wolfenstein

For those who don’t know, Wolfenstein is one of id Software’s longest living franchises. It has seen many incarnations over the years, particulary in Wolfenstein 3D for the computers and consoles of long ago. In more recent years, there has been Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, one of the most popular multiplayer shooters of the year. This recent release, entitled simply “Wolfenstein”, is the latest entry in the series. It is developed by Raven Software and published by Activision.

The game has not recieved good reviews. Most gaming sites criticized its lack of innovation, tired graphics, and lackluster story. Although a demo is certainly not the best way to get a good impression of a game’s story or innovation, it is a good way to get a look at basic gameplay, which is really what matters. From what I can tell, there is no need to go further.

Wolfenstein, to be blunt, is not that entertaining. It feels clunky and inaccurate, which is not good for high-action shooter games. I found it difficult to aim and concentrate on the shots I needed, and I found that enemies would often still poke their heads up even after I thought I had shot them, presumably because of some errant piece of terrain that got in the way. The guns don’t feel very good, and seem to have issues staying on target. Reloading the guns is also a pain, because instead of staying on target when you reload like most games, the animations actually move your point of view. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, here it is because it stays off target and you end up shooting several inches off where you were before. It’s a simple matter to get back on target, but it’s a little annoyance that really shouldn’t be there at all, in my opinion. On the plus side, however, the gameplay itself is just fine. People die when you shoot them, hip aiming isn’t too bad, and the interface is clean. However, it doesn’t seem to bring much of anything new to the table, aside from one thing.

The new gameplay feature is called the Veil. It serves as X-ray vision and superpower mode. Its presence is never explained in the demo, which I can only assume is corrected in the full version of the game. There are two powers available in the demo- a time-slowing power, allowing you to move around enemies and shoot them to death before they even know you’re there, and X-ray vision, which allows you to see through walls and such, as well as go through certain marked objects. I only used it for a couple of things that you had to use it for, and it didn’t seem to be too useful. While I’m sure there are other places in the game where it can be used, I was of course not able to see much use in it.

In terms of graphics, everything looks fine- it runs on id Tech 4, I believe. It’s an older engine, but still holds up well. Textures are clean, Veil Mode seems to transition rather smoothly (it overlays the environments with certain colors) and particle effects are quite nice. There are brief portions of the game in tunnels- water flows down from the ceiling in a rain, which stays on the camera and trickles down slowly. Hot things steam, and in general things look pretty good. However, it doesn’t really give you an ‘oh-wow-that-looks-cool’ sense, which with all the games coming out these days, is pretty important to set yourself apart from the pack.

Overall, I thought that the brief portion I played was decent. It seemed well done, there were no obvious bugs, and everything looked fine. But in today’s market, just fine really isn’t good enough anymore for games to be great. Innovation is something that is needed for games to make it big in the industry, and while Wolfenstein has some of it, it just doesn’t have it in the right areas to be great.

Score:

Gameplay: 6/10

Graphics: 8.5/10

Replayability: Not Rateable