Sorry if my writing is absolute shit in this thread. I haven't written a thing in months and I'm trying to get back into the swing of things, so please bare in mind if I say really stupid shit and point it out in kindness so I can, you know, learn to be a smarter, better person.
Also, because the thread title is huge and I fear people may not see anything at the end:
MINOR SPOILERS!!!
Tons of critics have been calling Wolfenstein: The New Otter a huge surprise and a powerful, touching game that delves deep into the inhumanities of fascism, superiority complexes, and other Aryan race shenanigans that one could get out of a public school or an Oscar Winning film about concentration camps, World War 2, and nazism. They go into the game like they're academic majors, talking about the its theme, setting, world and characters - all of which are great and very well written. But for some reason, very few get into the gameplay, at least from my experience. Because, you see, I really found Wolfenstein: The New Doker pretty damn boring and I'm not saying this on a cynical level because I was seriously looking forward to the game. The guys that made two of my favorite games, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from the Large Game Title and The Darkness? Count me in! And it's going to have a cool setting, old school mechanics like health and armor, satisfying stealth, bad ass shooting, and all that jazz? Count me in times two!
Since I was frugal at this point in time, I couldn't buy the game outright for $60 as much as I wanted to. So I waited for the coming price drop, which happened within the last day of the just recent Steam Summer Sale. I put my bucks down, as well as for a dozen other games during the sale like the huge frugal hypocrite that I am, and played that shit.
Yeah, this game is pretty boring.
That isn't to say this game is bad. I mean, sure, it's really bad if your game is boring, but there's still some charm and potential in what this game was trying to accomplish, and you may just find that potential fulfilled if you play it yourself and discover that my opinion is totally wrong and that I should shut the hell up and eat dicks. And honestly, I can't call a game like this straight up BAD because it's such a beautiful, polished, and well made game. A lot of people worked tirelessly to get this vision to come to life. Seriously, Wolfenstein: The New Boarder is an expensive looking game. The animations and cutscenes are top notch, as well as the voice acting accompanying these said scenes. The writing is spectacular, a testament to the guys who were once behind Starbreeze. Every level, tunnel, and environment makes sense in context to its setting and narrative. Everything that is in this game has been crafted with love and care, and for that I just cannot hate this game outright.
Thing is, Wolfenstein: The New Order (I gave up on words that sound like order) is a first person shooter. You walk or run around places to shoot at stuff that wants your health to go down to zero, simutaneously trying to reach an endpoint that will take you to the next area where you repeat the same gameplay. People a plenty love this genre like an easy, well payed job and I do too. The thing is that the shooting in Wolfenstein isn't as good as it should be. It's got some awesome sounding and feeling weapons, and it has removed the stuff people complain about all the time like regenerating health, linear levels, and scripted moments. It even hearkens back to the good old days by having armor points and the ability to overcharge your health above 100. You can even carry more than two weapons! Why would anyone think Wolfenstein is boring, then, if it does these things that are considered superior to the oh-so horrible, contrived, and disgusting modern mechanics the industry has infested within our shooters?
In fact, that is a question I myself would ask anyone who would find a game like this boring. I totally wish for more shooters that were surreal mood pieces that didn't go for logic, reason, and storytelling. Call it nostalgia, but 1993's Doom is still a blast to play as are plenty of shooters in lieu of it like QUAKE, QUAKE 2, UNREAL, Duke Nukem 3D and most important of all, CHEX QUEST (why I wrote most of these in caps, I'll never know). But plenty of people, especially me, tend to forget that there were also really bad shooters that had health points, armor points, crap tons of weapons, super fast movement speeds, nonlinear levels, and so on. Since most of us never made a game in our lives, we think simply on why video games are or are not enjoyable and pinpoint the issue to stuff like these, when really it's obviously more than how health mechanics are done because Wolfenstein is not a fun game compared to those it is inspired by or tries to be.
The biggest issue has to be the enemies you face. They're not the dumbest foes on the lot, but they sure are slow. I mean, these guys barely move. They take cover, they fire back, and they even throw a well cooked grenade from time to time, but never do they act with intensity and finesse, like jumping above support rails, or shooting while strafing to cover. They never challenge your aim or your predictions of where they may be hiding and I guess this is caused by the game being on consoles where analog sticks don't get the job done, because the game's production costs are probably expensive and it needed as many people to buy it as possible. This is understandable, but it does make firefights incredibly bland.
When gunfights do get chaotic, it's mostly because there's a robot, a super soldier, or some miniboss. These guys try to be the cyberdemons or the giant, deadly bullet sponges that we all remember in our games in the 90s. When I knew there were going to be enemies like this, I was pretty stoked... Only to die by one, face to face, in the matter of a second. I couldn't strafe incredibly fast around one with dual wielded auto shotties, I couldn't dodge any of its bullets, and I couldn't truly combat the thing without leaning out of cover. Since the only way to fight these big enemies was by distancing myself and popping my head out from a chest high wall or corner, the fights became very boring as no strategy was needed. It was just feeding them bullets behind cover and that's that; continue on to the next area.
This is caused by enemies having precise fucking aim as that of an aimbot hacker in Counter-Strike. You can't dodge projectiles, nor can you avoid any form of attack without taking damage and dying before you can even mutter an insult. This made all of the later gunfights frustrating as hell, and because there was only one way to survive and also because the weaker grunts in general aren't a joy to murder, I just wanted these gunfights to fucking end. All of this would be a whole lot fairer if (get ready to gasp) the game had regenerating health. Yes, I said it. This game's way of administering challenge to the player is through cheap deaths where gaining damage is an inevitability based on the near laser accuracy and powerful damage that the enemies offer to you. Now, I shouldn't bitch about things being unfair because life is unfair and ones who bitch about that are usually told to man up or commit suicide. Thing is, life ain't no Nintendo game because if it was, success would make sense. Unless you're Team Meat or an indie developer similar to them, your game has to be fair - never too easy, never too hard, just fair. It's tough, but that's game development - making games is tough shit.
The only way I could get through most of these fights was with the laser gun. Once you get the scope where you can lock all your energy unto a single target, leading to instant kills, it will become a requirement since you just don't have any time to put led into anything before you die. This made plenty of fights formulaic, where I would waste all my energy on a miniboss, go to a charge station, refill my gun, and repeat this process until all minibosses were off the grid. The fact that this was mostly how all the later fights went made the game a chore for me.
The level design is another issue. Not because it's bad, because it isn't. It's the whole nonlinear thing that desires your exploration of it: it doesn't exist. There's a secret here and there, but it's mostly along a path you must take. All of the doors that have to be opened from the other side usually can be unlocked from areas that are very unnecessary and don't lead to anything interesting or rewarding; they just give you a pointless shortcut to the place you were just in. The game also doesn't entice backtracking. There was one moment where I wanted to return to a room where I missed some collectibles and secrets, only to find out the door I just past was locked behind me for no good reason. Why have a map if every level doesn't want to be explored, or anything that could be explored is practically an empty area meant for detail with nothing going on? The nonlinear element is simply arbitrary. Or heck, I'd call it a good lie.
That out of the way, I want to talk about the stealth because it's probably the only enjoyable aspect of the game, if not a little disappointing. One thing I just love is the whole commander assassination mechanic. It allows you to mix your plan with not just killing people softly or loudly, but to kill softly first then go loudly later; in a more elaborate example, kill the commanders then take your guns out to kill the rest. Because commanders are the only ones that can call in backup to make your nazi murdering life harder, it incentivizes you to change your plans around. This makes you feel like a stalking, psychotic murdering nazi killer that BJ is, swooping to reign quiet death like some sociopathic Batman. It's great.
What's detrimental to that is how small the patrol populations are in most of the stealth segments. I managed to kill all the commanders successfully, got on a turret, and killed off the rest before they knew what hit them... Then it was over in a flash. I could've sworn there were only, like, three grunts mixed in with two commanders? Now don't get my wrong, the numbers rise when backup is called, but because the huge fights are so cheap and dull as said previously, I did not want that happen. I just wanted a little more patrols then were placed in the levels. But really, just stabbing people in the neck in Wolfenstein is more entertaining then shooting out their entrails with a shotgun.
That's that, really. All of the other grips like Id Tech 5 being the worst engine ever made and the ending being total crap, this game was at most a very forgettable experience. The story is great, the characters touching, and the world very cold and bleak. The writers at the helm are fantastic at their jobs. I just wish I enjoyed the gameplay. After I finished the game, I decided to install Wolfenstein 3D and try that out for a bit. As old and dated as that game is, I actually enjoyed it more than this game and... that's kinda sad. I guess you could say that I actually beat The New Order whereas I'd never have the patience to beat a game like Wolf3D, and that is true. But...
I dunno. What did you think of Wolfenstein: The New Odor? You agree or disagree with my gigantic essay on a video game? You lose any braincells when you read this? Just gimmie the juicy details; I'll be incredibly thankful, as I am already for you reading it (Really, I am. Thank you.).
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