Wolfenstein: The New Order is a retelling of the original video game using modern game technology. We’re no strangers to the Wolfenstein franchise, as we interviewed id Software’s Peter Sokal right here.
When I was ten years old I went to California for the first time to visit family. Before that time, I had never laid eyes on a computer. 1993 was my first experience with a world I would soon fall in love with. 3D gaming. And that first game, the first game I ever played on a computer, the first game I ever played in 3D, was Wolfenstein.
When I finally got a computer of my own five years later, that was the first game I bought and played. And I played it dozens of times. That game was a turning point for me. A moment when I realized there was more to the world that farms and 4×4 trucks. I’ve been a geek ever since.
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So when I heard that they were releasing yet another Wolfenstein game for the PC, I got very excited. I don’t do war games. They tend to bore me. Shooting other humans doesn’t give me much of a thrill, even if bombs are dropping everywhere. But mix in a little sci-fi and supernatural with that war scenario, and I’m all over it. So I got the game. I played the game. And here’s what I played it on:
- AMD FX-4170 4.2Ghz (Cooled with a Kraken X-40 watercooler)
- 8GB Corsair DDR3 1600Mhz
- EVGA GTX 750 TI, 2GB DDR5
- 320GB Western Digital Caviar SATA HDD
First off, I’d like to point out how huge this game is. The installed size on my hard drive is just over 43 Gigabytes. That’s fairly monstrous for a PC game. But when you factor in the advanced textures and the large amount of uncompressed audio used in this game, which we’ll talk about later, then it all starts to make sense. So let’s get started.
The game begins aboard a World War II US military plane. You are William J Blazkowicz, also known to your comrades as “B.J.”, and your sole mission is to kill Nazis. The game begins with a dose of adrenaline. You’re in the middle of an aerial battle as your plane does a steady downward dive toward the ocean. After you stop a fuel fire that threatens to blow you even higher in the sky than you already are, you are next tasked with running to the cargo hold and cutting loose all cargo in order to lighten the plane and keep it in the air.
And it doesn’t stop there. After a stint as the plane’s gunner, you and the pilot are forced to jump from your disintegrating plane onto the wing of another whilst flying at breakneck speed through the gunfire that seems to come from all directions. And when you manage to get inside that plane, narrowly avoiding getting your legs cut off by the propellers of the plane you just leapt from, you get to sit first class in the cockpit as your new ride barrels toward the beach for a crash landing.
The first thing I noticed is that I had to lower the video settings down to medium in order to achieve smooth gameplay. The graphics in this game are absolutely beautiful. It is designed as a next-gen game, and word is that if these textures were uncompressed, the game size would exceed one terabyte. Think about that as you play this game. It shows. Every piece of shrapnel on the ground and every ten-story electricity-spitting robot is so highly detailed that it’s easy to get lost in the game and forget it’s not real, even on lowered video settings.
There is one caveat to the amazing graphics in this game. Each level uses mega textures, so the entire level is textured at once. Nothing repeats. Which seems like a good thing, until you get up real close to objects. And then you get a nice dose of graininess. But with all the gunfire that’s going on around you, who the hell has time to be staring at walls and tin cans? If you’re not shooting in this game, you’re most likely dying.
The audio in this game is beautiful. I generally play games with my Turtle Beach headphones on, and they do a fantastic job of delivering audio. However, a high-end 5.1 system would be a real plus for this game. I noticed no crackling and no distortion. When I reached the top of the beach and was standing at the feet of a huge robot, all I could hear was metal on metal highlighted by the scream of electricity as it spurted from the machine’s “mouth”. And those dogs… There are these armored dogs that seem to run out of nowhere and attempt to eat your face. Their barks nearly gave me a heart attack every time.
Between the visuals and the audio, this game is a work of art. However, that’s where my fascination with this game ended. I still enjoyed it immensely, but not as much as I wanted to, if that makes in sense. It’s more of an old-school shooter, and not much more than that. The dialogue switches from funny to serious too often for me. I can never tell if they’re aiming for a Duke Nukem feel or Call of Duty. And in all honestly, that’s all this feels like. One big COD campaign. The missions range from mildly exciting to mundane with the occasional entertaining dialogue from Blazkowicz or one of his buddies over the radio.
The thing is, this game has focused on shooting and not much else. The weapons are cool, it’s fun to dual wield semi-auto shotguns or laser rifles, and I know that’s more than enough for a lot of gamers out there. They could have done a lot more with plot and story, and that’s my opinion. However, character development in this game is enough to keep me enthralled, and the more I discovered the more I wanted to keep playing. Such as the stealthing ability. I managed to stealth through an entire area without being seen once, taking out everything from robot dogs to commanders without raising one single alarm. Stealth is fun. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Now that I’ve got my issues with this game out of the way, I want to point out the things I really enjoyed about this game. I love alternate history, and having a 1960’s world that is overrun with mechanical Nazis is enough to keep me playing any game. The storyline is over the top, almost to the point of making me wonder if it was written by Dan Akroyd, and that’s something I enjoy. Much like the Fallout series, I love it when games take an era that is dead and gone and creates an alternate present with it. It’s good business, and it sells.
My last praise for this game is the one that will probably piss off every console player who wears his hat backwards and has a pyramid of beer cans somewhere in his dorm room: there is no multiplayer. In a gaming world where no one cares about campaigns any longer, we have a game that is 100% campaign, and unlike Titanfall, doesn’t force me to listen to listen to someone yell in my ear that I cheated during a clean kill.
To conclude, Wolfenstein: TNO could have used a little work on plotline, but other than that I couldn’t find anything about it that would keep me from playing it again. It’s truly a work of art, and it’s obvious that a lot of work went into making this game as realistic as possible.
Once you visit the ruined cities and see some of the artwork hanging in the museums, you’ll get an idea of how much effort the developers put into making New Order. And while it may have a have a few rough edges, the shortcomings are overshadowed by the sheer immensity of the game itself. I could see this game being nominated for game of the year.
You can buy the PC version for full-price on Steam ($59.99), or get it for $39.99 on the link to your right.