Wolfenstein

The Good
Playing this game for the first time was quite a surprise, as I had mostly heard negative things about it. What I found was a pretty decent game with good replay value; a game which definitely had a few notable flaws, but also a significant number of redeeming features that helped me appreciate it. This is what I’ll cover in this section.

Wolfenstein (2009) is the sequel to the amazing Return to Castle Wolfenstein (2001), and as such has a story with a strong emphasis on the supernatural, although it also tries to wade into sci-fi territory by introducing the concept of an alternate dimension. Among the characters it introduces is Caroline Becker – an important figure in MachineGames’ Wolfenstein: The New Order (2014), which revitalized the series.

The game levels are based on a hub system – something we have seen in Raven’s Heretic/Hexen series, id’s Quake 2 and some chapters of Valve’s classic Half-Life. The hub is the town of Isenstadt (the correct German spelling would be “Eisenstadt” – literally translating as “city of iron”) – this is where you contact the various factions and characters that give you missions. Then you’re not automatically transported to your mission area, but have to find the exit to it, which means you’ll often engage in skirmishes with various randomly spawned bunches of enemies around the city streets. Somewhat safer alternate routes are present (sewers and rooftops), although they are not nearly as far-reaching as the NPC dialogue suggests, so you’ll mostly have to use the streets.

The town hub is mostly non-linear and allows for some degree of free-roaming, while the actual missions are linear and more to-the-point (since you are pursuing specific objectives). The town itself is very well designed, creates a convincing sense of location and has a large number of secrets (I’ll get to that in a minute). The missions take place in various locations in and around the city, offering a variety of environments, such as a farm, archeological digs, a factory, ruined city streets, a really creepy hospital, etc. Some missions are optional, meaning you can pursue them only if you want some extra cash in your pockets. Sound ambience is perfectly implemented; music only plays in select spots to accentuate the situation.

Secrets have a significant presence in the game, mostly in the non-linear town hub, but there’s a fair number of them in the missions as well. They are quite useful, and thus the game encourages players to explore and hunt for secrets. Some of them may contain ammo, most of them – collectibles. Collectibles include gold (used to purchase ammo or weapon upgrades), intel items (unlock certain upgrades and provide background lore, for those that like this sort of thing) and Tomes of Power, which look suspiciously similar to Heretic’s artifacts of the same name (unlock certain amulet upgrades).

Since I mentioned the amulet – it’s an artifact that you acquire early in the game and upgrade with several supernatural powers: slow time, shielding and berserk power. Hmmm, didn’t we see something similar in Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil? Anyway, the amulet is part of the Veil gameplay mechanic, which is an eerie alternate reality. Entering it has a few benefits, such as seeing in the dark, moving faster and the ability to enter places that are otherwise inaccessible in the physical world.

I’ve heard people compare Wolfenstein to Call of Duty, yet Wolf definitely strays away from this formula by allowing you to carry 8 weapons (not just two at a time). There are a few pretty unique gadgets, such a particle beam gun, a Tesla gun and a flamethrower. Weapon upgrades are a major theme in the game – they are quite useful and worth getting. They don’t just make a weapon more powerful, they can even alter its purpose – the weak and ordinary MP40 submachine gun becomes a surgical-precision tool for stealthy elimination of specific targets when fully upgraded, the bland Kar98 rifle becomes a lethal sniper with all upgrades, etc. There isn’t enough gold to buy all upgrades in the game, so you will have to choose and prioritize.

A word about enemies – unlike CoD where you just shoot the same enemy soldier again and again, Wolf offers a large variety of enemies with different behaviors, appearances and special features. Some will charge you, others will shoot you from cover, a few will bombard you from afar. You will definitely have to adapt your tactics.

The Bad
While I like to focus on the game’s redeeming features, I can clearly see why many people disliked it. At this point I suppose everyone knows about the Call of Duty influences on Wolfenstein’s gameplay, most notably the regenerating health (there are no medkits or anything of the sort in the game) and the infamous “you’re hurt, take cover” message that we, oldschool gamers, hate to see in a game. Also, you can only sprint for a while before getting “tired” and having to catch your breath.

Voice acting leaves much to be desired. Like its predecessor, RtCW, Wolfenstein has the Nazis speak in English with a crude German accent. I heard many mispronounced German words – now, I am not really fluent in the language, I have only studied German for a few years in high school, but I did notice the mispronunciations and it was annoying. Most of the NPC’s are quite forgettable, except for the several villains and Caroline Becker.

Linear missions means you will often run into invisible walls, “conveniently” placed cave-ins, inextinguishable flames, invincible doors, or the so-called “insurmountable waist-height fence”, all of which can be annoying and sometimes just look so sloppy. The town hub is not fully available to you from the beginning; many parts are sealed off until you accept and/or complete a certain mission. As mentioned in the previous section – NPC’s will make you believe the sewers and rooftops are viable alternate routes to traverse the town, yet they are pretty limited in scope and thus only useful for shorter trips. The random nature of enemy spawns around town means you can either go around deserted streets or be subjected to a grueling endurance run along your entire trip.

Another gripe of mine is that ammo for certain weapon types appears so rarely that you’ll have to rely primarily on Black Market purchases to refill – something I consider unnecessary. Wouldn’t have been so hard to just put some of the rare ammo types in secrets, alongside those gold bars.

The Bottom Line
Wolfenstein (2009) is a product of its time – Call of Duty was in its prime back then and it inevitably affected everything in the genre one way or another.

However, it is also a product of Raven – the people who gave us awesome classics like Heretic, Hexen, Soldier of Fortune, Jedi Outcast and a few others. A name I always associate with great single player experiences and quality design.

If you are able to swallow the CoD-like gameplay elements and several other flaws this game has, you would surely have fun with it. I specifically recommend it to fans of id Software and Raven, also to Wolfenstein fans in general.