Friday 7 July 2017

Wolfenstein The Old Blood (Xbox One)

Released about a year after The New Order, it's also a prequel to that story. You again play as BJ, and the story ends where New Order begins.

A relatively short experience, spanning nine chapters. It starts off very strong, you and Wesley make your way to Castle Wolfenstein and attempt to infiltrate it in disguise. Things quickly go awry and we're introduced to one of the main antagonists, Rudi Jager. Rudi is a very big fellow, armed with his ferocious companion, a mechanically augmented pooch that feeds on human prisoners. Along the way, BJ gets help from a few friends while being in a tussle with Helga, an German archaeologist who has a folder containing the location of General Deathshead himself.

The story itself didn't have me hooked, however, Rudi Jager was a fantastic villian who had me on the edge of my seat whenever he was on screen. He was a great villian, it was just a shame he wasn't the main villian, sort of the way that Vaas from Far Cry 3 wasn't the main antagonist. Helga herself was pretty terrifying, but she appeared late and hardly featured. Then out of nowhere.... Zombies?! This baffled me. I had no idea how they turned up, or why they didn't feature in The New Order. Apparently the zombies appear from the Nazi's opening a vault that releases a gas, the gas causes anyone that dies in the vicinity to become zombified.

The graphics and gameplay carry over, which is great, I just wish they didn't make you spam the X button to pick up all the ammo, it's still clunky. The intense scenes are back, and the introduction to Rudi is easily one of the best during both games. Pipes were introduced as a melee weapon and a way to climb up paths. There were also new weapons and some new perks, I loved the perks in both games, they were addicting to get. You were also given a choice to save one of two companions, but I didn't care for neither, they just weren't fleshed out enough for me to really care. You were forced to control an annoying and slow mech, I hated it. What made it a bit more interesting was that zombies could climb up it and you'd have to shoot them off. I thought it was easily the worst part.

I thought this was a spin off game heavily featuring zombies, but it wasn't. It was a prequel and zombies showed up in chapter seven out of nine. There was a supernatural boss fight at the end I didn't really like, I'd much rather preferred to have a boss battle with Helga, especially as the Rudi one was brilliant. I thought The New Order was a more serious game, as Wolfenstein 2009 seemed quite supernatural, whereas The Old Blood sort of combined them both. I honestly think this one was kinda pointless, not bad, just pointless. That being said, I really liked Jager, even if he's the only reason to play the game.

A nice homage to the original was that it let you play some of the old missions, in their original pixel graphics and you played them in the modern gameplay, it was weird blending old and current graphics together, but it was cool. Play this if it doesn't harm your wallet, plus Rudi is worth it, but don't go out of your way for it. If you want more Wolfenstein though, Wolfenstein 2 will be out later this year and I'm chomping at the bit!

7.3/10

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