Return to Castle Wolfenstein

Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a well-executed update to id's Wolfenstein 3d from 1991. While the storyline is original (though it obviously rips from Raiders of the Lost Ark), there are a few technical issues that my anal-retentive brain just can't leave alone. Fortunately, I won't go into them here.

Once again placing the player into the well-worn boots of BJ Blazkowicz, the game starts you off just as the original did; you were captured and tossed into the dungeon of Castle Wolfenstein, and you just killed your guard. The start even looks about the same; You're looking at the door to your cell, the body of your guard in front of you. However, the original started you with his gun and 8 rounds. Here, you start with your knife (which looks like a Fairbairn-Sykes model), but you don't have to go very far for your first pistol (it's in the doorframe).

As the game travels through the Balkans, occupied Norway, and, of course, Germany itself, you almost feel like those are your hands holding that "borrowed" MP40. In one mission where you must escort a "liberated" Panzer through a town, you feel as though you're walking through a bombed-out city; piles of rubble line the roads, buildings look unsteady, and many of the NPC's you encounter have bandages applied.

My main gripe is that the members of the Wehrmacht you encounter speak in accented English. Sometimes, they'll say something in German (like when they're muttering to themselves, or when it'd be very easy to figure out what they mean), but when it's a miniature cutscene (the second and third people encountered on the Norway mission come readily to mind), the conversation is mostly in English.

All these years later, Return to Castle Wolfenstein offers a very fun single-player experience.

The level design is generally intuitive, and grows stronger as the game progresses. The areas you occupy in-game are made more immersive through immaculate attention to detail and period-appropriate decoration.

Certain aspects of the game's visual presentation have aged particularly well, for instance characters' faces and the weapons.

There's good feedback in firefights - you'll usually be able to tell whether you've hit your enemy. However, hitboxes aren't very accurate. Spend enough time using a sniper and you'll realise that many of the shots you clearly miss in fact hit the intended target. It's better to wrongly register misses than not recognise hits, I suppose!

The stealth can be frustrating. It's almost as if AI detection works using RNG instead of a coherent pattern. Sometimes you'll be spotted half a mile away through a dark mist; sometimes the soldier you're sneaking up on will have no peripheral vision whatsoever.

It took me a while to adjust to the absence of an aim-down-sight ability for most weapons in the game, but as your arsenal expands you'll find something that works for your play-style.

A slightly frustrating component of the game is its tendency to use a start-of-level save instead of your latest quicksave for its automatic reload.

There are probably fixes for all of the issues I've raised in this review, but nothing in Return to Castle Wolfenstein agitated me to the point of caring to seek out mods or patches. Take the game as you find it and you'll still be having fun most of the time.

I cant say enough about this game. It has some of the mose realistic graphics and the most creep situations avalable. FINALLY some one put some real effort into the AI. When shots go off people come a running...no like in men of honor 2 were a mechanic is carrying a box about 20 or so feet from where you are filling this German full of lead.

The variety of the missions was refressing but the only thing I didnt like was the anti-climacitc ending (as is common in most games). Heinrich was a bit too unrealistic for a sci-fi junkie like me. And I would have liked a stage where one can go pop deaths head.

Aside from all the nit-picking this is my pick most recommended.

Most people seem to like Return to Castle Wolfenstein, but they qualify their praise with criticisms and reservations.

Well, I have almost no criticisms. This game is simply the bomb. For me, it's a near-perfect blend of horror, wartime action and - very occasionally - gritty realism. The graphics are lovely, and the game simply has a cool aesthetic. I've always found Wolfenstein games to be much more attractive and engaging than, say, Doom, which usually takes place entirely in a dark corridor.

This version of Wolfenstein has a nice variety of missions, too. You fight Nazis in castles and chateaus, undead in gloomy catacombs, and robotic supersoldiers in a top-secret lab. Some missions are reminiscent of the ultra-tough WWII game Hidden and Dangerous, which involved lots of sneaking around and careful gameplay, whereas other missions are all-out slugfests. For me, the game's fairly frequent shifts in tone, pacing and emphasis aren't a weakness, but a strong selling point.

I also love the far-out villains. The armored undead are creepy, and thankfully not nearly as revolting as zombies from other games. But I particularly love the leather-clad babes with machine guns - they're a little sexist, I'm sure, and somewhat tacky, but they're also entirely appropriate for a game like this.

Sure, Return to Castle Wolfenstein has some flaws. The cutscenes are boring, and the dialogue is a little corny. But hey, I didn't expect a good script from Wolfenstein. I expected fun (and carnage), and I got it. It's prime stuff, and very hard to stop playing.

Whoever created this game was a genius... It had a good story plot and had some cool graphics and some action and adventure and some great elements that has added onto this game...

Also... The enemies are hard but it was still fun after all... And some power guns that you can also use them to shoot...

This game is like a Shoot, Think and Run genre... 1st level was so hard that everyone would took time to play it but it was still fun though....

So save your money for the other wolfenstein[Enemy territory is fun]or this if you want to....

10/10