Wolfenstein: The New Order

This game obviously came out a while ago but I do like the premise of a world that went fully under after WW2, setting is brilliant and the visuals held up really well with time too. The game isnt too restrictive and allows most players to find their own prefered playstyle, each skill tree felt rewarding to progress and made a tangible difference to the following missions. The rate at which you gain momentum is frequently changed while some missions are big explosion fests, you do get nice narrative breaks inbetween inside the little mission hub. Each mission did feel unique from the rest too, who would have thought Nazi's in space would be cool (treyarch did but i digress) The soundtrack is nicely highlighted in select moments to give the game more "OOMPH" but otherwise is pretty standard, a good standard however with appropriate tones and harsh thrashes in battle, it is easy to see how composer mick gordon would refine certain aspects into Doom 4, The difficulty of the game is quite high, Granted i played on the second hardest so perhaps i was asking for it but enemies had good aim, shot often and the health you obtain melts away like butter if you arent wearing any armor, which led me to use a more stealthy approach when possible, but not always as sometimes BJ cashes through a window and all elements of surprise are lost. the exploration in this game is amazing however, i had a few upgrades I found for the laster gun which made my experiecne dramatically different, despite this I can tell the levels are still designed reasonably enough so that if you miss these you are still able to fight. the performance however is abysmal, on my pc from the year 2020, i am not able to get a proper stable framerate, i had to open the console and type "jobs_numthreads 1" becuase apparently this improved things, to a small degree. but it ran "okayish" enough for mt to not be too mad at my monitor. buy if you like shooters, hate nazis, and are a fan of alternate history.

There's a slight misconception that this was the first FPS to be set in a world where the Nazis won WWII; but it's actually the *third,* behind Mortyr (1999) and Turning Point: Fall of Liberty (2008). Two obscure, janky titles that aren't really worth playing beyond pure curiosity. Wolfenstein: The New Order was the first game to nail it. The setting is as bleak and depressing as its dystopian setting warrants, relying on an introspective protagonist, poetic dialogue, gorgeous scenery, and a classic Mick Gordon soundtrack to move the plot. There's no point where you can just flip a switch and save the world, because the fight is already *lost*. You feel more like a pebble in the shoe of the cruel dictators ruling the world, striking back in whatever ways you can against an invincible enemy. The cruelty of the Nazi regime is put on full display, albeit with a science fiction flair. Mass graves, vivisection, panopticons, slavery, and copious amounts of body horror make this possibly the most accurate and gruesome depiction of Nazi atrocities in gaming. And at the end of the day, it's also just an excellent shooter. Crisp feedback and powerful guns, mixed with great level design, make you feel like an 80s action hero outmatched against a much more powerful enemy. A few miniboss enemies are typically sprinkled in with a much larger horde of grunts, forcing you to learn the map and avoid killzones. If the hallway in the middle is dominated by a giant robot, then you'd best save him for last, and stick to the smaller corridors where the grunts funnel through. But even then, you still might need to retreat if you find yourself getting flanked. It's a constant tug of war between holding out, and pushing for better cover and pickups. On top of all that, if you aren't sure about the price, just wishlist it. It gets dirt cheap during sales. You'll be glad you waited.

The story of B.J (yes) is a okay story, the characters are well developed but it doesn't really do anything ground breaking in terms of the story, which is not a horrible thing considering this is Wolfenstein, the characters come as a happy suprise basically. The gameplay is great though, it feels really good to shoot and stab things in this game, even the stealth (while extremely minimilastic) is not the worst thing in the game as it can be in other shooter focused games, basically you just press the sneak button, and press the knife button/shoot someone in the head with a silenced pistol, it doesn't have any depth to it at all basically. The gunplay is extremely fun, I beat it on "Death Incarnate" difficulty and it really felt like I had to slide around cover, try to move fast and attack from different views, really examine the arena in which the shootout would happen and understand it to some extent. The perks you earn are earned by playing the game the way you want to, which means in the end B.J is an extension of your own gameplay, he is what you make him basically. This is a long-winded way of saying that this game is great, and it absolutely deserves atleast a playthrough if you are one of the few 100 people on this planet that hasn't played this game yet in 2022.

Surprised me. Better than expected. A solid return to Wolfenstein. ID Tech 5 looks great here. Excellent gunplay, story, mechanics, characters, and enemies.

A must-have for any fan of the genre fps!