Review - Wolfenstein: The New Order

You’re on plane headed into what seems to be a suicide mission…There is FLAK exploding around you, you see young faces inside - dead or frightened beyond belief, bombers are catching fire and hurling toward the ground. The pilot is yelling to you to put out flames in the cargo area and make repairs before yours is next, then jet fighters appear seemingly out of no where; you rush towards a gun turret to take out as many as you can until you’re hit. You and your pilot need to jump to another aircraft before yours bursts into a fireball. Once aboard, bad luck follows as the craft you just jumped from comes crashing down onto  you...

It is 1946 and the Axis Powers are winning.

This is the opening Act for the first chapter of Wolfenstein: The New Order by Bethesda and MachineGames.  The game is set in an Alternate History of World War II, the Allies are loosing badly and are unable to stop the Axis in their quest for world domination. 

You are B.J. Blazkowicz and you have been sent to the front lines in a last ditch effort to stop the Nazis and a certain scientist who may be the cause of their winning streak.

Once on the ground you are thrust into the action. You must escape from the wreckage and fight your way back to your companions. You encounter soldiers who are big and quite menacing looking with their masks and large Tesla Coil backpacks. There are also dogs that have been “modified” with armor plating and teeth. While fighting your way thru trenches you feel a rumble and hear explosions. You look up and see a gigantic mech walking along the beach destroying anything in its path. Think Titanfall in WWII. (If that were a real game I’d play it)  Once inside you come across officers walking around with soldiers. This is where, if you want, silenced kills come into play. The officers are basically walking alarms. If they spot you or if you attack them they will sound the alarm and you will have to face a wave of reinforcements before moving on. If you decide to do a stealth kill you will be able to get past the officer and his guards fairly easily and quickly move on in your mission. There are gun placements, which you can use against your enemies or you can take the gun with you a la Halo style.  After finding your companions you move deeper inside and come a across what seems to be a lab. There are opened up bodies on some tables and one man in your squad points out there are piles of ashes on the floor. Freaked out he makes a mistake and pushes a button while trying open the door. Flames being to shoot above the tables and you need to get out fast! You open the door into another room only to get trapped again. After a moment you see someone at the door. It is the “Good Dr.” The one you’ve been looking for. He smiles and walks away.  Suddenly the floor opens and one of his creations appear. He kills one of your squad mates and you and the others are left to try to stop this steel plated “person”. After a short fight the walls start to close in (literally) and you think this is the end. Black out. You and what’s left of your squad awake to being held down by the more of the beasts like the one you just defeated. The Dr. beings to talk to you. He wants to you to choose whom he will take as his next specimen.  Will it be the young solider or the pilot who was with you since the mission started?  You have to pick. If you do not the beasts crush you and the checkpoint reloads. After you make the choice, the one you choose unlocks an extra skill, the Dr. leaves.  You make a daring escape from the room and jump from the window as an explosion goes off behind you. With those explosions comes shrapnel and apiece gets stuck in the back of your head. You are saved and the next thing you know it is 1960 and the Nazis won. Time to get even.  

Without getting into rest of the story and spoilers lets talk about game itself.

Along the way you pick up familiar Wolfenstein weapons like the handgun (there is a silencer too!) and machine guns. There are throwing knives and your melee is a knife strike. Note on that one, melee only seems to really work for silent kills. I wouldn’t try it in the midst of a battle. You can also duel wield weapons. Duel handguns are cool and duel auto shotguns… that’s a BLAST! The duel machineguns however seem bit clunky for lack for lack of a better word.  I found myself going through more ammo than actually hitting anything. You can eat food off tables for heath and you can find armor from fallen enemies or in crates. There are also treasure, collectables and level maps to find. Yes there are hidden passageways behind paintings! There is even a homage to 60s music and Jimi Hendrix. Nostalgia everywhere! Speaking of nostalgia, there is a wonderful Easter egg hidden in the game that will take you back to 1992 and return you to the original Castle Wolfenstein! If you are old enough to remember the original game you will be sidetracked! This did side track me for about an hour. If you're not old enough to remember the original it give you a glimpse into some video game history and you'll see how far games have come. 

The game does make its adult theme felt more than once. There is a part where you see an officer on the phone. If you listen to him you hear him talk about his family and his promotion, reminding you your enemies are human - well the ones the Dr. hasn’t worked on anyway. Then you remember if you want to get past him, he needs to go. There are also scenes of suicide bombings and concentration camps. This isn’t your original Wolfenstein. B.J. does give his thoughts on things during game play and at times sometime they get very deep.  He does speak in a low voice so it is easy to miss. Use a headset or turn on subtitles for “All.” The controls are well done, expect for the prementioned duel wielding machineguns. Personally I would have liked a Left Handed setup where Left trigger was fire and Right was Aim but I adapted after a few “ooopps” moments. (It’s right handed world, what can I say haha) The game itself is short. You could speed thru and probably finish it in 8 hours. Want to look for collectables and the like? You can probably squeeze up to 15-20 hours of game play.  Do I think you should spend the $60-$50 on it…that is debatable. If you enjoyed the Wolfenstein series, like FPS’ that are more arcade than “realistic”, happen to enjoy WWII History or Alternate History stories then you will not be disappointed! It is definitely worth a trip to Red Box or to have on your Game Fly list.  This game gets a score of 4/5. Wolfenstein: New World Order is available for PC/XBOX360/XBOXOne/PS3/PS4