Monday 30 May 2016

Wolfenstein The New Order (Xbox One)

"The Nazi's rule the world now". Wolfenstein TNO is a first person shooter game set in an alternative history, in which the Nazi's won the war and had advanced technologies, which lead to them ruling the world. You return as B.J Blazkowicz, who starred in the previous games and helps the resistance against the Nazi's. TNO is the seventh Wolfenstein game and it also spawned a spin off game soon after, entitled The Old Blood. I've only played two all the way through (including this one), but I really enjoyed Wolfenstein (2009) and thought this one looked great. So let's enter General Deathshead's compound.

The game looks amazing and the in game cinematics are seen through B.J's eyes, so you feel like you're really watching the game through his perspective. At times in this game there are incredibly tense moments that make you worry if something's about to happen or not. It's like they were taken from a Tarantino movie, they're so well done. The scenes and interactions are the best parts of the game I'd say. In the first mission there is a choice for you to make, with both leading to alternative storylines, this gives the game some replayability which is always a good thing.

The game has a good selection of weapons and even has dual-weilding. Despite being a first person action game, you can also choose a stealth approach often in the game. Being equipped with throwing knives, putting a silencer on a pistol and being able to do takedowns on enemies are good ways to avoid an unnecessary battle. The game also has a perk system, where if you do the requirements you unlock an upgrade and the next objective to try and unlock more perks. This was a fun addition as I enjoyed trying to unlock all the perks and it made me try different things with what you were asked to do to unlock another perk, so I'd end up using different tactics and weapons I wouldn't usually use.

The game has health and armour and what's good is when you lose health, it regenerates but stops at a certain number depending on how much you lose. It starts at 100 and if you pick up more heath packs it becomes overcharged, but drops down until it hits 100 again. The story is a great 'what if' and interesting enough to keep you engaged, there's a rescue mission, a prison break and even a mission to the moon for all those aspiring astronauts. There's even a torture scene for the sicko's, it caters everyone's needs! The characters feel real and are well voice acted, they look great too. But the villians are by far the most memorable. General Deathshead is psychotic and Engel is terrifying (you'll find out why). There's also some unique sections involving driving and swimming so you're not always running and gunning, there's also boss battles that fit well and aren't too over the top. It's also good that the weapons have attachments like silencers and grenade launchers to give you more ways to play.

Something that was very annoying was having to pick up everything like ammo and collectables. You're always gonna want ammo if you can carry it, so why can't you just run over the ammo and collect it? It's a pain having to keep stopping to pick it up. There's a few times in the game were you have to run and jump to or off something, this should not be in the game because I died missing the jump more than being killed by Nazi's! You can lean around cover which can be useful, but in the tutorial section you have to lean under the door to shoot someone, I never used this again after that so it felt pointless being able to do it. You could also carry every possible weapon at once, including the dual wielding weapons, provided they could all be picked up in the level. This made you overpowered being able to carry so much and switch to any weapon available in the game. There's also a bunch of pointless side tasks in between missions, one for example is that you need to get a power tool, you go to the power tool box and find a note that says someone took it, you go to the person who supposedly has it and it turns out they dropped it miles away, you then go to find it and once you have it, go do the original task. A lot of effort don't you think? These should have been able to be skipped or something because they were unnecessary long.

Wolfenstein looks great and has a very unique and interesting story. It has replayability, with two alternate storylines but that's more or less all it has. Just a story, but a strong one. It's also a very short one too if you know where to go and such. The characters are the stand out feature here. I'm looking forward to playing the stand alone game, The Old Blood. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if more Wolfenstein games are announced and I'll play it for sure! See you at Castle Wolfenstein.

7.4/10

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