Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus Review
Everything that made Wolfenstein: The New Order an excellent single-player first-person shooter is dialed up for round two. With a cast of instantly likeable heroes and bone-chilling villains giving emotional context to its bloody uprising against high-tech Nazis, Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus has come to play.
It really is incredible how well this story works, considering how absurd its sci-fi version of 1961 is and how wildly the tone shifts from scene to scene. One moment it’s ultra-serious and delivering a sickening dose of venomous racism, abuse, and cold-blooded cruelty. Not that we needed another reason to want to overthrow an alternate-reality Third Reich who won World War 2 and conquered the world, but it’s hugely effective in getting the blood boiling. And yet, the next moment it’ll transition to scenes of laugh-out-loud comedy before pivoting back to BJ Blazkowicz dealing with his own mortality as he withers away from the wounds he received at the end of The New Order. Loading
Wolfenstein 2 pulls this off without whiplash thanks to the impressive strength of its characters, who are outstandingly written and acted. Rousing scenes featuring BJ’s internal monologue, rebel leader Grace and her determined but sad eyes, and Super Spesh’s crazy conspiracy-theory rants and literal bathroom humor are all great and delivered with convincing confidence. In just a short time, each of them is given enough backstory that they’re immediately three dimensional – they’re a flawed group of people who’ve gone through a hellish war and decade-long occupation, and yet they’ve survived, rebelled, and lived their lives. That said, with so many new and interesting faces, not all of the characters from the first game have much to do – notably, Max Hess and Bombate don’t get a lot of screen time outside of a few gags.
General Engel steals the show with her absolutely gleeful sadism.
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But it’s the evil General Engel who steals the show with her absolutely gleeful sadism whenever she’s on screen.
She’s unpredictable, often one step ahead, and completely without mercy, often toying with her prey for the enjoyment of it. She’s far and away the most memorably terrifying game villain since Far Cry 3’s Vaas Montenegro. On top of that, the flashbacks to BJ’s childhood and his relationship with his abusive, monstrously (but not unbelievably) racist father are also extremely unsettling. Together, these are the kinds of threats that make running around chopping off Nazi limbs with a hatchet feel like justifiable homicide.All this goes to show that as long as you have characters who feel complex and human, you can get away with just about anything in a story. Wolfenstein 2’s roughly 14-hour campaign takes full advantage of that to execute a few wild twists and turns that made my jaw drop.
Every IGN Wolfenstein Review
Gruesomely murdering Nazis is extremely satisfying.
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Gruesomely murdering Nazis is already extremely satisfying, but it’s made even more so thanks to the fast and smooth first-person shooting action, and the rewarding performances the enemies put on during their death scenes.
Whether they’re reacting based on what body part you’ve shot, getting sliced up in one of the varied melee kill animations, or bursting into flame and vaporizing before your eyes when you rake a heavy laser weapon across the screen, it’s quite a show.There are a lot of Nazis to kill, though, so you’re also encouraged to sneak into each encounter to thin out the herd by silently taking down troopers and, more importantly, their officers – if left alive to trigger the alarm, they’ll summon reinforcements. Like The New Order, this isn’t exactly a “real” stealth game, in that enemies don’t raise an alarm when they spot a dead body (and you can’t hide corpses) and will sometimes spot you when you wouldn’t expect they could’ve, but this stealth gameplay is a good way to mix up the action and prevent every fight from beginning the same way. It’s also entirely optional; if you’d rather go in guns blazing, that works too, and it’s more of a challenge.Loading
Blasting away with a machine gun in each hand feels just as great as before.
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Wolfenstein 2 makes the most of its somewhat standard-feeling assortment of weapons (there’s a pistol, SMG, machine gun, shotgun, grenade launcher, etc) by letting you mix, match, and customize them to your heart’s content. Using Wolfenstein’s existing dual-wielding system to blast away with a machine gun in each hand feels just as great as before, letting you sacrifice accuracy for doubled-up firepower that’s effective in close or mid-range combat. Dual wielding is also handy if you want to be able to quickly fire a shotgun blast if you blow your cover and the silenced pistol won’t get the job done on its own. It effectively lets you choose your own alternate fire mode. Unless, of course, you’re using one of the terrific high-powered guns salvaged from Nazi mech troopers that require both hands but often include their own built-in alt-fire mode.My biggest annoyance with dual wielding is that – without a late-game upgrade – you can’t pause the action to switch weapons. That can be a clumsy process because there’s just a single weapon wheel for both hands, and you have to select the switch hands option before you can access the left one.
Good luck doing that while under fire without getting killed.
Speaking of upgrades, each weapon has three potential enhancements like scopes, extra ammo capacity, and other things that change their behavior in ways more interesting than just bumping up the damage output. Upgrade kits are rare, so the choices you make feel more important – I only had around half the possible upgrades by the time I finished (though I’m sure I missed quite a few).Loading
Another carryover from The New Order is the perk system, which gives upgrades just for scoring kills with things like headshots or flame damage. That encourages you to mix up your playstyle, and also gives a constant stream of rewards just for “doing you.”
BJ may be a buffed-out killing machine with a suit of armor, but he’s not a tank.
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BJ may be a buffed-out killing machine with a suit of armor, but he’s not a tank. You’ve got to keep moving and play cautiously to stay alive, grabbing health, armor, and ammo items where you can find them (often off of Nazi corpses).
That’s an area where The New Order was rightly criticized for making us push the pick-up button for every single individual item we wanted to grab, including small-value armor scraps that fall off of enemies. The New Colossus finds a much happier medium between that and the more common first-person shooter design of Hoovering up any item you even look at – here, many items can be picked up by walking directly over them with a small auto-grab radius. You’ll still be pushing the button quite a bit, but it’s not nearly as annoying as it was in the first game.
Because of BJ’s fragility (and the fact that I played through on the “Do or Die!” difficulty level, one notch above normal) I died quite a bit – often without knowing exactly what had killed me. Every time that happened I wished there were a killcam that focused on the gloating enemy who’d gotten me so that I’d know what to look out for next time.Loading
But the only real problem I consistently had in combat is that BJ’s pretty picky about what he’ll jump over./i.s3.glbimg.com/v1/AUTH_08fbf48bc0524877943fe86e43087e7a/internal_photos/bs/2019/F/q/TlwTTDQ8KUvmpIh01pYg/wolfenstein-youngblood4.jpg)
I got killed more often than I’d like because I got stuck on invisible obstacles while trying to vault over stuff – especially in the later levels.
Every so often we hear from a relative of someone who died at the hands of the infamous “Terro-Billy.»
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Wolfenstein 2’s linear series of levels is made up almost entirely of the kind of dreary settings you’d expect from Nazi-occupied America. The irradiated remains of New York, military facilities, and a New Orleans that’s become a walled-in ghetto are all pretty gloomy with only occasional eye-catching spectacle, but they’re dotted with details and readable bits of life in a fascist alternate reality that make exploration worthwhile. Not only that, some of this reading material humanizes the Germans you’re fighting, to some degree. Don’t get me wrong, there’s no moral question about whether a bunch of goose-stepping thugs deserve what’s coming to them, but hearing, for instance, the perspective of a family who resettled in America after the war is interesting.
And every so often we hear from a relative of someone who died at the hands of the infamous “Terro-Billy” – the Nazi propagandists’ name for one William J Blazkowicz.
It’s the non-combat areas in between fights that really distinguish themselves. Walking around a Nazi parade in Roswell, New Mexico and listening to SS troops chatting with Ku Klux Klansmen and finding common ground is eerie and chilling, and the detail in the windows on the main street is excellent. The same goes for the submarine that serves as a base for BJ’s rebellion, which is packed with characters and great incidental dialogue. Some of those side characters don’t look so great next to BJ and his main cast of friends, however.Loading
This being a single-player game, it’s notable that there is some significant post-game content. Wolfenstein 2 recycles some of its maps for tough assassination missions (which must be unlocked by gathering items from dead Nazi officers) that allow you to gain some upgrades that were mutually exclusive with choices you made during the campaign.
And there’s a reason to start all over, too: one of the first things you do is repeat a choice you made in The New Order to spare the life of one of two characters, which determines which one is alive in the sequel. That gives you access to a different weapon and has that person play a role in the story, and given the role that Wyatt played in my playthrough I’m interested to see how the older, more grizzled Fergus would’ve handled things.
On a technical note, after the first couple of hours Wolfenstein 2 ran beautifully for me on PC, with excellent performance and stability. I have to caveat that first couple of hours, though, because during that time it crashed consistently when I was trying to make the pre-game choice between Wyatt and Fergus, about 20 seconds into starting a new game. It was only after I quit out of just about everything running in the background that it ran successfully. Bethesda has indicated this is an Nvidia driver issue (I’m using a GTX 1080), and there are already beta drivers available that may solve the issue if you encounter it.
A second Nvidia-powered PC using a GTX 980 had no issues whatsoever. Both console versions, meanwhile, have run well and without incident.
Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus is a fantastic single-player shooter, but what really got me invested was the brilliantly written characters and the performances of its cast. BJ and his crew are full of spirit and personality, and General Engel is as memorable a nemesis as you’re likely to find in games. Machine Games has once again turned the well-worn act of mowing down Nazis into something to get excited about.
The New Colossus – Destructoid
Do you remember back in 2013, when franchise reboot Wolfenstein: The New Order was first announced? Everyone was furious about the title’s marketing campaign, with many gamers taking genuine issue with the gleeful abandon in which the game’s Nazi-killing themes were represented.
Oh no, wait, actually no-one gave a shit. It basically wasn’t an issue. Roll on a mere four years later and we have folk fuming over such concepts.
Nazis have been getting obliterated in Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, et al for decades, no-one batted an eyelid. Yet now, suddenly, we’re supposed to start wringing our hands and applying pseudo-intellectual pontification over such matters? What happened?
One of the reasons people cry foul with The New Colossus‘ marketing is because they see similarities to today’s climate (in rare cases, perhaps themselves) referenced within it. A climate that may not have seemed quite so contemporary back in 2013. The Wolfenstein narrative is a fictional tale about the successful rise of global fascism. If people want to complain that Bethesda are cheaply “exploiting current events,” then how did we let those events become current?
The issue here isn’t that Bethesda chose to lampoon real-world political slogans, or genuine feelings of civil unrest, with a sly wink, in order to sell their wares. Hell, they were making these games years before such slogans were in the public zeitgeist.
No, the issue lies with us folk, for allowing such a gross climate to return to a state of prominence, thus being ripe for artistic reference in the first place.
But that’s barely the tip of this latest video game hot potato, another topic for another time, maybe. But right now, gather your arms brothers and sisters, ‘cos we got a Nazi regime to smash.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (PS4 [reviewed], PC, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch)
Developer: MachineGames
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Released: October 27, 2017 (PS4, PC, Xbox One), TBA (Switch)
MSRP: $59.99
Colossus picks up immediately where The New Order left off. Having been rescued from death’s door by his rebel family, The Kreisau Circle, Col. B.J. Blazkowicz and his motley crew of resistance fighters reunite on-board their stolen U-Boat, Eva’s Hammer. Though the Deathshead compound has been successfully obliterated, the Nazi regime remains steadfastly in power across the USA.
With B.J. slowly succumbing to his fatal injuries, and a vengeful Frau Engel obsessively on their heels, The Kreisau Circle surmise that if any hope is to be had of stamping out The Reich, then America is to be liberated.
A first-person-shooter in the epitome of the genre, players run ‘n’ gun their way through thousands of Nazi stormtroopers, creepy androids, and monstrous supersoldiers, armed with an array of (very) heavy artillery. From hatchets and shotguns to flamethrowers and chump-disintegrating lasers, Blazkowicz dual-wields monstrous firepower, literally vaporising the opposition en masse, in one of the most cathartic shooter experiences available. Though a stealth approach to some missions is a viable option, c’mon, we have Metal Gear for that, why not pick up that experimental matter-destroying cannon instead? Colossus, aware of its simplistic gameplay, chooses to accent its visuals, utilising some stunning light and shadow mechanics, intricate character modelling and some of the best flame, explosion, and particle physics I’ve seen in some time.
While all this gung-ho Nazi-smashing action does provide a solid, pulse-pounding challenge, some elements are a bit uninspired. A few of the game’s maps are flabby and needlessly large which harms the pace of the running battle. There is also a surprising lack of enemy types too, and by the halfway point you will have seen most of the cannon fodder the game has to offer. Sadly, boss battles are pretty much non-existent, and those who enjoyed taking down the the gargantuan London Monitor from The New Order, or enjoyed the multi-stage fight with Deathshead that rounds out the same game, may be disappointed to learn that there are no such set-pieces here. As such, though the fight is an enjoyable one, the campaign lacks memorable showdowns with unique enemies, and thus becomes a tad dry by the final act.
The real passion project in Colossus is the game’s high-drama, high-camp storyline, which is told in fantastic cinematic and in-engine cutscenes.
The characters of the Wolfenstein universe are great; we love the heroes and despise the villains in equal measure, thanks in no small part to the game’s excellent motion-capture, strong dialogue with a hefty side of patriotic cheese, and superb voice-acting. Colossus‘ story runs a gauntlet of dark themes, including scenes of upsetting violence, vulgar hatred, and heartbreaking mental cruelty, before swiftly switching to narrative devices that wouldn’t be out of place in a Cannon Films action flick.
The skill in MachineGames’ storytelling is its ability to align these ridiculously opposed elements, while still maintaining a perfect balance between taut drama and total farce. There are scenes in the game that are genuinely distressing, slotted beside brilliant, mind-blowing “What. The. Fuck?” moments. (An awesome incident, featuring Blazkowicz’s heavily-pregnant partner Anya, just has to be seen to be believed.) I could give so many examples, but who am I to ruin the surprise? Unfortunately, the game’s ending seemed slightly anticlimactic to me, and was followed by a credits theme so fucking horrible that it killed my post-game hype.
Though Colossus has no multiplayer, there is some extended replay value here. Eva’s Hammer features a world map, which unlocks optional side-missions as you progress through the campaign. There are also Enigma codes to be found and decrypted, amusing tasks to perform for members of The Kreisau Circle, and a whole host of collectibles to be found. Those wanting to go full retro might enjoy “Wolfstone 3D,” an in-game recreation of the 1992 classic, with an amusing twist. These extras help add value to the 10-to-12 hour story campaign.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is a great game that has some frustrating hiccups. Its high-octane, lead-pumping action looks and feels fantastic, but does start to wear thin toward the climax. The enemy design is suitably imposing, but the range of enemies and lack of boss fights is disappointing. The storyline features excellent characters, a good script, and brilliant voice-acting, but occasionally slips into melodrama and has a somewhat lackluster finale.
What Colossus does well, however, it does with genuine excellence, which helps to paper over these noticeable cracks.
Part political commentary, part comic-book farce, completely batshit insane, and as primal as an FPS title can be, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is certainly recommended. It has a great cast, wicked visuals, breathless combat, and unforgettable story moments. It cannot be denied that there are flaws, and they are tough to ignore, but the game’s wanton carnage and narrative head-fuckery help slice through them as cleanly as a hatchet through a Nazi’s cranium.
[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]
The New Colossus. Once Upon a Time in America — Gambling
Congenial
Wolfenstein: The New Order
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
DOOM (2016)
The Elusive Avengers movie
The Inglourious Basterds Part One movie
Blaskowitz’s adventures, Wolfenstein: The New Order , was a game at a crossroads of ideas.
In every possible way.
It featured classic shooter gameplay with health packs and armor. There were fashionable elements of stealth, some kind of freedom of action and a system of perks. And in the intervals between shooting — peaceful moments of the exposition, communication with numerous characters and mise-en-scene. A little bit of everything, a little bit, so that everyone finds something for themselves and does not leave offended.
Gameplay updated Wolfenstein was very good, but so many different concepts were mixed in the story that it was not clear what the game even wanted to be. For a serious military drama, The New Order joked too often (and sometimes inappropriately), for a tragicomedy, on the contrary, it was too frowning.
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The sequel is more cinematic, as hinted at by the menu, stylized as a film for the projector. And if you forgot the plot of the first part, they will briefly tell you.
Blazkowicz’s childhood memories seriously develop him as a character. He no longer sees a dull mountain of muscles, but a worthy, but very tired man on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Unexpected, especially for Wolfenstein.
The New Order was an experiment. The New Colossus is the fruit of this experiment. An exemplary sequel that finally found artistic integrity. He, unlike his predecessor, is not lost in his own ideas and knows exactly what he wants to say.
War is absurd. Welcome to the party.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
If someone had said a couple of years ago that would be the best part of the new Wolfenstein , we would have laughed out loud. Drop it. Plot? In a bloody thrash action game without brakes that doesn’t know the word «no»? The New Order, of course, tried to execute this program, but rolled it back only to «satisfactory».
Something amazing happened to The New Colossus. After a couple of hours, we realized that we were exterminating dozens of fascists only in order to see where Blazkowicz & Co.
There was a feeling that it was the shooting that interfered with the plot, and not vice versa — as is usually the case. The previous game was also remembered for a couple of extremely effective scenes, but The New Colossus consists entirely of them.
The New Colossus can best be described as a hybrid of Indiana Jones and The Elusive Avengers directed by Tarantino. The plot here is a reckless adventure that becomes even more interesting when there are not there is bloodshed. The main thing is not to take everything to heart.
The fact is that, having set clear limits for themselves, screenwriters go beyond these very limits every minute. The game skillfully fools around, juggling themes, mood and tone of the story like a crazy clown. It can be a seriously violent drama, and a comedy, and a dumb action movie at the same time. The characters discuss everything with equal success: from political and social problems to a clogged toilet. Like Return to Castle Wolfenstein , The New Colossus is one big ode to pulp fiction; the game rolls all conceivable and unthinkable cultural stereotypes into a hefty snowball.
And from the cliches on the theme of the Second World War, he sculpts two more and makes a snowman out of them.
Dark-skinned Grace Walker is a spectacular woman. And he can cut the throat of a Nazi, and feed a child. These are the kind of people the Kreisau Circle needs.
We liked the production of The New Colossus so much that we won’t even spoil it. At all. There is only one nitpick: the story ends abruptly, offensively. You will just begin to anticipate a real revolution in America, as the credits will already roll. From the player’s point of view, the story has barely entered the final stage, but no, no excitement! Please wait for the third part or DLC.
It’s unpleasant, but it can be forgiven. Although the plot ends in mid-sentence, the impressions are still enough for a long time. But the same cannot be said about the action.
Machine gun crackle
Combat hasn’t changed much, but got some interesting innovations. The most important thing is the ability to hold different guns in both hands.
This is not at all as useful as it might seem, but it allows you to feel like a real death machine. Rifle in one hand, automatic shotgun in the other. Just like in the movies: you fire at the Nazis from a distance, and you treat the suicides, who come closer, with a shot. Enemies still react vividly to every hit, so shooting with two hands gives a special pleasure.
Weapons can now be upgraded like in DOOM. The system is simple but refreshing in gunfights.
At some point, BJ will receive special abilities in the form of secret German gadgets. You can learn to squeeze through narrow cracks, break through fragile walls with a run, or grow a couple of stilts to climb roofs. You can only choose a couple of gadgets at a time, and each of them is useful in its own way — there is even some room for experimentation. Separately, we note that the abilities do not distract from the action: they are not tied to specific buttons and are activated imperceptibly. So there is more variety in battles, and the mechanics remain unloaded.
Some of the firefights were unusually varied. For example, the battles in the ruined Manhattan amaze with elevation changes on the ground and an abundance of ambushes — you always have to be ready.
Challenge the player is also good. Even on normal difficulty, BJ dies in a matter of seconds. Just one mistake will instantly send you to the checkpoint, but that’s the point. The game gives you all the tools to spectacularly kill the Nazis right and left, but the toughness still needs to be earned.
In The New Colossus, the phrase «knee-deep in corpses» is not a figure of speech.
The problem is that combat is desperately lacking in ingenuity. Yes, shooting is still fun. Weapons sound and feel right, there are gore, jibs and an arsenal of guns, but… The game is stepping on the old rake. The AI of the opponents is indescribably stupid, although the Wehrmacht soldiers seem to be supposed to be excellent students of combat training. Fights often follow the same scenarios and only occasionally throw surprises.
The level design is frankly boring: if you saw one secret base of the Nazis, then you saw everything.
There are some really annoying shortcomings. For example, the game terribly lacks a competent damage indicator. Blaskowitz can be fired at from at least three sides, but you still won’t understand where the fire is coming from: the hero simply does not react to hits. Until it’s too late, of course.
Well, it’s a little frustrating what the game offers to do after the end of the story. If you want to find all the gadgets and collectibles (and at the same time beat the game to 100%), you can hunt Nazi officers. Choose a location on one of the levels — and go ahead, clean everything from the Nazis. That’s interesting if you’re into the game’s combat system, but without the story behind it, it doesn’t really shine as brightly.
Traditional Wolfenstein 3D easter egg present. Even funnier than The New Order.
More screenshots from Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus
More videos, streams and trailers for Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus
On the other hand, no one said that you can get everything at once.
Moreover, the rest of The New Colossus is a complete joy.
Pleased
- excellent work with a plot
- unique sense of humor
- still peppy action
- good old ultraviolence
- the game makes no compromises
Disappointed
- story ends too abruptly
- shootouts are not as interesting as peaceful moments
- minor mechanical slips
- not everyone will like the fact that the game devotes as much time to the story as to the battles
How we played
What: game provided by the publisher.
On what: PS4
How much: 10 hours.
Edition Achievement
Seriously? SERIOUSLY?!
Be speechless from one of the final cutscenes. Set aside the game for five minutes and think hard about life.
About localization
Full dubbing into Russian. The voice acting is disgusting and ruins all the efforts of the original actors, but the subtitles are on the level.
So it’s better to combine English sound and Russian text.
Excellent
9.0
Rating
Gambling
Verdict
Unforgettable old-school shooter, which in some places is not ashamed to be called brilliant. It can be completed in two evenings, but we advise you to stretch the pleasure. After the credits, you will definitely want to go back and kill a fascist or two, just to stay longer in the company of Blaskowitz and his comrades.
History of the Wolfenstein series: from Castle Wolfenstein to The New Colossus
Wrong history lesson with Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus. How the Nazis took over the Earth
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The New Colossus — Offtop on DTF
Death is live.
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Alternative history is my great hobby, I am a fan of subjunctive moods.
That is why Wolfenstein: The New Order especially fell in love with me. We have killed thousands of Nazis before, but only now we have been placed in a proper setting — a world where the ideology of evil has won. This was the main achievement of Wolfenstein: The New Order. It’s a free-play adaptation of The Man in the High Castle, Philip Dick would be pleased.
The New Colossus deviates from this idea, turning the story of an alternative history into a bloody theater of the absurd named after Tarantino.
Heavy present
From the very start we say goodbye to the logic of this world and move on to the «thrash logic». Blazkowitz, with his guts out, is rescued from the castle of General Skull and put in a coma for five months — as if he was not enough for twelve years. Only last time the hero almost immediately returned to duty, and now the mood of the game has changed to a perversely gloomy, doomed one.
We spend the first minutes of the game in a wheelchair, still shooting with two hands and performing silent kills.
Blazkowitz is soon captured by General Engel. I would like to compare the scene with the similar one in The New Order, but here everything is different. The skull was distinguished by the cold-blooded curiosity of a scientist who does not appreciate life: Frau Engel is a real sadist who takes almost erotic pleasure from cruelty.
My God, she’s throwing a severed head into her fat daughter’s crotch. Get me out of this game!
BJ’s father is portrayed as repulsive as possible. Lousy businessman, home boxer, racist. But it is he who will put values into his son’s head that will allow him to survive
Of course, Blazkowitz escapes this sick Valkyrie and sets himself a simple goal: to rouse the American people to revolution. More recently, Homefront failed with a roar in a plot-like task, but The New Colossus copes with it, albeit with the help of the grotesque, unhealthy irony and the fantastic survival of the protagonist. There is, in principle, much more plot than in the first game — both screensavers and scenes on the engine, conversations and overheard conversations.
Revolutionary Fiction
The unexpected plot twists in The New Colossus are one of the main advantages of the game. There is only one rule: if the heroes need to do something, they will choose the most risky and inadequate way to solve the problem.
Why not smuggle an atomic bomb into the enemy’s command center? Ramming a city with a submarine? Throw her back into the sea with a nuclear explosion? Wolfenstein is not able to resist and not roll the story into a complete grindhouse at any important moment in the plot.
Enemies are already shooting through the window, the musician is playing the flute, and Blazkowitz and Horton are arguing furiously about capitalism. Yes, it’s a communist wearing a cassock
Heroes have also undergone a transformation. Blazkowitz is no longer the same: if in The New Order he only occasionally worried about the horrors of war, now he mourns constantly, suffers from flashbacks, including about his bastard father, who was ready for this regime long before the German occupation.
In truth, if you cut the game somewhere in the middle and discarded the second half, then you would get an art house.
But there is already some kind of sitcom surrounding BJ. Pregnant girl Anya, whose huge belly does not interfere with crushing the Nazis. A dark-skinned tomboy with an afro hairstyle, a collection of all stereotypes, non-stop spewing speeches that in some circles would be called «leftist». Wyatt is Blazkowitz’s co-worker, heavily addicted to LSD and irrevocably moved. An old Jewish watchmaker, Seth Roth, whose speech is half Yiddish. There is not a single character around who would not be the bearer of an inverted stereotype or some other long-running joke.
It turns out that Max Hass is an excellent chess player and a talented radio mechanic
Against this background, even the most dramatic episodes are perceived as a dream, where everything is mixed up and confused. But Wolfenstein still tries again and again to talk about important issues whose relevance does not depend on the victory in the war of capitalists, communists or Nazis.
Wyatt and dark-skinned bluesman Paris are discussing music and talent, but a second later, Wyatt is sick from excess LSD in his blood. A sharp contrast between high and low, dramatic and ludicrous.
At the same time, The New Colossus has lost a little in terms of colors, the alternative reality here is not so bright. Almost all of its charm fit in the town of Roswell, where the pre-war American world was mutilated by Nazism. Yes, and here we will run for a couple of minutes and return to the faceless tunnels. Even the base on Venus (that’s where the imagination should roam!) is represented mainly by kilometers of corridors. And New York, destroyed by an atomic explosion, is too similar to Fallout 3. The location design is still an order of magnitude higher than most shooters, but specifically for Wolfenstein, the result could look much more impressive.
Last of the Mohicans
Wolfenstein: The New Colossus is still a ferocious linear action game with primitive and optional stealth.
Unlike DOOM, which sets the battle rhythm, Wolfenstein is devoid of this savagery, but requires more dynamism from the player — Captain Blazkowitz dies of his wounds very quickly.
This was significantly influenced by the circumstances in which the protagonist found himself. For the first half of the game, he walks in an exoskeleton, because without it he barely moves. All this time, you can carry up to 200 armor, but the maximum health has been reduced to 50 points — all first-aid kits consumed in excess of this norm give only a temporary burst of strength. The New Colossus suppresses the reflex to immediately grab a first-aid kit — the bonus quickly dissipates and is wasted.
Only a few minutes give you a ride on a fire-breathing panzerhund
The situation changes in the second half of the game, when health and armor return to traditional values, and Blazkowitz gains one of three abilities. Their influence on the gameplay is not so great, first of all they are needed to penetrate all sorts of nooks and crannies.
The choice is either prosthetic legs that lift BJ a couple of meters up, or shoulder pads to ram the partitions, or, most disgustingly, a compressive corset with which Blazkowitz is able to crawl into such cracks where even a cat will not fit. In combat, there is only sense from a ram, and the other two augmentations are useful for stealth.
Although less than a year has passed between the events of The New Order and The New Colossus, the arsenal has changed here. In short — even less than the usual firearms and even more Nazi wunderwaffe with names that you want to shout out, not say. Dieselkraftwerk! Shoots canisters of gasoline. Lasergever! Beam cannon of fantastic power. Ubergever! Opens black holes! The most brutal barrels can only be carried in the hands, and you won’t carry them for a long time — this is how Machinegames tried to balance the game.
Passive pumping remained, but, as before, you rarely pay attention to it
The functions of weapons are often duplicated, in whole or in part.
Thanks to this, you can design combinations «for yourself.» We take a shockhammer (shotgun) to the left to cut off those who come close, to the right — the familiar laserkraftwerk to deal with the most powerful enemies. Or a combat pistol for fighting crowds, and a stormtrooper for single targets.
A good choice of weapons is sometimes even more important than your personal game skill. Although there is a flaw — it is impossible to conduct aimed fire from two hands. And console aim assist, which is so necessary for the gamepad, does not work when shooting from the hip. If you go with two barrels, then the requirements for accuracy increase. This almost does not apply to the PC version — there is no need for auto-aim.
The checkpoint system in The New Colossus has been abandoned in favor of regular saves. Some of the firefights are so brutal that I had to save multiple times. If I started these fights again every time I was killed, I would go crazy long before the end of the game.
Let there be a risk of saving half a second before sudden inevitable death — the ability to choose the time and place of the save easily pays for everything.
As a shooter, The New Colossus turned out to be even more worthy than The New Order. The «tactility» has grown: the weapon already jumps out of the hands from the shots, rumbles, sparks, fire and blood fly in all directions. And it sounds more and more solid, otherwise in the previous part, the machines did not click very impressively. Now there are fewer of them, but new toys with each pull of the trigger arrange a small apocalypse. Especially the Ubergever.
Fork in history
I used to be sure that Prey deserved the title of the game of the year, but now this confidence has been shaken. Yes, The New Colossus also has certain problems. As in the game from Arkane, there are problems with the denouement, just the opposite: where Prey throws everything at you at once, Wolfenstein suddenly falls silent.
There is less atmosphere in comparison with the first part, but many times more plot, which is really amazing. I’m still a bore, it’s very difficult to surprise me.
And here is not the most successful localization. «Creepy Billy», a terrorist and murderer, broadcasts in the voice of a dying swan. How so?
Despite the nerves spent (The New Colossus itself is not easy, and even on PS4) I agree to forgive the game a lot. Even the scene in the courtroom, which I played with a friend for a couple of hours, and then … okay, let’s not spoil it.
I’m ready to forgive the ambiguity that many have taken for an attempt to broadcast SJW values through a game that is cynical and devoid of conscience. You can only see the attacks on Donald Trump and the far right here if you are damn touchy. I will say more: closer to the very end, there is a strong counterargument in defense of all those whites who are labeled.
A base on Venus is such a defiantly crazy idea that only the Nazis could think of it
But everyone saw a lot of technical problems on the PC — in the reviews on Steam, the game is mixed with dirt for poor optimization.
But is it really worth burying such a piece product because of a couple of screwed up saves? What kind of alternate reality will we create then?
While I was playing Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, one thought haunted me: this is a single player game. It has a beginning, a climax and an ending. Finished, albeit delusional, plot. No endless service and loot boxes, no towers and open world. Not even a network part.
And so the game is over. In fact, after the credits, you can still walk around the rebel submarine and kill the surviving obercommandos, and here a thin “seam” is noticeable — in this place there could be any kind of monetization model. What if, due to the rejection of the win-win sales model, Wolfenstein collects a weak box office and is declared a failure? What if I just finished the last single-player AAA shooter ever?
Captain Blazkowitz, you are alone against the entire Third Reich, just as Wolfenstein is against the market. But we are still with you, no matter how many difficulties await us ahead.
