Return to Castle Wolfenstein

Ever since I played Wolfenstein: The New Order, I started to play other installments in the franchise, like The Old Blood and The New Colossus. But recently, I finished beating Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Coming from someone that has never played this game before, I enjoyed it despite some flaws. What I liked about this game was that the story did keep me interested in seeing what would happen, since the other installments have been known for Nazis doing all kinds of crazy stuff to win the war via dark magic or robotic soldiers. The gameplay was also good, and I enjoyed using the weapons used in the game, including the one where you shoot electricity to fry your enemies. It's also pretty cool coming across some secret areas and discovering hidden treasure. While the character models do look weird, they're not too awful, and the animation for them, when they move around, is good. Also, I love how diverse the levels would be because you'll end up in areas ranging from a castle to a temple. One more thing that did annoy me about this installment of the Wolfenstein franchise and I know this will sound more like a nitpick, but I have to say it: To play it, you have to download a mod to play it, and it took me about a year to install it correctly. I wish this didn't happen, but sadly, there was nothing I could do except download the mod and do it correctly. Overall, while this game did have some flaws that annoyed me, I still enjoyed it for what it was, and if you want to play any of the older Wolfenstein installments, this one is worth your time and money.

I enjoyed Return to Castle Wolfenstein years ago on Windows XP with an old 64MB PCI GPU. Like most Quake 3 engine games, the graphics have aged so-so yet allow much for the modding crowd. Also like some Quake 3 engine games, there are source ports for running RtCW on newer OSes including Linux (iortcw). Enemies are varied in look and attacks. Environments are varied and encourage a bit of strategy. Weapons all have uses, with environments and enemies encouraging you to switch things up. Multiplayer (thru iortcw's "WolfMP" launcher) can connect you to matches against other aging Gen Xers! I'm glad I saw this puppy on gog.com with no DRM and scooped it up!

What can I say, the game is good but it could be better. The first stages are delicious, but all that later paranormal envelope, super soldiers, bosses and those jumping mutants unfortunately detract from this game. The stages in which you fight Hitler's soldiers are great, they behave quite intelligently, they try to surprise the player and even on the easiest difficulty level they are quite a challenge. The best of the whole game is probably the first level during which we escape from the dungeon in the castle. The game maintains its high level to the mission in which we face these jumping mutants, later, unfortunately, it loses a lot of its beginner atmosphere. Nevertheless, it is a good production and I can recommend it with a pure heart. And my last pain is the ending, let me just say that I was a bit disappointed.

This title was a game changer for me when it came out in 2002. The single player campaign was very cool, but the multiplayer was what set this game apart from all others. It was the first time I ever played online and I was immediately hooked... not just a fan, but obsessed. Unfortunately, the Master Server has been down for a few years and the multiplayer game is practically useless. But the single player campaign is worth the price of admission.

I replayed this recently, and it has aged well (dated, but it doesn't just feel old). BUT- be sure to change your video settings, as the default is super low-res. The story is rich, albeit a little weird, and engaging. The maps are well laid out and detailed. Gameplay is rich, though not terribly varied. It comes at a good pace, and the difficulty settings allow for either quick casual play or a challenge. With epic boss battles, good voice acting, great level design, and good support on modern hardware, it's hard to go wrong with this game. If you want extra enjoyment, play Enemy Territory, which runs on this engine but has wonderful team-based and class-based multiplayer (though you need at least 8 people for it to be epic fun).