Now playing: Wolfenstein The New Order

Duh you would have seen this coming if you read the blog lately. I wrote 3 FPS themed articles based around my excitement for this game, and its been my #1 anticipated game of this year even above Dark Souls 2 which I knew would be superior overall. Now that its here and I've sunk several hours into it and will likely stick till the end its time for a different type of article for the game. The one about first impressions and thoughts. However there isn't really any easy summary to this game out of what I've experienced. To be honest my first thoughts was this game is just damn weird. I started really getting into it, love its combat, was blown away by the level design, but it didn't stop the first 3 levels from leaving me with this surreal sense of "how can this be!?" sort of attitude towards the game. Probably around the time where you're in a prison level, I finally started letting the game just sink in, and just enjoyed it blissfully and unquestionably. Yet I still remember and understand why it was just so off for those first hours of playing it. To just call the game old-school is an understatement. I'd say about 80% of it feels ripped directly out of 2007, slapped in perks and higher end story telling, and was marketed as a brand new game. That's not a bad thing at all though.

It all starts in the intro and one of the first things I'm sure most will think is that the graphics just aren't what you'd expect. Nothing is exactly bad about it, but it just looks so far away from anything flashy, good, upscaled, "next gen" worthy, or artistic. There's not really any real depth to the visuals at all, it just exists, its clear, and it functions. Objects and people have enough polygons to be very clear and decent but nothing more, most textures are just flat and solid things that are there and look ok with text just out of readability, and of course the game meets 1080p and 60fps but that also means nothing else is at its best potential. It brings me back to what I was saying before, it feels like I'm looking at high resolution, and better lit alterations towards early PS3/360 visuals... in other words 2007-ish graphics brought up into a 2014 condition on a brand new system. ...Or it also sort of reminds me of the upgrade resistance 1 did for PS2-3 leap, except this time with 3 to 4. On the positive side though this is one of the first games I've played in quite some time that has next to no graphical instabilities. Everything stays clear, solid, and well made 100% of the time. No pop-ins, no jagged edges, and just about everything is on par with each other so you wont find yourself running into any black sheep textures that hurt hard by contrast. Even though the visuals are generally kind of bland, they are so solid that you really get used to it so fast and its really awkward trying to talk about them again.

The gameplay itself opens somewhat like a WW2 shooter. You pretty much fight some planes, end up crashing, swim through water, and do what the guy on the radio will tell you to as you go through trenches and bunkers in a corridor shooter fashion using machine guns and pistols. The big catch that mostly separates it from usual WW2 stuff is mostly the dual wielding and your silly commander/pilot. When the castle stuff pops up the game get more into its true routine where you begin seeing alternate path, get rewarded with a weapon upgrade if you go off the main course, have a clear stealth choice alongside 3 enemy types to go against, begin work on most perks, find collectibles, and it all ends up leading to a solid plot point that you interact with. This is pretty much the game mixed up with old-school base mechanics. Oh but that leads me to another ancient catch. You pick up ammo piece by piece. Its weird, but you get used to spamming pick-up pretty fast and it isn't like looting in skyrim or anything that bad.

As I'm going along the game suddenly opens up into a hub routine where you do some smaller level finding and story building in between the usual violent missions. Similarly the game itself isn't really as focused on gunning as much as critics and the previews made it seem. There's a lot of puzzle-ish elements, wire cutting, I just got out of a big underwater segment, and each level resets your weapon wheel often altering your style up a bit sometimes for a mission that feels like its required. To describe the true intentions of the game would probably result in something as long winded as: Its an old school corridor shooter story driven adventure game. Playing it at times feels like you're in some action adventure movie, and at other times like you're in a cliche 2005-7 fps. Of course saying "cliche" is like trying to tell someone an endangered species was overpopulating 3 years ago... now the cliches of this game stuck in the past is today's breath of fresh air.

When the game is doing the former bit of just feeling like a shooter, it does it really well (and with a good amount of terrain destruction), and its really fast paced. Sometimes its just a tad bit too fast paced, and I can't plan my moves out so well, but I get by even with some trial and error if it needs to end that way. By contrast the other segments are really, really slow. I keep reminding myself of that "quiet time" pacing that great games do. Its great to see yet another shooter that has those moments, and breaks things up so its not just raw action or gimmicks. Beyond that there's also the fact that objectives aren't so obvious. Sometimes there's a marker that's highly transparent that pops up to indicate where you should be, but there's no rush or urgency and there's a lot of times when that marker just isn't there. The game lets you really sit back and think for yourself. I've actually been stuck for about 5 minutes, and it actually feels kind of good instead of the dull "follow me" sticker or super convenient arrow finding of other games that just encourages you to prod along unquestionably like some zombie on a leash. Likewise the game lets you have your fun, even if sometimes it results in stupid stuff. There are parts to platform on that result in getting nowhere useful, there's a giant walker robot you can fire on with a cannon but do nothing to it except piss it off, and you're well able to charge up to a brute soaking up bullets only to have him punch you into your grave. Much like with the fan cry for Dark Souls, its actually kind of fun to just watch yourself fail hard or do stupid things. Its better to find yourself doing dumb things on your own terms than being forced into the correct things because the game expects you're too dumb to actually play. The game really lives up to my hopes of it kicking the modern military shooter trends hard.

Oh and the story? Well its there and its good, and pretty entertaining. I really don't have much on it to say though. I live in the moment with it and enjoy the characters, scenes, their choices, and even some side bits I didn't expect like an optional cut-scene with a lunatic named Telka. The story manages to work in objectives with characters well at times, but for the most part the story is just an amusing action plot that like I noted earlier has this adventure action movie feel to it. However while it is technically one of the most "advanced" and built up parts of the game, it never comes off as the central focus or anything I can really explain much away from the game. Now that I'm talking about it, I can't really recall much because... well I'm just on a computer talking about first impressions and memories of what I just experienced on a game rather than helping solve the ending or anything. The story stops when I do, that's sort of how I've always felt about gaming unless it leaves me with some giant thing to decode. Its good though, worth renting at least if you're a story gamer, but if you don't care and ignore it you wont be missing out anything revolutionary.

There are moments where I stop and just stand in the moment of this game... and it just feels so good. I  know it Should be a sense of nostalgia mixed with entertainment value, but it doesn't exactly feel like that. Alpha prime is a blast of Nostalgia, SPAZ was a nostalgia link towards another game, even Rage induced a warped sense of nostalgia, and obviously playing R&C HD and Serious Sam was a great throw back of joy with a splash of nostalgia.... but Wolfenstein leaves me feeling it in another way. I'd rather call it relief. I've been waiting for over a year of a shooter that just does things the way I remember and like them, does things familiar and fun, and provides a fresh new experience in what I really love rather than what trends and focus groups are telling them to bleed dry. I'm playing a shooter that truly decided to throw trends out the window and give me something that feels more at home. It doesn't feel Nostalgic because this is something new using a formula I'm well versed in. Actually... I'll go back to the home metaphor, because Its literally like coming home from some bad vacation you never wanted to be a part of... the home isn't exactly nostalgic, its just very comforting, holds great value to you, and its a more free and liberating experience than the alternative of being watched or out in public. Its a great big sense of relief, and I hope MachineGames can do a sequel like they want to. Now I've got some nazis to go kill.