Thursday 20 May 2021

Dealing with backlog: The Wolfenstein reboot

So I played The New Order back in 2018 and got Old Blood pretty soon after that, but didn't get around to playing it until now. But  I figured, since I have the whole series, why not do them all in one go? Like I did with Xcom. So let's go :D

The Old Blood: This is a prequel to The New Order and it's pretty short. This game felt more like Uncharted than Wolfenstein, because of the whole archeaology thing. It was pretty cool to see the whole story evolve from two agents on a secret infiltration mission; to fugitive kills everyone in sight; to zombie shooter; to delving deep into ancient ruins to find out what's at the bottom of it. All the while killing Nazis. But there was a lot more focus on the historical and archeaological aspects in this game, and a lot less mechanized supersoldiers and dogs. Which I kind of preferred. Just as with the last game I had a lot of fun with all the nightmare sequences when you get to play levels of the old Wolfenstein games. Poor B.J. has very weird dreams. Not a lot of characters to get attached to in this game, since I knew what would happen to most of them in The New Order if they even survived that long. But did I like it? Yes, very much. And with the way things turned out at the end I really find the old school horror movie-ish logo appropriate. 

The New Colossus: Second main game in the rebooted series. I didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoyed New order and Old Blood, even though it had its moments. I really enjoyed the fight through New Orleans when BJ was riding a Panzerhund, just roasting everything. And the fight atop the Ausmerzer in the end with three of those really big Supersoldiers. But even if I played FPSes like this I'm mostly still a RPG girl and my favourite moments in the game turned out to be the moments where the characters in the Kreisau Circle interact with each other. BJ's birthday party was amazingly fun to watch and I loved the scene where Anya just goes completely wild at the end. The second Act was better than the first, mainly because BJ was so frickin depressed (by all rights) in the first Act, and then he gets his shit together in the second Act after the execution. The second Act feels more Wolfenstein than the first despite all he does is shooting Nazis in both. Seeing Hitler was an experience in itself and the way they portrayed him made sense (but not very flattering). This is the 1960s and he's in his 70s, clearly not ageing well. I played through the Wyatt timeline and after seeing the differences between Wyatt's and Fergus's timelines, I think I'm happy with my choice. I had no patience for Wyatt's shit in the game, but I'd dislike Fergus's anger even more. There were parts I really liked about this game, but they were spread over so many things that were just average. It's fun to shoot Nazis, I guess? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Youngblood: Set in the 80s we play as one of B.J.´s twin daughters as they shoot Nazis throughout Paris to find B.J. who has disappeared. Anya, Grace and B.J. make brief appearances but this game is mostly all about Jess, Soph and Abby (Grace's daughter - the baby in The New Colossus). I know this game got a lot of complaints over the girls. Complaints that they were loud and annoying and not at all relatable. I guess that's because the main audience for Wolfenstein games are adult males? Because I found them to be cute, fun, slightly childish (but they're teenagers, hello) and completely 100% relatable. But I have been a teenage girl, something most adult males can't claim. I enjoyed this game a lot more than The New Colossus tbh. The story was as solid as any Wolfenstein game, while also serving as a coming-of-age story for the girls. I enjoyed the quests and I enjoyed exploring every zone. I went back several times for side quests and to collect all the collectibles. The last free update to the game that added the Da'at Yichud artifacts also addes some annoying new enemies that I didn't like, but they were only there for that one mission. I really don't need laser shooting robot dogs with turrets on their backs, ok; or electrocuting drones in environments full of water, ok? Every single loading screen showing the twins' antics with each other and with that 80s music on top... I just really enjoyed it. I enjoyed every part of this game. 

The first game was the best one, but I liked both Old Blood and Youngblood a lot more than I liked The New Colossus. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

What's the first thought in your head after reading this? Let me know!