Storytelling of this caliber would make Wolfenstein worth recommending even if the gameplay wasn't stellar, but the game doesn't disappoint there, either. He's not necessarily evil, he merely represents an entirely alien morality that values technological and genetic advancement over all else. Rather than painting central foe Death's Head as a mad scientist bent on genocide, he's assigned a wholly consistent and well-thought-out worldview. This lack of nerve doesn't really hurt the story, though, especially since the villains are such amazing accomplishments. It's left implicit that the Final Solution has developed into the Final Success, but no one ever comes out and says that this is a world without Jews, gays, and few non-white people remaining. The only bad thing I can say about the story is that it does shy away from some of the plot's darker implications at times. Likewise Anya, the second lead, gets such a detailed backstory and is so integral that it's impossible to think of her as a token love interest, even if the player does have to rescue her from danger more than once. Blaskowicz is now a vocal narrator, giving us a sense of who he is, and grounding the story's sci-fi flights through his realistic reactions to them. Far from the silent protagonist in his original appearances, B.J. Is it potentially libelous to suggest that the Beatles would have been singing in German if England had lost the war? Maybe, but it still makes for some interesting in-game music.Ĭharacters get representation equal to the concept, with the script taking time to make sure that every member of the Resistance is a fully-drawn person, rather than a simple stereotype. The standard device of newspaper clippings scattered around levels is employed, but it goes deeper as well, with posters, signage, and even record albums demonstrating how far-reaching the cultural impact of a Nazi victory would have been. The Nazi-run "future" of the 60s is as fully-realized a setting as I've seen in a video game thanks to the developers providing windows into the art and culture of this occupied world. It's to the developers' credit that the time jump feels as jarring as it does-in the opening hour they present a setting robust enough to support an entire game, and then discard it and all of its characters to show a world that has grown from the seeds sown in that first level a world where Albert Speer was allowed to build a Europe of concrete towering high enough to block out the sun, and Werner von Braun lived his dream of putting men on the moon by the early 50s. Opening in an alternate-history version of World War II where high-tech Nazis have the Allies on the run in 1946, the plot gives players a chance to acclimate themselves to the game's systems in a relatively familiar location before jumping 14 years into the future for the rest of the story. There are no RPG-lite elements, no open-world side missions, and absolutely no sign of a loot system. Wolfenstein: The New Order represents nothing less than the elevation of the FPS.Īs a pure first-person shooter, it eschews all of the genre's recent attempts at relevance and modernization to prove that not only can a game about being in narrow hallways while blasting Nazis be released in 2014, but that if made with enough care, it can be a beautiful, and even essential thing. WTF Oh my god, I'm on the MF-ing (spoiler)! LOW So you let me play classic Wolf3D with this game's weapons, but only the first level? Why not put the whole game in there!? HIGH Jimi Hendrix's last scene contains a perfect moment.
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