Post-GOTY Thoughts: Wolfenstein: The New Order

After all of the discussion during the GOTY podcasts, I had to pick up Wolfenstein, despite my general apathy toward FPS games. I've played through roughly 70% of the game, a figure I estimated from a cursory glance at wikipedia, and I think I'm putting it down for good. That's not to say it's a BAD game, just that it isn't anywhere near as cohesively good as I wanted it to be.

While I enjoy killing innumerable Nazi's in myriad ways, I can't get past how stilted and awkward the storyline is presented to the player. The designers clearly had a vision for an alternate reality 1960's where Germany won World War two, and a separate vision for the friendly characters you interact with throughout the game. The tone often ping-pongs from serious and stern, as exhibited by an interaction you have with a Nazi leader onboard a train, to ridiculous and inane lines of dialogue between BJ Blaskowicz and Resistance members.

I never quite knew what to expect next from Wolfenstein, which in a way was a bit refreshing of an experience from a FPS, instead of getting the usual paint-by-numbers journey that we've seen dozens of times over the past few years. However, in this specific case, I felt the whole was less than the sum of Wolfensteins parts. It would have been much better-served by the design team choosing a stylistic tone and sticking with it.

Give me gritty, or give me quirky, but don't give me both. It's just incongruent.

Yeah, that lack of congruence is what I enjoyed about it I guess. Nothing wrong with a one-note game but the range of comedy/horror in this game was up my alley. To engage you a little more directly - killing hundreds of nazis could never work in a completely serious game, could it? You need a cartoon to justify that level of one man violence. I dunno, just a thought!

Either way, not sure the game is overrated though... as much as there can be any truths to such a statement.

Really most of the industry seemed to expect nothing of Wolfenstein and even upon review it's not like the game is some kind of flashfire success.

It has an 80 on Metacritic, which is, eh. Not bad? Pretty good?

I think that's worth keeping in mind. The reason the dudes at GB and people like me are so hyped on Wolfenstein is that we expected little, few people were talking about it, etc.

Long story short...

You played Wolfenstein after it had been hyped to hell and back.

Most of us played it long before that.

Expectation is everything.

Wolfenstein isn't serious in the slightest. It's clearly tongue in cheek from Blazko's chuckle worthy monologues to the fact that you fight Nazis on the moon. The only thing that was treated with any amount of seriousness was the concentration camp stuff. The game knows it's ridiculous, but it doesn't need to point that out to the player; it should be evident from the very beginning. And if none of the giant mecha robots or shotgun grannies gave it away, you'd think the Nightmare levels would do it. If anything, Wolfenstein reminded me of Commando. Within the framework of the narrative it takes itself seriously, but there are so many winks and nudges both in the dialogue and the sheer reverence MachineGames showed for the Wolfenstein series it's hard to imagine that the "quirkiness" wasn't on purpose. To me the tones weren't incompatible; it was a studio making the conscious decision to let the game be as dark, as funny, and as ridiculous as they wanted it to be, and recognizing that it's totally okay. These are the same people that wrote and developed critically acclaimed games like Escape From Butcher Bay and The Darkness. They know how to do drama and make it stick to the ribs. Wolfenstein isn't a drama, and its only "grittiness" stems from its deft handling of incredibly sensitive topics. For the other 97% of the game, it's balls to the wall rampage, excitement, and audacity.

Oh and then there's my favourite line from the entire game: "There's Deathshead's chief scientist bound for the Moon. Well, I'm coming for you, you Nazi fuckin' spaceman."

If you don't enjoy it that's your prerogative, but I don't think there was any dissonance at all with the tone of the game. Things can be funny as well as dark. Wolfenstein: The New Order is a healthy mix of both. Whenever things seem to get too bleak, the game promptly reminds you that this is an exercise in fun, and that at the end of the day you're playing a Jew who blows up Nazis and conquers the Third Fourth Reich.

@geraltitude: Thanks for the reply, bud. You make a decent point about the title of my blogpost. It might put people in the wrong mindset to throw out Overrated as the first word I say about the game. Noted.

It doesn't really surprise me that the game doesn't hit well with some people considering it gives off that exploitation movie kinda vibe. Those kinds of Nazisploitation films always gave off goofy and completely grim and dire vibes in equal amounts. Its definitely not for everyone.

@oldirtybearon: I guess I just found it hard to mentally juggle the bleak, dark world they present you with, and the ridiculously OUT THERE content held within it. Maybe it's because I never played any other Wolfenstein game. And, you're right, of course the quirkiness was on purpose.

@president_barackbar: Solid point, duder! I sometimes find it hard to think of analogous experiences when comparing games to traditional forms of narrative media.

@TheFeenMachine: Wolfenstein 3D (the first first person shooter!) had Adolf Hitler as the final boss. Adolf Hitler started the battle in a mech suit. I shit you not. He also had an elaborate death animation that probably gave id the idea for DOOM. And Wolfenstein 3D also featured a Kill Cam. It was used once on Hitler. That was it.

The point I'm making is that, yeah, goofiness and quirk has always been a hallmark of the series. And like @president_barackbar said, it's highly reminiscent of exploitation films. The pedigree behind this team is far too good to not believe this wasn't their intention, but also like barackbar said, it's not for everyone. Shame you don't enjoy it, because I had an absolute blast playing through it.

The combination of the absurd with the sincere is half the reason The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is one of my favorite movies. The other half is David Bowie in Portuguese.

:) no problem duder!

After all this time posting I always opt for Safe rather than Sorry. It's funny how thread titles tend to eat arguments alive. Really your post says pretty much nothing at all about the game being overrated and I think all your thoughts are fair and fun to discuss without being an attack on the game. This last part I agree with entirely:

I really enjoyed Wolfenstein - played it twice over and everything - but I do have some qualms with it. My most serious problem was the violence. I know. Crazy right? Who am I? Why am I playing this game? It's just that I found the violence in a certain cut-scene to just be *real* *fucking* *intense*. And no where else in the game does shit go down like that. Just made me feel weird and really hate Nazis, so I guess mission accomplished.

Plus, like @dudeglove mentioned, Wolfenstein does nothing to change how I feel about sewer levels in games. UGH.

@oldirtybearon: Thanks for the scope. It's always interesting to see the prior games influence its successors. Maybe I just need to take some time before going back to it, since I went into it with somewhat weird expectations after listening to ~14 hours of games discussion.

It's not even the story that I was taken by with New Order. It's just the feel of the gameplay. Guns have oomph and you've got a lot of them. Feels like you're actually existing in the space like Half-Life 2, Halo 3, and Doom 3 rather than a lot of modern shooters where it feels like you're just gawking at setpieces on a theme park ride.

@frostyryan: I rather enjoyed the gameplay, asides from feeling un-killable at times, and thinking I needed to up the difficulty. Dual-wielding assault rifles was probably my favorite way to play.

Summed it up better than I ever could.

Came here to post the same thing. Wolfenstein was my game of the year primarily because of its gameplay. It just felt so smooth, and each encounter felt as intense as this.

OP has criticisms of the tone and storytelling, which are understandable and totally subjective. But if you like that stuff and like the gameplay, this is a hell of a game.