting feeling of engaging in a gun fight as you scale a building was the fact that once you got rid of the initial set of enemies, you still had others that would surface in areas you had already cleared. There would not be a third time for this, thankfully.
The enemies we faced displayed different tactics against us. If you sat back, Nazis would flank you from the side and come after you aggressively. Coming out of cover guns-blazing was not the best idea either because this caused all enemies to swarm against you.
Overall, the gameplay was strong and challenged us to be creative with our combat. The game's enemies had a lot to do with this and it was a fresh thing to experience.
Once we got past climbing up the building, we were then able to employ stealth tactics. It was actually shocking how much we could use stealth to get through enemies. While this doesn't really work with the whole spirit of a shooter, using stealth to defeat enemies was a lot more fun than just mowing down enemies with an automatic.
Besides, anyone can go through a chapter of a game using machine guns. It was much more rewarding to be stealthy.
Another benefit to being stealthy, was you had to take on less enemies. The difference between the amount of enemies you have to fight when you use stealth, versus when you do not employ the tactic, is almost blatantly obvious.
Again, it depends on the type of player you are, but there are a significantly less amount of Nazis to take out when you sneak around and take them out. While it all may ultimately take around the same amount of time to get through each area, stealth was the ticket for us.
Taking a break from the gameplay aspect of things and looking at what the story and cinematics brought to the table, Wolfenstein: The New Order has some intriguing moments to share with players.
What players may initially think is going to be a plain shoot 'em up, macho style game, will actually find out that The New Order is packing some emotion. The major scene that comes to mind, is when you and a group of allies have been captured by the sweet, psychotic Deathshead.
In this cutscene, players are forced to choose who out of their two allies gets hacked up by Deathshead. Pretty insane thing to force upon the player, right? After you have chosen and Deathshead takes to the victim, the camera shifts toward the main protagonist and reveals a lot of striking, subtle emotion that we were not ready for.
It's brilliant from the standpoint of Deathshead's contradicting traits as a character. He's a nice guy from the standpoint of his tone of voice and mannerisms, yet he's totally insane. It's an interesting blend, but one that needs to be seen over the course of a full story.
So does this mean that Wolfenstein: The New Order will be more of a dramatic, emotionally driven experience, filled with gunfights and action? Perhaps. Some folks may have a problem with this, but when looking at what next-generation games are doing, this makes sense.
Developers seem to have this idea of taking an experience you've had before and are familiar with, and then add new elements and components that you are not expecting. This is meant from a gameplay and story standpoint, and personally, it's refreshing to see. It's not just your typical shooter, thank goodness.
Wolfenstein: The New Order is clearly going to force choice and emotion onto the player, so people should prepare themselves for it. There is still plenty of fun to be had, but this is not your average shooter, you can be sure of that.
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