Well after the completion of Wolfenstein The Old Blood, or actually even before it, I felt it odd that I was actually more compelled to hear the villain's plot than last time. It was a really weird feeling compared to the one in Wolfenstein, and their villain Deathshead (whose name I still don't know how to pronounce right, is it like death's-head or death-shead?). He had a great stage presence, and suited the job well, but when I think back on the game I remember my journey as a player rather than what Deathshead did. He just sort of felt like that crazy nazi doctor guy, and the secondary villains came off as again just more crazy nazi bad guys. They were mentally questionable, violent, angry, and sickening, but ultimately they were written to be just another super villain to shoot. Which is totally fine of course and they still had amazing screen presence with things like the train scene or your first encounter in the labs, but compared to The Old Blood and the way MachineGames likes their narratives, I would say they've found a better fit and I want to sort of discuss the villains in detail.
However because the game just came out this week its only fair to say I'll be covering spoilers. Even the screenshots might give something away, so just don't look. The game doesn't take too long to beat, just go play it and come back in two days or one big binge sitting. So... Spoiler alert!!!
Well at first I thought it was just the way I like certain things more than others. I love supernatural plot elements, I love mythology, and I can relate to the enjoyment of history. On top of that I felt special for completing the portion of Return To Castle Wolfenstein that contains some of the same plot elements, so for a while I thought my hype and suspense around the villains was related to that and was more novelty than narrative. The more I thought about it, and the more I progressed, the more I realized I appreciated the writing a lot more than I was originally admitting to. Every scene with the villains held an impact. only unlike the older villains they used their screen time to express interest in other things than being evil. Then there was all the background stuff. If you asked me about Deathsheads pass, I could tell you nothing and documents gave into almost no detail on the villain so much as the Nazi's general rise. These two villains on the other hand are loaded with intel, a past, and show wide range of emotion. Lets start with just one though: Rudi.
Rudi at first comes off as another stock "important bad guy" character. He's big, intimidating, and shown to be mean almost for pleasure, but you know in the end he'll bleed the same if you manage to bring dual automatic shotguns up to his face. However if you're really looking into things, he comes off as actually more like a psychological case rather than just a normal villain. You don't even hve to look far either, they even went out of the way to have his troops talk about him behind his back. The guy comes off to others as a bit of a nut, and you can fin this in what he does, what letters he receives, and even what triggers him into the rage that leads up to his boss fight. He has a letter from his mother begging forgiveness of his implied abused past, and he was raised under a father with a bit of a mean streak towards Rudi whenever he messed up. Meanwhile it would appear the mother really wants money now and isn't doing so well as she is, which is a subtle way of showing why Rudi is where he is today. Its well implied that he's one of those guys that was raised under fear and wanted to feel empowered to spread that kind of fear. Its also a nice mention that when he speaks of his father being electrocuted, he does so very sternly without any feeling of remorse for what might have been his father's death. This actually inspired him to torture people with electricity.
Of course what would any man be without an animal buddy? His issues in the past might also have lead to how he makes his friends now, those would be dogs more so than other people. Those dogs also happen to be walking killers that will rip apart anyone Rudi throws to them, feeding into that empowerment Rudi has. Rudi's most precious dog is an albino hound (with freakin' RED EYES!) named Greta. Even she has a background story, being a dog so unique and well trained that Deathshead himself awarded it to Rudi. This is Rudi's best friend, and even outfitted with her own special suit... like a crazy nazi version of giving your cat a sweater. As you go through his work you can see just how much he has come to appreciate the dogs he works with, but Greta is a special case for him. When you inevitably kill her, the next time you see Rudi he is shrieking hysterically and angry with nothing more than vengeance. Some of his final words were relief that he'd at least see Greta again in heaven. As a guy that loves animals myself, I kind of felt sorry for him, but ultimately he was also a couple brain cells short of being normal and I think he was truly a bit of a crazy lonely megalomaniac. I don't normally like the more generic psychological cliches, but honestly it was fun kind of putting together the case like you could here. It wasn't thrown into your face constantly, it was there for people who look for it, and as a guy that loves doing that with shooters I'm glad they put the care into giving you that sort of background to look into. ...and that was just the assistant that was randomly made to die half way into this game, and had less of a build up. Helga on the other hand has a presence from the opening to the ending.
Helga is a returning antagonist from RTCW where the game sort of revamps and improves on that game's act 1 piece. Helga is still the same SS paranormal leader obsessed with finding a dead king and uncovering any mysteries they can use in the war, but she's so much more than just a name and a redshirt character like she was in the past... well okay she still dies the same way, but that's besides the point. Helga was more developed with a drive inspired by child hood, her father, and maybe a bit of power. She was convinced that something secret was always going to be around the corner, rewarding her be it with power or simply knowledge. She didn't want to "grow up" and be treated with a world too serious, too secure, or too stale, she wanted a mystery and to be the one that cracked the case and made history. So naturally like any child at heart, she lead a Nazi division tasked to find a supernatural weapon to command.
In addition to her desires, she just had other small characteristics. She had an obsession with good wine, and was practically known for that as much as she was for her research. People knew to give her good wine, she constantly mentions it as a good drink, and even as a spy you're told to get to her through that. She's also childishly rude, constantly swearing off and hating on an advisor type man who is reporting her work to Deathshead. Its actually quit funny yet sadly realistic how often she ignores logical arguing and just verbally abuses the man. Despite this its hinted that she's still very smart though, capable of solving puzzles, matching up historical documents, and pulling off successful interrogations without abuse (quite the opposite of Rudi actually). Unfortunately she did cause this in her work...
I just feel like MachineGames just made better villains this time around. Its quite weird because most others say the story is so much less here, and I'm not able to completely argue with them. There's no feely climatic moments, there's no massive feedback for the choices you make, and the supporting cast just isn't there. However I felt myself still more absorbed into the plot. The pulpy paranormal fiction, the goals, and the villains all just felt more powerful when they came up. On top of that I just found BJ's character to be a bit better and less of some pretentious monologue guy. However for the most part I'm just impressed with the improvement with the villains. They just feel right this time, and I think they did even better here.
No comments:
Post a Comment