Return to Castle Wolfenstein

I missed this when it first came out. The reviews were great at the time, and the mission based levels sounded pleasantly like Star Wars: Dark Forces at the time. Getting it this late, I wasn't sure what to expect. Would it seem crudely old fashioned? I was pleasantly surprised to find that this stands up today, for the most part. Mechanics are sound, the levels look like a real castle/village/tomb, unlike the original Wolfenstein, which resembled an 8-bit interpretation of someone's fake-wood paneled basement with blue shag carpeting. Graphics and animations are decent; there are more modern games that don't look this good. Controls are responsive and feel natural; no reinventing the wheel here. Firefights are clever and deadly, and if you're not prepared for the next ambush you aren't playing the game correctly. But by midgame the whole thing devolves into a series of deathtraps that can't be foreseen by the player and are largely unavoidable. You're given an onscreen symbol when an object is destructible, and early levels condition you to destroy whatever you can--that portrait of Hitler might be hiding a stash of gold, or a couple of extra 9mm magazines. Once you reach the tomb levels, however, your conditioning will largely get you killed. Destroying anything will nearly always cause the ceiling to collapse, cause a pillar to fall on you or cause the floor to give way, all resulting in your instant, unavoidable death. Hidden pits, collapsing floors and incendiary devices are around every corner. If there is no way at all to escape death the content isn't challenging, it's UNFAIR. I realize this harks back to the generation of dying repeatedly until you find your way through, but I grew up on arcade and platform games where you were supposed to AVOID getting killed, and RPGs where the object is to NOT get killed. After the fourth unfair deathtrap on the same level I had to quit. Played a lot of shooters, but this is just obnoxious.

6 of 5 must play. 5 of 5 great story great gameplay. 4 of 5 great story average gameplay. 3 of 5 average story average gameplay. 2 of 5 play only if it's your favorite genre. 1 of 5 play if you have nothing better to do. 0 of 5 play if you're a masochist. -1 of 5 avoid. Return to Castle Wolfenstein score is 4 of 5.

Playing the game after many years I can only sadly conclude it didn't age well. Looking back it's hard to say what Return to Castle Wolfenstein even attempted to be. 1. Theoretically it's an idSoftware game with a plethora of weapons, first aid kits lying everywhere, secrets hunting etc. However it completely lacks the smoothness of gameplay of its older brethren, so it plays very different from quick, relaxing boomer shooters. Player's movement is so cumbersome the long distance shooting is the only convenient play-style. 2. It's surprisingly full of 'stealth missions', for which the game's engine and interface is very clearly not designed. 3. It seems the game aims to be a bit more on the 'realistic' side of the shooters spectrum. Nevertheless its control scheme doesn't enable to take cover, go prone or shoot around corners. The weapons loadout is absurd for a half-realistic 'military shooter', bosses fight clearly come from a different genre and at least some of the enemies are complete bullet sponges. When you add to this the uninspired level design Return to Castle Wolfenstein doesn't have anything to offer to modern players apart from the atmosphere and a cheesy yet completely serviceable story-line. All other things the game tries to do are done much better in different titles, even in titles from its era (Quake! Thief! Call of Duty!). Obviously such an old game also won't awe anyone with graphics. Maybe in 2002 this particular gameplay combination was a breath of fresh air but today it's apparent it just doesn't work. So unfortunately in 2024 Return to Castle Wolfenstein is nothing but an unwieldy hybrid which can't be fully recommended.

Game will not launch tryed everything in the support section nothing works, broken game, I want a refund.

I wanted to play this game, but for some reason the Multiplayer.exe file opens up and loads immediately, but NO MATTER WHAT I DO, the Singleplayer.exe file will NOT play! That's two games already! Quake II unstable and constantly crashing, now this Wolfenstein? Sheesh.