Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsDays of Nazi Past (4.5 stars)
Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2014
Publisher/Developer: Bethesda Softworks/MachineGames.
Platforms:Xbox 360, Xbox ONE, PS3, PS4 and PC.
Release Date: May 20th, 2014.
Es gibt ein Haus in Neu-Berlin,
man nennt es Haus Abendrot.
Es war der Ruin vieler guter Jungs,
von mir, mein Gott lebt ich not.
Wilbert Eckart & Volksmusik Stars - House of the Rising Sun.
I have no connections to the Wolfenstein franchise. I know of its legacy of how one of the games, Wolfenstein 3D, helped birth the First Person Shooter genre into what it is today. I know of the fact you face off against Robo Hitler, stealing precious Nazi gold and that you eat enough food to make Booker DeWitt's appetite look downright meager by comparison. But I have never played one before up until this one. The main reason why I was looking forward to it was not because of the name, but the people behind it, MachineGames. The name might not sound all that familiar but if one were to dig around, the studio was actually made of up of people from the famed Sweden game studio Starbreeze Studios, the company behind the famed Chronicles of Riddick games and one of my all time favorites, The Darkness. During the troubled development of their Syndicate reboot at EA, a good chunk of the team left to start MachineGames and for four straight years they went to work on Wolfenstein The New Order, a sequel/reboot/reinvention of the franchise at Bethesda.
Their goal with the project was to be the best of both worlds in FPSs: The frenetic gunplay, over abundance of weapons and big sprawling level design of old school shooters while mixing in some of the new, such as (semi)-regenerating health, top of the range graphics and a cinematic approach to the game's narrative, giving it a polished feel straight out of Hollywood's finest B-movie productions and big budget Summer action flicks. Since its announcement in May 2013, the game has had a fair amount of attention on it. Now that the game is finally out (it was to be released late last year, but was delayed for more polish), did Machine Games deliver on making their love letter to old school shooters or did it wind out as an outdated dud with an identity crisis?
While the end product may not be without flaws, that doesn't it stop from being a rollicking adventure that is also one of the best, in terms of controls and shooting mechanics, shooters to come along in quite some time.
1946. The Allies are loosing. Somehow, the Nazis are winning the war thanks to advanced tech that defies Human comprehension and in a last ditch effort, we decide to strike back in a team lead by William Joseph "B.J." Blazkowicz and countless Allied soldiers. However, in an attempt to cut the head off the snake that is the Nazi war machine (lead by the ghoulish General Wilhelm "Deathshead" Strasse), everything goes wrong. Blazkowicz looses his friends, gets a piece of shrapnel lodged straight into his head, winds up in an a coma and staying at a nut hut for 14 years. During those years, as he sat laying like a vegetable, the world gave up and the Nazis took it over in one fell swoop.
Cut to 1960. The Asylum he lives is in flames and right before a solider is about to blow his brains out, BJ snaps out of his coma and goes back to doing what he does best: Kicking Nazi ass. He soon travels to across Europe, along with the help of a nurse named Anya Oliwa and soon attempts to find the resistance, The Kreisau Circle, which is lead by the crippled but charismatic Caroline Becker. While the resistance is lacking in numbers, it's certainly not lacking in guts and smarts and with BJ's brawn, they soon begin to rise up in an attempt to take down the regime once and for all.
As loony and silly as the above synopsis might sound, it all works somehow. There's a delightful sincerity approached to the material. The game never once winks at the audience or rolls their eyes at them out of an attempt to gain some cheap meta humor. The story achieves a nice balance of playing its self straight a lot of the time, along with a nice sense of humor to boot. When it's being fun, its fun. When its serious, its dead serious. At one moment, you'll be facing of against giant Nazi mechas and dogs with dual shotguns, the next being sent to a concentration camp and it never really comes of jarring as one would think it would be. Character interaction is also surprisingly nuanced, with great cutscenes (presented in a nicely theatrical letterbox format) and lively voice acting. One instance of this would a conversation that can be had Tekla, a Russian genius whose rapid fire ramblings about fate could make a College professor faint. Or the strangely adorable Max Haas, a slow witted but lovable man child who's simple actions limited vocabulary almost brought a tear to my eye in some spots.
If there were any flaws I could have with the story aspect, it would be that at times, the characters would somehow have the ability to re-appear and disappear in ways that kind of come off as Deus Exy and that the game has some really cool characters that I feel don't get their moments to shine. One of which is Bombate, an African ex-solider who shows plenty of charm and coolness but sadly doesn't get that many moments to make me yell with joy. Still, what's presented here is pretty damn good and if you can look over some of its fault, there's a very fun if horrifying tale to be had.
Gameplay wise, the game harkens back to the glorious shooters of old, with ridiculous weaponry, an arsenal that is both varied but familiar and a relatively stiff challenge. You've got your nice assortment of pistols, rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles and more, with some nifty rail guns and clever knife tricks thrown as well. Just about every gun in the game has a satisfying kick to it; Unlike a lot of shooters these days in which it feels like you're firing a cap gun, the guns in The New Order feel meaty. There's plenty of recoil and kickback with the guns, but it's pretty easy to keep it under control. They're big and bulky, but filled with personality. You can also dual wield just about any gun in the game, though sadly you cannot mix and match. Controls are also exceptionally tight. I played the game with a 360 controller, and while it does take a while to get accustomed to the controls, it becomes a very smooth experience when it comes to Nazi hunting.
What's also thrown in to the game, due to MachineGmes' Riddick roots, is some Stealth gameplay. Don't expect the kind of depth out of something like Deus Ex or Dishonored, but what works here works. The controls work pretty organically between switching to gung ho mayhem to restrained murder and stabbing Nazis in the throat never gets old, especially with the creative animations used. It makes for some nice variety among all of the never ending waves of Nazi fodder.
Level design is also quite good, though I do think it's better in the first half than the second. The levels in the first section are big and offer plenty of ways to attack and maneuver through areas. While digging around in these super mini-sandboxes, you can also find collectibles that range for catchy German covers of classic 60's music, Nazi gold, upgradeable parts for your arsenal and more. However, later levels wind up being more concentrated and more linear and while it doesn't hurt the game's rock solid pacing, it can be a little disappointing that it all levels don't contain the openness of earlier ones.
AI is something of a mixed bag as well. On one hand, in firefights, they are truly aggressive and worthy opponents. The flank, use cover, have deadly accuracy, can be massive bullet sponges and won't stop until you are dead. There's a nice mix of baddies to face off against, ranging from your standard mook sporting bulky body armor and menacing gas masks to robo-German Shepards to Mechs of unstoppable mayhem. But when dealing with them in Stealth, they don't show the biggest brains. They'll see fallen comrades on the floor right I stabbed or pumped them full of lead and rather being on their toes, they just wonder what the hell happened and don't raise any alarms. It can be a little annoying and even laughable at times and I wish they were just as good when taking them down in stealth mode as they are in the big gun battles.
Another thing the game does, probably as a part of its roots with Starbreeze, is introduce collectibles and side quests with some of the side characters the Resistance HQ. Sure, you may not be able to kill Nazi scum here, but it can make for some good world building and atmosphere.
On the technical side of things, The New Order definitely shines when it comes to both the audio and visual fronts. The game's graphics were rendered with the iD Tech 5 engine, the same one used to power 2011's RAGE. There has been debate among some gamers on whether the graphics of The New Order are impressive or not. Personally speaking, I found them to be quite good. While the game suffers from jaggy edges in character models and environments and there's some weird pop-in from time to time, the detail was quite nice and the art direction is strong, excellently conveying a world under control from the oppressive regime. I was playing on a computer with a 1440 x 900 screen with most of the settings on either High or Ultra, and the specs for the computer I used were the following:
WIndows 7 OS.
AMD 8350 Eight Core Processor.
GTX 660 3GB.
8GB of RAM.
Save for some slightly choppy transitions from cutscene to gameplay or the aforementioned texture problems, the game ran incredibly smooth at a usually consistent 60 FPS. It should be noted, however, that some have been running into problems running the game with AMD cards, such as crashes and choppy framerates. While I have not experienced any crashes during my playtime, I can understand the concern for those who want to wait out of fear of the game not running. If you think it's the best idea, then go right ahead until the game's launch issues get sorted out.
The audio side is quite strong as well. Guns sound like bringers of doom, whether it be the almost guttural sound of the assault rifle or the booming echo that the shotguns erupt. Even the standard pistol can sound quite punchy. The voice acting across the board is pretty excellent, with a great lead vocal performance by Brain Bloom (Dragon Age 2, Kane and Lynch). Bloom's gravely narration can send a shiver down your spine as he reflects on the cruelty of the Nazis or reminiscences about what his life could have been if not for the never ending nightmare of war. Other standouts include Dwight Schultz (Deathshead) and Bonita Friedericy (Caroline Becker), with the former especially having fun. Schultz's vocal work in particular, while hammy, is also quite terrifying and gleefully evil.
The soundtrack, with compositions provided by Mick Gordon, Meshguggah Guitarist Fredrik Thordendal and some uncredited work by Starbreeze usual Gustaf Grefberg, is quite colorful. It's filled to the brim with heavy metal tracks, odd sounding electronic music, melancholic guitar rifts and the (very catchy, might I add) aforementioned German covers of famous songs.
It's not without its faults, but in a world where multiplayer reigns supreme in the FPS arena and Single Player is at something of a crossroads (Bioshock Infinite and Metro Last Light managed to breath life into SP campaigns however), it's almost revelatory to see a game like Wolfenstein The New Order come along and proudly embrace its single player only party. It's surprisingly invigorating story, spectacular gunplay and grand audio/visual presentation make for one damn good time, if you can ignore some the AI and level design problems. An FPS like this doesn't come around like this as often as it should but if you can muster the funds for it, The New Order is more than worth the price.
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