Wolfenstein: The New Order

'Wolfenstein: The New Order (2014)' revives its pioneering series and attempts to kick the first-person shooter genre back to its roots. The game really only has one thing in its mind: shooting Nazis. Thankfully, then, this aspect of its design is highly satisfying, thanks to the piece's refined controls and large arsenal of weapons. It's gory, over-the-top and a lot of fun. This does sort of clash with the thing's story, as the narrative attempts to be somewhat serious with just a dash of satire here and there. Ultimately, though, it maintains a tonal balance and works as a kind of schlocky, 'what-if?' science-fiction. A lot of time is spent on delivering the plot, which isn't an issue since it's so well-written and enjoyable. The game's level design is almost labyrinthine at times, allowing you to explore at your own pace and search for secrets if you so wish. This makes it rather replayable, as each mission feels distinct and the few hub locations you visit have a variety of rooms to explore. Here, you can interact further with the game's rag-tag cast of characters, cementing them within the world-space. Overall, this is one of the more enjoyable FPS games of the 2010s, principally because it focuses on its shooting mechanics and doesn't encumber the player with a weapon limit or a slow movement speed. It's great fun. 8/10

The game knows well what the audience wants and it delivers it to them with a plate full of brutality and action. Apart from the well known fun shooting against the modern Nazis you can follow an actual story with characters that are stereotypical and funny. It's quite bizarre and violent but that's what made this game memorable.

One of the best modern shooters, up there with Halo, Doom, and Titanfall!

This is one of the best shooters period. Here are the major positives.

• Amazing action and gunplay.

• A really good story that will go after your heart. I did not expect choice and consequence and I did not expect romance in this game!

• The story is also bold and does stuff most shooters won't do.

• Great characters all around.

• Great level design and set pieces.

• The world building and lore is very interesting and unique. I love alternate history stuff!

• Solid creepy and hate able villains.

This is an amazing shooter. One you have to play if you love the genre. It is also on Gamepass!

You can kill nazis in this game. That's all you need to know.

This game was selling it self as an old school shooter in modern times, never did I imagine that it had a great story too. It has been a long time since I had such a great all round FPS game experience.

Story: The game is set in an alternate timeline where the Nazis have won WWII and now rule over the world and we are part of a rebellion to take them down. This setting alone is great enough for me, but the game gives you much more than that. IT has a pretty well developed set of characters, including our hero, and there is a hefty amount of cut-scenes to really get you into the story, something I was completely surprised to see. You actually care for the characters and what happens to them etc, I loved that. This was helped a lot by great voice acting. The game had a RPG feel to it as far as story goes and that's a good thing as RPGs usually have good stories. I loved reading news articles that showed how different things happened after the Nazis won.

The ending did felt a bit rushed to me though, would have loved it if it was prolonged or something. Also, there was this mysterious secret story part too, which I won't spoil, BUT it was underutilized. Wish they expanded more on it.

Gameplay: Since the game is like an old school shooter, it has many of those elements. Stuff like ability to carry all your weapons arsenal at once, no health/armor regen, leaning etc. And you know what, it was refreshing to play a shooter like this, took me away from all the modern shooters and felt like a refreshing experience. The shooting was fluid, gory and plain fun. Killing Nazis was a pure blast.

The game also has a stealth element in it, which was pretty simple, but effective. I found myself many times trying to stealth kill enemies. The only thing I didn't like was the weapon wheel, but that's more of a personal complaint considering I'm so used to modern shooters, changing weapons via a wheel felt odd and distracting.

Graphics: The game looked good for the most part, nice gun models, decent facial animations and such. It used the same ID 5 tech that was used in Rage, and along with it had the same problems. While many of the surroundings, open areas and such looked great, textures were really muddy or low res indoors, and very oftenly too. Took me back to the PS2 era, that bad. I mean it wasn't all row res, but you would often see switches, beams and other stuff having lame textures and they would really stick out.

Sound: Game boasted a robust and awesome soundtrack. The tracks varied from heavy rock to calm peaceful pieces. During action, most of the time you would hear rock music or such and it would make you pumped up. But during emotional scenes, or low down time, the track changes dramatically, and I loved that.

Another thing I was really impressed with was the gun sounds, they sounded so punchier and powerful, something modern shooters lack. I loved firing every weapon.

Overall: A great shooter, the best I have played in a long while now. Awesome all round experience and I'm already getting a craving to play it again. Highly recommended.

9/10