Wolfenstein The New Order – Sci-Fi, Alternate History, and Ass Kicking
I’ve finally finished my first playthrough of Bethesda Softworks and Machine Games‘ Wolfenstein The New Order after about 20 hours of play time over the course of a week. It’s the finest example of an old-school shooter being brought into the modern generation in recent memory. Rise of the Triad did a great job of recreating the feeling of an old shooter, but Wolfenstein delivers a modern version of an older shooter with a full storyline, compelling characters, and engaging play mechanics. Yes, I did originally play Wolfenstein 3D 22 years ago when it came out and it’s definitely what got me to love the genre. I have to say that I was sadly not impressed by Return to Castle Wolfenstein back in 2001. However, this incarnation delivers an excellent story and doesn’t end up feeling as forced as the single player version of many modern shooters. This truly is the Wolfenstein that I have been waiting two decades to play.
The first thing you need to know about Wolfenstein The New Order is that it is a beast of a game and requires a pretty beefy PC to play it. At the beginning of May, Bethesda published the system requirements to run the game as intended. Thankfully, the system we use around here for reviews meets those requirements, but it’s a pretty crazy bar to meet for the average PC gamer. Even then, it got seriously slow when I attempted to stream it using XSplit. The two solutions I found were to stream using windowed mode or to use Steam Stream to process the game on one computer and stream the video using the remote computer.
Keep an eye out for this bed in the hideout. Enjoy your nightmare.
With all of that aside, if you can play it, you should. Wolfenstein The New Order has renewed my faith in the ability of companies to put out a solid FPS with a story. It doesn’t feel like another campaign mode that was shoved into a multiplayer game. In fact, there is no multiplayer option to be found here, and I couldn’t be happier. It looks great, plays great, and really fills that Nazi killing quota that’s been missing for a while. Let’s face it, if there’s any group that you’re really allowed to hate, it’s the Nazis.
Wolfenstein brings back that old school shooter feeling of hauling around an arsenal without worrying about what can actually fit on your person. Five knives? Check! A pair of pistols? Check! Pairs of assault rifles, automatic shotguns, and sniper rifles? Check, check, check. Why pairs? Because you can dual wield the shit out of this arsenal! The whole feel of it is awesome with left and right mouse buttons assigned to left and right guns respectively. Weapons also get an alternate mode, but these modes are toggled instead of the usual right-click method. By the way, I’m a keyboard and mouse player when it comes to FPS games. Controllers can suck it.
Spoilers about story – skip down if you don’t want to know!
Moon base in 1960? Why not?
Alright, you were damn well warned about spoilers. Wolfenstein has one crazy story! Alternate history where Nazi’s take over the world after shutting down the American war effort by dropping an A-bomb on New York is fine. Then when our protagonist comes out of a semi-vegetative state due to shrapnel in his brain after 14 years so he can kill some Nazis, that’s pretty awesome. But then things get crazy as we steal Nazi helicopters, break into and out of a forced labor camp, drop acid with Jimi Hendrix, steal a nuclear sub, and then utilize ancient Hebrew super-tech (thanks to the Da’at Yichud sect) to stop a train, take over the identity of the chief Nazi science officer and infiltrate their moon base. Go ahead and take a minute to parse that sentence.
John Carmack is quoted as saying “Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It’s expected to be there, but it’s not that important.” So how about a game with story and some porn? Somewhere in the writing process someone decided that there needed to be two sex scenes. Not fade to black or tasteful silhouette, but fully on screen sex scenes. Some softcore porn to go with your hardcore shooter.
Some people seem to have a problem with the ending, at least from some of the posts on the game forums. I subscribe more to the games as art theory. If the people crafting the art say they want a specific outcome, then that’s how it ends. Players do not “deserve” a happy ending just because they played the game really hard. Not to mention that the ending was pretty well left open just in case they want to retcon that BJ is rescued at the last minute for a sequel.
End spoilers…
It’s a little over the top, that’s for sure, but I love it. If I wanted another cookie cutter story that barely exists, I’d play some Call of Duty. I’m currently in the process of playing through the Fergus storyline (saved Wyatt the first time) and tracking down all of the secrets. I’m sure most people are aware of the ability to play Wolfenstein 3D Episode 1 Level 1, but it’s upstairs in the hideout during any of the breaks taken there. Or, if you really want the nostalgia, you can play it for free on the web here. I can’t speak to the quality of the game on next gen consoles, but for my money Wolfenstein The New Order is the best FPS to hit the PC market in a very long time.
