Wolfenstein: The New Order review: Blazkowicz forever
B.J. Blazkowicz makes his return in Wolfenstein: The New Order--and what a return it is. Our review
Back Into Action
It doesn't take long for Blazkowicz to get thrust back into the fray. Following an invasion on an island stronghold that left him catatonic for 14 years, Blazkowicz restarts his Nazi-killing past-time when they're sent to shut down the asylum where he's being treated. Soon enough, the blood starts spilling, and the weary soldier finds himself leading a group of rag-tag soldiers against the tyrannical Deathshead, flanked by an army of loyal troops and cybernetic terrors. Where The New Order excels is with its good old-fashioned run and gun gameplay. Throughout the game's 16 levels, Blazkowicz will find a number of weapons that get the job done, from automatic shotguns that spew bullets like popcorn to a very effective laser welder that can evaporate any given soldier into a bloody mess. Machine Games did remarkable work with the controls, as they're responsive and pinpoint, right down to leaning around corners. It feels strange having the grenade and weapon select button mapped on the same trigger, but easy enough to overcome.
Just your average chaingun robo-Nazi
An Old but New Wolfenstein
Considering that this is the series' debut for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (as well as previous consoles), Wolfenstein: The New Order is a fine achievement. The game runs at a fluid 60 frames per second without missing a beat, and I would very rarely notice any hitches. For good measure, Machine Games has also managed to craft a wonderful, if somewhat terrifying, alternate world in Germany. From blasting your way through a planetarium with a giant moon statue in the center (which, yes, you can destroy) to a run in a bloodied prison hall, where soldiers await around every corner. This game is a sight to behold, especially on the newer systems. The cinemas were lacking in that level of polish and presentation. Rather than playing out in real-time, the story is told through cinematic cut-scenes that crudely cut into the action sequences. Story is an important to give us context for the bloody spectacle in Wolfenstein, but telling it in-game would've let Machine refrain from braking its stride.
We need a mop
The Alternate Routes
Wolfenstein's missions will take quite a while to get through, but the game offers an interesting wrinkle with two alternate storylines. Early on, you're asked to sacrifice one of two soldiers to Deathshead, and the choice you make actually affects certain decisions through the game. You'll want to see where both lead, just to see what gets thrown your way. It's an interesting addition that adds some replay value to the game. On top of that, seeking out hidden Nazis treasures can unlock bonus Trophies/Achievements in the game, and considering the open-world presentation of each level, it pays to explore.A One-man Show
The New Order is a single-player game only, and you'll probably uncover everything it has to offer in about 15 hours or so. Multiplayer is usually a given, especially for first-person shooters, but its absence here didn't bother me. The addition of a Nazi vs. freedom soldiers mode would just feel like a cheap throw-in. The alternate timelines, hidden goods, and sheer fun of reducing Nazis to bloody chunks made the package feel complete even without multiplayer.Conclusion
Despite the lack of multiplayer and fetch-quests that interrupt the blood-spilling action, Wolfenstein: The New Order is a welcome return to form for the series. Its gameplay is good fun, whether you prefer blasting enemies to bits or being sneaky-like. The beautiful presentation makes the most out of the new hardware, and it squeezes some impressive life out of older systems. Blazkowicz's return has been a long time coming, but Machine Games has assured that it was worth it. Final Score: 8 out of 10.This review is based on a PlayStation 4 review copy provided by the publisher: Wolfenstein: The New Order is available now for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PC for $59.99. The game is rated M for mature.
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Shacknews
replyRobert Workman posted a new article, Wolfenstein: The New Order review: Blazkowicz forever.
B.J. Blazkowicz makes his return in Wolfenstein: The New Order--and what a return it is. Our review-
I'm OK with running around shooting stuff. Doesn't sound like there's much more to it.
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Looking forward to this one.
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I'm curious about a PC review as well. I love Wolfenstein, but 50gb of HDD space is a lot to ask.
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yeah screw that. I don't care if the game is good, 50gb is too much.
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Titanfall is around 40gb and it looks shitty, i think it's common nowadays
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Eh. I thought Bioshock Infinite from Steam was nuts at 13 gigs and Skyrim only occupies about 8 gigs. Asking for 50 gigs may not be asking for much if you're using SATA drives but if you're running on SSD drives, that's about a fifth of what I'd consider 'the most common consumer SSD size', 250 gigs.
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Early PC code was apparently not available.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/05/20/why-our-wolfenstein-the-new-order-review-is-delayed/
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Looking forward to this game now!
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Isn't Skyrim like 16 gigs with the HD texture packs? Anyway now that we are getting uncompressed textures and audio I expect most games on PC will be very large but I never have more than a few games permanently on my PC and the rest I just download and delete as I play and just re-download from Steam if I want to play it again.
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I'd wait on the PC version, apparently just like Rage its having driver issues and texture pop in, which new drivers will probably fix but I'd wait until they get it sorted. Id Tech 5 is such a mess for a supposedly cutting edge game engine. Cryengine, Unreal, REDengine, Frostbite and even offshoots like Dunia look and perform so much better.
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Considering the problems Rage had I'm surprised it's having the same issues.
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I just don't think Id Tech 5 works well unless it has the exact right settings which is fine for console but bad for PC when there are so many different set ups. I got Rage running perfectly but only with one specific set of Nvidia drivers and with a lot of tweaks in the Nvidia control panel.
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M-m-m-m-m-m MEGA TEXTURES from ID5 engine.
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When has AI difficulty settings ever resulted in modified enemy reactions like this? It's typically the scalings that vary (health, damage, sense ranges, reaction speed, etc), almost never a change in the behaviour itself. That said, I am willing to believe that they exploited the AI in a way that it wasn't prepared for, so it's not really indicative of a typical playstyle.
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I sure as hell wish difficulty settings worked that way. There's nothing interesting, IMO, about difficulty levels that just change the amount of damage it takes to kill you/enemies. I want easy to mean the AI is dumb as a rock and has stormtrooper aim, and hard to mean they're crack shots with advanced tactics.
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There's pro and contra for it. If you change the rules of the game world from one setting to another that can create a sense of disconnect in the player too. I typically want a reliable game world that follows its own rules. So there's some merit to keeping all the game rules intact between difficulty settings but offering a tougher challenge to the experienced player. Then of course there's aso the production side of it where anything more than adjusted scalings (which is a science in itself - balancing is hard work!) creates a higher workload.
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The first Crysis game I can say for sure, I had to go into the files and create my own hybrid difficulty because the AI reaction times on Delta were set to some insanely low values and ruining the game for me.
Not saying that's what's happening here, I really don't know. Just reporting what the defense force has been saying. I don't care about this game at all, and that video did it no good for sure. -
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Interesting I was thinking off Halo specifically, because that's one of the games that is known to create a perception of smarter AI by using scaling, as noted by the devs themselves.
http://web.cs.du.edu/~sturtevant/s13-ai/lecture2.pdf
Check the slides on page 8-9.
Or this summary:
http://aigamedev.com/open/review/halo-ai/
It’s obvious in retrospect, but Bungie found a correlation between how smart the AI is, and how tough it is.
- When you improve the AI relative to the player, obviously the game gets tougher.
- However, when you make the AI tougher (e.g. with more health points), the players believe they are smarter.
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If you want a scathing review, Eurogamer gave it a 6. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-05-20-wolfenstein-the-new-order-review
...and they used a less witty headline ("Mein kraft.") than Robert Workman did ("Blazkowicz Forever").-
Also, one of the commenters said that there was a giant day one patch (5 GB on PC and PS4, 7 GB on XBO). Is that true?
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So... bargain bin.
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Turns out it's a decent to semi-decent shooters. Probably best to approach it with managed exceptions.
But hey, good FPS with an emphasis on the actual shooting are rare now, so I think I'll give Wolfenstein 2009 (Raven) a shot and if I like that maybe 2013 in a couple weeks. I do like the smoothness of the RAGE-engine.
Though the Joystiq review has pointed out some boneheadeness about their gameplay design. Apparently it's smoothing sailing until you clear a room and then have to approach and confirm the pickup of every single piece of ammo by pressing a key. Genius.-
I pretty much hate shooters now, virtually no intererest. I have a weird love of Killzone (which I know is trash but it's the trash I like) but otherwise, I think FPS games being the one and only game for me as it was when the FPS genre became huge - long gone. I actively dislike them now, they bore me.
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I feel sort of similar, but it's more an issue of every new single-player FPS campaign being a roller-coaster railshooter, and every new multiplayer FPS loaded with persistence, MOBA-esque RPG elements, and microtransactions.
I'm playing through the Quake 2 mission packs right now (just finished Ground Zero; going through The Reckoning right now). I'll probably pick up Heavy Bullets this week. As for Wolfenstein: The New Order, I'll allow at least a few weeks of community reviews before I think of getting it (BTW, this is how I've been treating all $60 games for the past few years, aside from the occasional "take 3 twenties out of your wallet and set them on fire" exercises with stuff like Persona 4 Arena and BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend).-
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I think it's a valid complaint (though slightly exaggerated) when leveraged against the current state of FPS games as a whole.
One of my major complaints with Bioshock infinite, one of the high watermarks of the FPS genre in recent years, was that lack of exploration off of the on-rails path leading to a static experience and shallow experienced compared to the likes of Thief or System Shock.
Dishonored is the one noteworthy recent counter-example I can think of offhand. -
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It is kinda why I wished Titanfall had a proper campaign. The jetpack in Halo: Reach gave some of the later levels some verticality and it was fantastic.
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Arma is a bit too hardcore for me (I would classify it as a sim-shooter, maybe the only one?). Far Cry 2 was ok but the respawning checkpoints were a pain in the ass. Also fuck malaria. Never cared for the Halo games either, but I might give Metro a try some day. After I upgrade some hardware at least.
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Abrasion, do you have a Vita? You should get one for KZ: Mercenary alone.
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well, you big boy are missing out on the best FPS you can play on the go. It's also known to be better than Shadow Fall. Also really replayable as they encourage you to play the levels in different ways. MP is good, too.
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Isn't it exhausting? Take it from an ex hater of everything, life is so much more enjoyable when you like everything instead. My Vita rules, and with PSN+ I have more games than I can keep up with. Jump in, live life, play Persona 4 Golden even though anime is garbage ass bullshit.
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I agree, my Vita was collecting dust until Muramasa Rebirth (for free on PS+) and Persona 4 Golden. Hooked on P4G now. :(
Also I was really looking forward to Soul Sacrifice (also for free on PS+) but it's just kinda dumb. -
Did you know Persona 5 (PS3) is going to be about being a slave? Should be interesting.
They should call it 12 Months A Slave. -
Nah I still only hate selectively - you guys just never notice when I love things. GTA4 and GTA5 brought to me joy that is difficult to put into words. 4 especially (despite 5 being better in every way) - just with it's timing.
GTA5 was basically a highlight for 2011, 2012, 2013 combined, it was that god damned fucking good, it's mind boggingly good.
Also boobs are cool and movies and good TV shows but handhelds r 4 dum dums!
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Also a true gamer does not care about platforms. You just go where the good games are. Be in on a toaster, a "kiddy" Nintendo system or even a phone.
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ur a dum dum
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Hard to get a consensus on the game.
One review says the script is juvenile, the next one says its intelligently written.
I'm gonna wait for other people to play it. I'm not a fan of most single-player FPS's. Playing Battlefield single player was close to torture. FEAR 3 bored me to tears most of the time.-
This is what you get when reviewers have to rush through a game before the 'bargo. Wait a few weeks, and let actual gamers review the game.
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Is embargo too hard?
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sometimes you just want to shoot Nazis in the face.
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How's it feel to be a dick? Some people have different tastes in game, i know, weird right?
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He wasn't trollin dude
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That's absoloutely correct - but it was also like a good decade ago, we were all 10 years younger, with amply more time in a market of games 1/3 the size it is now at least.
MP gaming sucks now, it's awful, time consuming garbage. My time is much much more limited and a great SP game is like a brilliant book. A great MP game is like playing Basketball with your buddies or something - it's fun too (if you're into that) but some of just prefer the book!
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Sounds like they got their 'Tarantino-inspired' approach to story right on the money then. That sounds like how 99% of his films are reviewed.
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I think it depends on how well they execute on this fictional world, and how clever their jabs are at the Nazi mindset/xenophobia.
Reviews were split on Far Cry: Blood Dragon's narrative too. And I definitely agreed wtih the crowd that said it was pretty unfunny and forced. And of course the vanilla Far Cry 3's story was complete tripe. I really don't know how these writers get hired by AAA studios.
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Refreshing to see a nice, healthy spread of review scores for a game. Usually it's a sign of a game that at least tries to do something a little differently or uniquely. The problems that the guys who are giving low scores underline are not the kind of problems that usually bother me a whole lot, so I guess I'll be buying when I get home today.
I'm really interested in seeing the script that I've now seen called "Intelligent", "Stupid", "Unique", "Unimaginative" and everything else between the worst ever and the best ever. -
watching the Quick Look... the "nightmare" scene just sold me on the game :)
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No problem on my r290 and latest driver, nor have I seen any in forums. No idea why RPS having issues.
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I'm getting the occasional slowdown, but it's smooth most of the time.
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...the more perks you have the potential to earn, such as increased reload times
That should be decreased reload times, no?
