Clearing off the 2017 Backlog
Wolfenstein 2 is a confounding game in many ways. It struggles where plenty of games have succeeded, succeeds where most developers wouldn’t dare tread.
Gunning down hundreds and hundreds of Nazis, turning their hate-filled bodies into bloody bits of viscera, shouldn’t feel so timely or cathartic, but this is where we are in 2018. Many euphemisms have been thrown out there as to how we got here, avoiding the obvious truth that traces society’s path from “problematic, but mostly functional” to “flaming clown car driven by racist shitposters”. Video games are usually the last place one should go for intelligent social commentary, but Wolfenstein 2 is the exception that proves the rule. A game that includes vicious robot watchdogs, psychedelic freakouts, and space station shootouts has a better handle on the ways complicity empowers evil than most of the media does.
Wolfenstein 2 understands how America’s history makes it primed for an authoritarian takeover. I was initially worried about how this game would explain a pretty radical point of view. The early moment where Frau Engel bullies her daughter about her weight seemed too cartoonishly evil for what the game was purported to do. It seemed a bit much. I was worried it might undercut any attempts where the game goes for more serious emotions. Wolfenstein 2 only gets crazier from there, but the rest of the game proves itself capable of balancing on this tightrope with ease. The game begins with America already under the boot of Nazi rule after dropping a bomb on New York to end World War 2. By the time BJ wakes and is ready to fight again after the events of the previous game, any semblance of a conflict has disappeared. If anything, society seems calmer than ever before. Nazis send postcards from American outposts. New Orleans has been turned into a ghetto for undesirables. People go about their day as if this is all fine. The collectibles do a good job of filling out this world, but there isn't a lot of room for the game to focus on it in with all of the shooting that has to get done.
It's the Roswell section that brings it all together. I wish this wasn’t previewed at E3 so we could’ve seen it for the first time in-game, but it might’ve been overwhelming if you just dropped in unspoiled. There's a lot going on. The whole level is Wolfenstein 2’s thesis statement. America’s issues with equality often get ignored since well, there’s no honest way to talk about them without making white people look really bad. But this history shows how susceptible people, especially in White America can be to such toxic ideas as long as they're not the victims. You can get away with a lot of foul shit in this country as long as white people can still look down on somebody. As surreal as it is to see KKK members get scolded for their poor German by a Nazi in broad daylight, none of the sentiments overheard on the street or in the government-controlled papers seem totally unrealistic if history was written by a different victor. It's amazing that this exists. My only complaint is that I wish there were a couple more levels like it. I would’ve liked to see more examples of what this fictional America looked like before instigating a civil war.
The characters that make up the crew of resistors are great as well. Each member of the team, even the tangential ones who never step foot off the ship that serves as home base, is given a distinct personality that makes the world feel like a real place and not just a playground for murdering white supremacists. They make time for character moments amidst the chaos both through cutscenes (Super Shep going full conspiracy theorist while BJ tries to tell him he has a miniature nuke) and through ancillary conversations you can overhear walking around the ship (basically everything with Max Hass). I don’t know what kind of game you would make for them, but I would play a game about the team of black lady hackers. The energy of the supporting cast made BJ more boring in comparison. His obsession with his own death didn’t quite jive with me, considering how firm his idealist beliefs in America. The moroseness felt forced in a way the game rarely does thematically. It’s not a big deal - the flashbacks into his childhood are too good to be superseded by something so small - but it sticks out because of how great the rest of the storytelling is.
The only place where Wolfenstein really falters is the part where you play it. On first glance, the increasingly comic images used to differentiate each difficulty setting before starting Wolfenstein 2 is an amusing, quick joke. Seeing BJ (I still can’t believe Bethesda made a character named BJ a serious hero) with a binky in his mouth or flashing a demented smile over his bloody face is funny. It gets less funny once you start playing the game.
I remember the last Wolfenstein game being surprisingly difficult. The choice to use health packs and shield pick-ups rather than regenerating health made staying alive an actual challenge that required some strategy to avoid dying. It was hard but not impossible.
Wolfenstein 2’s combat shouldn't be so frustrating. The variety of weapons is great and encourages experimentation. Heavy weapons usually feel too bulky for my taste, but I used the flamethrower and the laser gun at every opportunity. You feel the thump of the shotgun every time you pull the trigger. But this game is so poorly balanced, man. You die so quickly without any clear direction as to who or what was killing you. The shooting has a looser feel so accuracy from a distance can be an issue. The stealth mechanics are fine for what they are, but they’re still part of a game that places much more emphasis on fast-paced action. You take damage during melee attacks so running up on people isn’t an option. It’s as if the combat was designed to annoy the player as often as possible. I could get behind the idea that taking down the overpowered Nazi regime in charge of the entire world should leave the player feeling outmanned and outgunned, but that’s giving Bethesda too much credit. I had to put the game on the easiest setting after a couple of hours, and while that let me see the entire story, but made the gameplay an unsuspenseful procession. It's better than the alternative, but the missed potential is still noticeable.
Wolfenstein 2 also adds side quests to the table, thematically understandable but mechanically frustrating. These were probably added to give this single-player game a longer tale to keep copies off the used games market, and it would’ve worked if not for the needlessly obfuscatory process to unlock them. You find secondary Nazi targets with the enigma machine. You unlock the right to use it through codes you find on the bodies of Nazi leaders. As hard as the combat can be at times, it’s nothing compared to the deeply annoying design of the Enigma machine. There’s no good reason for that thing to have a timer. There’s no tutorial either, so there’s no room for error to learn how the machine works without losing something. It completely dissuaded me from playing more of the game once I finished the main story.
It’s a fitting parting shot for a game with obvious, numerous gameplay flaws that nails the desired tone without ever stumbling - at least until the worst song of all time plays over the end credits. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need more games about Nazis. But since we live in a hellscape beyond parody, we need more games that reminds us that they are, in fact, Very Bad People. Wolfenstein 2 is exactly the type of game this moment requires.
