Wolfenstein (2009) Review - A hidden gem?

By Sam Coles:

Wolfenstein! Now there is a name that stems back to the early 80’s with the Apple II era of computers, but if you familiar with video games you’ll be more at home with Wolfenstein 3D and its successors. Wolfenstein is an important name in the industry of gaming as it paved the way for first person shooters for years to come, Doom did it better but Wolfenstein started it all. Until The New Order Wolfenstein was hit or miss with its games, the 2009 release simply named Wolfenstein is often discarded as cookie cutter, but it’s not yes it shares control schemes with Call of Duty, but is that necessarily a bad thing. The game was in production for a while and was given to Raven Software to develop who have a close relationship with id Software since the early 90’s, as they worked closely id’s engines they also made Quake 4 so they know what they are doing.

Wolfenstein is a direct sequel to Return to Castle Wolfenstein, where you once again step into the shoes of the square jawed hero B.J Blazkowicz who is tasked to investigate the Nazi’s paranormal division where they are experimenting with ancient medallions. B.J finds one of these medallions and has the ability to jump from reality and another world called the Vale, what this does is makes B.J run faster and have several abilities which I’ll get into in the gameplay section. The story is nothing mind blowing, but for the first time B.J has more character compared to the last game, with some humorous moments, but if you’re expecting anything meaningful with the narrative you’re not going to find it here.

Gameplay is not open world in the traditional sense, but like Deus Ex where you have an open hub area where you travel to each mission where the level starts. When you’re moving through the hub area you can find secrets such as documents and gold, gold helps you upgrade your weapons with the standard increase damage etc. If you’re really bored in the hub area you can get into skirmishes with enemy patrols, which is a lot of fun because as you progress through the story the enemy threat increases as you have created a name for yourself.

B.J has several powers he can utilise from his medallion, first one is speed when it is activated this is great if you need to move from cover to cover to get out of stick situations. You have bullet time which does what says on the tin where it slows down time, there is a shield which blocks all weapons and a fury mode which ups your damage. These can be upgraded but again they are the standard increase the time of use.

There is a decent selection of weapons in this game; you have the period accurate weapons such as Kar98, STG44 and my favourite the MP40. They all look and sound great with the terrifying chatter of the MP40 to the thunderous thud of the MG42. In the later parts of the game you get more exotic weapons like the particle cannon which will shoot out a beam and disintegrates anything that is stupid enough to stand in your way.  You also have my favourite the Tesla Gun which chains a bolt of lightning when soldiers are grouped together and it never stops being funny watching Nazi soldiers doing the dance of death.

The game runs on a modified version of the Doom 3 engine and it looks really good, with great environments, character models and visceral feedback when it comes to the violence. The gore and violence is really satisfying and has a lot of detail as soldiers will react to where you shoot them, so if you land a well-placed rifle shot in their throat they will cling to their neck as blood spirts everywhere, it is great attention to detail.

Wolfenstein is not a bad game I don’t understand why it has so much negative attention surrounding it. It has great and satisfying combat with a corny and pulpy story with a mix of Inglorious Basterds and Indiana Jones. If you have a PS3 or 360 knocking around still give it a go.