Shooting + Exploration hasn't been this good in FPS in years

First, play this game on Uber difficulty (the highest) if you've played a shooter or two. Especially on PC. Also, seeing Brad snipe, laser through stuff, and select weapons from a weapon wheel was umm...not the most ideal :P. Compared to keyboard and mouse where you can just press the number of the weapon and if you press it again, you can dual wield which is much faster when you're in a combat pinch. Dual wielding shotguns is like nirvana.

"It's pretty Call of Duty" is what I heard in the quick look. Actually, you don't need to use ADS (aim down sights) here because hip-fire is accurate unlike most games.

It's much more beneficial when you're being flanked around and don't want to be in one spot behind cover doing the ol' Left Trigger -> Right Trigger. The game incentivises you to fucking move with the sliding ability and health overchargers lying around like candy. You can go for the stealth playstyle, and usually in games that give me the option, I'll choose that but I mostly finished the stealth perk tree so I can get to dual wielding rampage playstyle in further chapters. I'll mostly do stealth to get the map information by killing the commanders silently.

Second, the shooting mechanics and hit feedback are excellent here. Last game that was this good was RAGE (same engine, different team of former Starbreeze). There are gibs, there is gore, there is dismemberment and decapitation. Enemies react to each of your shots and you're encouraged to go for headshots because each helmet popping off gives you +5 Armor but there are no bullet sponges like most games that require you to go to headshot city.

Third and lastly, you haven't seen this level of exploration since Deus Ex or even the old DOOM/Wolfenstein games where you really have to look at a map to see where you're going.

In FPSs with exploration, usually the shooting isn't so good (Bioshock 1). Here, it's the best of both. There are collectibles all over, and you'll want to get those Enigma Codes for bonus modes in the game that I haven't quite yet figured out. If you kill a commander, the collectibles will show on your map, but it won't inform on which level they're on so you have to figure it out yourself like when a door is locked from your side.

I forgot to mention, the music is really great. Industrial, noise, rock, country. Really pumps you up. The main menu music is awesome. Then there's also the Nazi pastiche cover-like songs which can also be heard in the trailers.

Have a good time gibbing :)

GET PSYCHED

I agree with everything except the RAGE part, that game was garbage.

I love that the hip fire is accurate because I can use the bumper to look shoot around corners and it feels super fluid and natural.

hmm could i actually be interested in a shooter for the first time ever since the CoD wave of BS washed over the earth?

I don't know. That quick look really turned me off the game but It sounds like it was just because of how bad Brad was. I'll pick this up when I got time probably.

I really don't think this game is like CoD at all. It's far more comparable to Bioshock Infinite, but it plays a lot better than that game did (and I really liked that game). Sorry, I don't see the comparison, apart from Wolfenstein TNO being a linear AAA first person shooter.

There's actually a d-pad shortcut for switching between single/dual-wielding your current weapon (up). That said, the weapon wheel is certainly not ideal when compared to being able to just hit a number on a keyboard. I haven't had much trouble using the laser with the sticks, but a mouse would obviously be far superior.

Anyway, yeah, it's a pretty cool game. Fun combat and pretty great level design. Fun story with some great characters, too.

I don't know about that exploration, I usually managed to find the right path without looking at the map. Though I didn't go out my way to snatch all the collectables, so maybe the map will come to more use on my second playthrough. I also rather go for the balls-to-the-walls approach and just move fast while trying to mow down everyone, unless things get way too heated. I think Brad really did the controls some injustice in the QL, especially the way he shoved that laser cutter around and from as close as possible, when even the first version of it had a decent range to it.

But then again, I'm also apparently part of the secret club who tends to have no problems playing games like GTA or other FPS games with a controller and is always very puzzled by people saying those controls are complete shite when compared to mouse & keyboard. Granted, those go together with an FPS game like bread and butter, but I'll gladly play them with a controller. In fact, Syndicate and Infinite actually felt better to me with the 360 controller.

There's a damn good reason most games don't make hip-firing accurate. It's not. At all. Some of the best shooters in the world couldn't pull off those lengthy pistol headshots from the hip, and your average shooter probably couldn't hit a tank from that far away. You have no visual of where the barrel is pointed in terms of verticality when hip-firing. It's virtually impossible to aim a pistol from distance and tell a shot that's going to hit in the dirt from one that will sail high over the target, and if we're talking about a gun that's held in one hand from the side slightly rotated towards center as well, it's even more insane. Millimeters of adjustment drastically alter bullet trajectory at range, and without any semblance of a sight picture, notions of "accuracy" are pretty much laughable.

I'm willing to grant this some latitude because it's a video game, but those shots in that first .gif are completely f***ing ridiculous. As is dual-wielding shotguns, ARs, etc. given recoil, stability, et al. Not that I necessarily expect a ton of "realism" from a Wolfenstein game set in an alternate reality, but when you're praising the "excellent" shooting mechanics, I feel like I should point out the massive flaws. If you want to credit the game for doing something different or more fun to you in making it a viable strategy to run around guns blazing with dual-wielded ARs, that's fine, but let's not act like they nailed it here in terms of actual shooting mechanics. I get if you're bored of using ADS, but don't confuse "more fun" with reality.

Not that CoD or most first-person shooters get it exactly right, either. In general, the "accurate while running" concept is incredibly unreasonable and off-hand shooting is WAY too stable. However, I get why games don't ask you to stop moving and find a rest to take a shot at range in the interest of fun, and I'm willing to suspend disbelief enough in most games to not get pissed that my superhero badass can shoot a running guy while he's also running off-hand at a few hundred yards. Hell, I play plenty of CoD, and my avatar here is from Goldeneye, a game which featured the ability to to dual-wield RPGs. I'm honestly not big on complaining about liberties games take from reality, because they're games, after all. That said, let's call a spade a spade. An arcade-y mechanic is not necessarily a "good" mechanic.

Let me ask you something; is it fun?

My main beef with the game (PC version) is the 1/4 of a second cutscene freeze that happens with every cutscene. Meaning that there's always a 1/4 of a second of lag occurring randomly within a cutscene. Yes, it's barely noticeable and it doesn't ruin the experience, but is anyone else kinda beefed about it or have experienced it?

But I don't want realism. I want fun. And dual wielding shotguns is ridiculous, stupid, gory fun. I love that. I really don't care that shooting from the hip isn't accurate at all, it's a video game. It's a video game where you're being attacked by Nazi cyborg dogs and the bad guy's name is "Death's Head" minus the apostrophe and space. You're right that arcade-y doesn't necessarily mean good, but Wolfenstein uses it really well to make a game whose combat is completely ridiculous, summer blockbuster fun. Realism isn't on its mind, and that's part of the reason why I was excited for it.

I don't have a problem with aiming down sights, either, as I do plenty of that when shooting from far away in this game. I'm just tired of first person shooters where I sit behind something, pop up, shoot, and duck back down while I wait for my health to refill. Those games were fun in 2007, then they just started getting boring a few years ago.

I get it but it hasn't bothered me at all.

I get that, and I applaud this game for doing something a bit different. It's a bit refreshing in an increasingly stale genre. All I'm taking issue with is claims that "shooting...hasn't been this good in FPS in years", that the game has "excellent shooting mechanics", and that "hip-fire accuracy" should be praised like all the other games have it wrong. If those statements were instead about how this game is more fun than any FPS of late because they altered shooting mechanics like hip-firing to encourage more movement/fast-paced gameplay, that would be fine, but that's not what was said. Honestly, though, I think that's probably what the OP was getting at; it's just that the phrasing wasn't ideal. Ultimately, I think we're on the same page.

Never happened to me, at least. Been running smoothly all the way through.

It's a refreshing experience. A shooter that doesn't follow that same cod formula like others. Now if only Duke Nukem could have gotten the same treatment.

After reading this and re-reading your post, it still sounds like you, on some level, believe that arcade-y shooting of this sort is inherently flawed somehow:

Not that I necessarily expect a ton of "realism" from a Wolfenstein game set in an alternate reality, but when you're praising the "excellent" shooting mechanics, I feel like I should point out the massive flaws.

Everything you called a "massive flaw", I appreciated about the game.

But yes, the OP probably should have re-worded his statement. I just don't care for realism much (though it can be used well), and I strongly dislike the notion that going for gunplay that isn't at all realistic is somehow inherently flawed. Doom and Half-Life are still almost infinitely replayable, whereas the Call of Duty's and Battlefield's of the world are not - I'd much rather see games follow the former's fast movement and holding all your guns nonsense than two weapon limits and getting stuck behind cover.

I got your point but like when I say excellent, obviously it's my opinion. If you read my post again, I did say that those mechanics incentivize a more mobile type of playstyle. Those are my standards which are not based on reality because this isn't trying to be a realistic game unlike the military shooters that go for that pseudo-authentic feel and fail time and time again. When there's great hit feedback to shots from enemies, I love that shit. Most games outside of Killzone and a handful of games don't bother with it because it's more attention to detail and work that most players wouldn't care for. They'd rather throw a mess of enemies at you with braindead AI who happen to be bullet sponges (Call of Duty, Bioshock Infinite). What I love in this new Wolfenstein is running/sliding and gunning, getting as much armour/health pickups, switching up my weapon setups on the fly based on the distance, and seeing the results of my work in the form of glorious gore.

I love me some more realistic games like ArmA, STALKER, Brothers in Arms, SWAT 4, etc. I don't need to compare videogame mechanics to reality to see why I love them so much. I don't even play SWAT 4 as a shooter, I play it as a griefing NPC simulator where I deck my crew all with paint guns, make people cough in their handcuffs, and tase the shit out of them. I've never fired a live fatal shot in that game because it's more about the strategy.

Realistic games have their own set of fun. I would love more realistic games that handled gunplay as a strategy in itself like Receiver, but until then I'll gladly shit on most shooters that force you to be pinned down for a whack-a-mole affair on the hardest difficulty because the shooting gallery enemies have been given aimshot cheat status with perfect grenade throws from miles away.

This game is a refreshing change of pace from the majority of games. If the majority of games played like Wolfenstein: The New Order, then I wouldn't be praising it as much.

I'd honestly compare this more to the likes of No One Lives Forever 2 than Deus Ex. A very cool and different game nonetheless.

Dude, what are you even talking about. I don't think anyone here was ever talking about actual shooting mechanics, just Wolfenstein: The New Order's shooting mechanics. It's the same way someone might praise the shooting mechanics of Luftrausers or Max Payne or Quake without any mention of how realistic or not they are.

These design decisions aren't "massive flaws" just because they're aren't realistic.

YES! God, now I want to replay that. The enemy conversations, another touch that Starbreeze games have had like in Riddick and The Darkness. To bring them a little humanity.

If you don't kill the commander on the phone in Chapter 1 immediately, you get to hear this:

I've never heard anyone refer to iron sights as ADS before.

If I was still gaming on the reg, I would SO pick this game up. I'm a big fan not only of the Wolfenstein series, but sort of older FPSs where the exploration part was really fun and the shooting was just as good.

I have heard a ton of great stuff about this game which has me super excited to play it. Right now the only thing holding me back is the price point, but I'll pick it up eventually (it's 60$ on PC- yeesh).

No. I was pointing out its flaws in terms of realism, not saying that it's inherently flawed for being unrealistic.

You're not a fun person to hang out with, are you?

Please be my friend. I desperately need your approval.

I got it for £22 from GAME the physical occupied edition for PC. If your computer is good, I'd recommend going PC since it'll be cheaper. I'm playing on a laptop with an ati mobility radeon 5650 card.

If this game compares to another game it's Raven's Wolfenstein game. Both were liner games in large, non-liner environments and with a controller the shooting feels very similar.

But comparisons aren't needed. This is a great game no matter what it's like or not like. Hacibg read Alex's review he thinks the same way I do. This is a really fun game that stands out on these new consoles.

Yep, the way it was played didn't really do it justice. I'm really want to buy it get around to it eventually.

You're one of those people who say "FPS" instead "an FPS" aren't you? *shudders*

@adam1808: You're one of those people who don't use "an" correctly aren't you?

*shudders* :p

This game is great so far but is anyone else experiencing really muted audio? I'm having a hard time hearing the dialogue.

Playing on PS4.

If a game lets you kill dudes effectively while firing from the hip, I instantly like it twice as much.

I take the fire from the hip accuracy as a tip of the hat to old school fps games.
We only had shoot from the hip back then.
Hmm, I wonder what was the first game to use aiming down the site was cuz I sure as hell can't remember.
Maybe @jeff remembers?

It's funny how aiming is actually a hindrance because you're gonna get pounded if you're stuck in one spot for too long. I've been mostly dual wielding so no aiming anyway for me.

I'm a bit disappointed that Brad and others have been so brainwashed on the call of duty way for so long that they didn't even know how pointless it really is in this game. I only found this out myself last september 2013 when I played it at the eurogamer convention. I was like, "wait, the hipfire is pretty good...no wait, it's great...I don't have to stick to cover and can run+gun...omg this changes everything!".

@assinass said:

Syndicate 2012 was much the same way. The game begged you to run around the levels dashing, dodging, sliding-into-neck-snapping at every turn. It always pained me to see people in co-op sticking to cover and playing it like Call of Duty.

If Wolfenstein plays half as well (and from all accounts it sounds like Wolfenstein plays better) then I can't wait to pick this up next week.

I loved Syndicate, and Wolfenstein is better :D Gibbing was fun in Syndicate with the shotgun, and here more weapons gib. Sniper (Marksman Rifle got in chapter 3 on the very top tower) to headshot gib is even better than the great Gears of War!

There is even a dismemberment perk XD

I had so much fun with this game actually sorry its finished!! was suprised by the exploration and fun you could have in the mini stealth scenarios!

best game i played so far this year

I didn't think I'd like it after the quick look, but I picked it up anyway. The game is fantastic. Everything about it feels great. Brad is bad at shooters, and it showed in the QL (with the typical, "something must be wrong with the game because I'm not paying attention" reaction). He almost had me convinced that I wasn't going to like what has ended up being one of my favorite games this year. I think it's maybe performance anxiety when being recorded? Everything feels and moves much more smoothly than the QL made it seem.

Anyway, great game. Definitely needs to be played on the hardest or 2nd hardest difficulty if you're any good at shooters. The stealth parts (mostly optional) are actually enjoyable, and I hate stealth. I definitely do better when running around guns blazing. When i die the most is when I get stuck in one place trying to pick dudes off aiming down sights. Hip-fire is great in this game.

Should I replay this game with the different timeline? Is it any different??

I finished this up yesterday and it's some of the most fun I've had with an fps in a long time. I really wasn't expecting much going in so I was pleasantly surprised.

yeah it's a 5 star game for me. I haven't had anywhere near this much fun in an FPS in many years. The PC mouse & keyboard controls are very good. It's just a really well made arcade shooter and those don't come along too often anymore.