Wolfenstein the new Colossal shrug

When Wolfenstein: The New Order came out, it was amazing. Death to the time when all we got was practically COD clones. Now we got a return to real hardcore FPS, told through a weird fusion of Half-Life and ID formulas. It was an amazing game, and stole the spotlight around the singleplayer scene, with more people than ever talking about the series for it's story. Of course there was room for improvement, and as the sequel was releasing, it looked to promise so and even more. The result? *Sigh* ...I don't know how the hell people are giving this game 9-8 out of 10s. It's not bad, but it's certainly mediocre under the technicality of the hype it set out, and I find all the praises of this game from critics to run skin deep when you see the full reality.

The first half of the game demolishes one of the biggest traits I loved, and I don't think anybody saw that coming. Everyone knows about the wheelchair bit by now, but it's only upgraded slightly, as BJ is "dying" in a power suit. Instead of being like power armor, it really acts more like just the thing that he's barely alive to live through, which carries over into the gameplay by sticking you at 50hp. That's your max. Half your health, and yes, it still partially regenerates, and the game still has enemies, movement, and gunplay that suits more of the old school mentality. This translates into a system that is just flat out broken beyond easy difficulty. You're expected to soldier through these big rooms with weapons and crazy enemies flying, hit scan shots soaking into your supposedly large pool of health, and yet you're just given 50hp. With the rate at which bullets eat up your health and fly out at you, you're reduced to nothing unless you have an overcharge.

Not only that, but you begin to notice just how flat out poorly design lots of little things are. I think some of this applies to The New Order, but I never noticed it there because the map design and core mechanics were actually working. Here you won't be finding the same working fun when a grunt in his thick black steel and iron suit is running to you at the sound of a ninja and gunning you from full to dead health before you have a chance to respond. That's not old school. Having a grenade being cooked and thrown at you to knock you down, and the enemies shoot you while you wait for a stuttering animation to let you shoot again, killing you even if you literally have full overcharge AND armor is also not old school gunplay. The crazy run and gun, circle strafing, dual weilding crazy, laser nazi killing type of fun reviews and attitude alike around this game, are just flat out not there when you die the second you peak out of the corner because your health isn't allowed over 50, and you're being shot in the back by sudden enemy closets and silent creeper. Then you have to put up with the idiots that just don't die consistently, when you use up 30 shots of machine gun on one guy, only to realize he was just tripping instead of dying, is an old annoying trait emphasized when your health is fixed at half. Then they have the audacity to put you in these terrible rooms that are either too cramped and generic hallways, or full of so many ups, downs, and turns in addition to the enemy horde that you just can't reasonable beat the thing without dying several times in a bid to luck out with where the enemies do or don't flank you. This is half of the main campaign too, going on for several levels, and a massive bulk of cut scenes and important story moments. So hope you like badly designed cover shooters in an old-school pretend skin. The first half is a more sophisticated Duke Nukem Forever, just as broken and stupidly contradicting.

I wish it was this crazy fun

Okay, so maybe it's good at story, right? Heh, this is far more subjective, but sit down and let's talk through some SPOILERS!

So the story goes pretty strong at first glance, and even in a lot of it's continuing depth. Some people hate the contrast between silly pulp fiction, and the actually dramatic and horrible nazis, but I actually like the grit and spit silliness of it all. If you can get by the fact of say... a B-grade pulp fiction head transplant as a serious life measuring tool in the same game that expects you to take death seriously, you'll be fine. I mean that, really, I am among those who won't complain at all about the silly contrasts, I actually enjoy a dark plot with some sense of humor. Everything in that vein is done really well. I was interested in the characters, I liked how many scenes and twists unfolded, there were some cool mysteries and interesting extra lore, and the cast in general was just kept interesting.

The problem isn't that the story is told pretty good in the moment, it's that the moment never has a real ending. The ending destroys everything good this story sets up so well. It's not that it's a shocking or "it's a dream" ending, but rather the lack of anything shocking or interesting, or even so convinient as to tie it up neatly. The game just flat out ends, like their budget was cut, or like the writers who actually got shit done were on holiday leave while somebody just literally tried to find the shortest way to pop the credits in stylishly. The game ends with you just literally out of nowhere, fading into the same area as your arch-enemy, and sneaking over to her where you just watch a cut-scene of BJ running and stabbing her. You then have the resistance pals take over a broadcast and shout for people to fight. Cue credits. That's it. it's literally just a sudden tip-toe to the credits deal.

It hurts the heart for all the wrong reasons

Now I had to clarify this is subjective, because apparently a lot of people liked this anti-climatic. ...and look, there's a point there, and that's fine. I get it, the villain wouldn't have suited some traditional mech boss, or some gigantic evil scheme. You were left "wanting more" in a "good way", and the resistance wasn't just done there, and that's... alright to a point. Fine, we did that, we killed that guy, I'm okay with that. The last fight they did have was cheap as fuck and badly designed, but whatever, that's not the point. I wasn't disappointed because the villain's death was cinematic, that could have been done well. I was actually really fine with it, even if a little confused at it's sudden appearance, but it was when the credits kicked in that sorrow and anger came into place. It wasn't the villain, or her end that was bad, it was the fact that the game ended and thus ended for everything around that scene. Suddenly, answers were closed, there were no more real levels that it could have gone through, and as I was just saying that made the good parts all the more shorter considering the first half was... I won't repeat it.

You had a nazi join you. Not only a nazi, but the daughter of the main villain. Her last position? She was just radioing in intel, and says nothing in the final moments. She says nothing when you murder her very mother on broadcast television. She isn't found to be saying anything. They never bring it up. It is nothing. You saw hitler suddenly a couple levels back. You left him there, doing nothing to him, and nothing was said about him. You end the game with that nothing. There was a device a few hours in, a cool contraption that your quirky smart scientist cared so much about took interest in. It was made this great deal out of, given the name of a God Key, he was so mesmerized by it, and you know where that went? NOWHERE! No exaggeration either, it literally went nowhere beyond being a mystery, and being called a god key. Nothing else. Nothing. You can't even find the character on the hub world to hear idle dialogue. It ends with nothing to that build up that you spent over an entire minute of core-campaign cut-scenes witnessing. Then there was Fergus, a character who's slightly optional under a binary choice. I played with him in it, and just before the final mission, back before it even remotely felt like the final mission, you were being opened up to a dramatic new development in his character. You had to go out of your way to find his robotic arm, which involved a five minute long flashback on his woes and why he tried to destroy it, and then you just leave once you gave it back to him, but the very reason and event that lost it to begin with... goes in the gutter. It's as important as the god key apparently. It was just filler, ending with the sudden credits after you just conveniently tip-toe to the big villain. That's just the tip of the ice berg! There's an entire character who is introduced only to disappear, amounting to nothing the whole game. Her companions were barely there as well. There's this key plot point about a ring brought up, telling you it's this big deal, but it's only wedged in a sloppy scene mid-credits like they nearly forgot about that too! Oh and several lost characters and past events, it's like they never happened. You apparently didn't do shit in the last game, and the characters that died, or were associated to your wyat/fergus timeline meant nothing! I held out hope for a mention or inclusion, even a tiny hint or call-back, but when the credits rolled in a game that felt far from over... it was all just suddenly hurried to an end and died.

Do you get what I'm saying by now? I'm not angry because of a lack of robot boss fights, I'm mad because of a lack of story all over the damn place. I'm not just angry because of the sudden villain end, which should rightfully be enough to piss off a lot of people on it's own, but I'm also pissed at all the things that just came to tease you about something that never happens. I scoured around a bit for some terribly hacked in side plots that tie in what were introduced in THE MAIN STORY-LINE, but I've yet to find anything even remotely on the subject. ...and I shouldn't have to. If you're a good writer, you don't write purple-monkey-dishwasher scenes in just to bait a stupid side-mission, you finish what you damn well started and don't make it some damn hidden side slop like it were your moldy leftovers. But even given that benefit of the doubt, I haven't seen anything. The only possible explanaition I have is that some questions will be answered by that artificial secret that is a Vault. That thing, which once enticed me as a possible surprise like maybe a new mode, is now pissing me off with the realization that the game I paid $60 for and installed 55GB onto was half-assed the whole time, and they were still fixing up a patch to finish it and are parading it as if it were some big show to be excited for. They even managed to work in a line, where you see the real vault in-game and have BJ say "What's set cooking up in there?". So they quite literally managed to work in a piece to tell you they're working on another piece, but they couldn't work in a few lines of Sigmund reacting to her own mother's cinematic death, or answer the God Key question they spent two cut-scenes imposing.

Weird shit that goes nowhere, like this guy's maps

....but this game is somehow a massive success!? Higher end of the bargain? A great narrative and action game? 8 and 9 out of 10s all over the place? Are we playing the same damn game!? This isn't hard to see, it's right in front of your faces if you actually played it to the end and paid attention, and I'm not the only person seeing the bullshit all around. Thankfully a couple others have asked where the plot went, or why the ending is so anti-climatic, but there's not enough. Googling the god key for any hidden secrets or even theories gets you no real results. Believe me, I wanted to know where the fuck this stuff goes, but the answer is nowhere. The game doesn't "leave you wanting more" because it's good, it leave you wanting a damn conclusion because it ended so terribly.

Again, I want to end this on the note that it's not a bad game. As a matter of fact, there's a lot to love. The characters and story are still going great before they end. I adore the scene that Horton is introduced in. I love what they did with dual wielding, or more importantly how weapons actually stick with you this time. I love the added replay value in hunting down nazi generals as a post end-game way to play. I also love all the potential in starting a new game and seeing news stuff with a new timeline and new mid-game gadgets. ...and when the game just goes all out crazy, a lot of it is good fun. But between the terrible opening half with the poor gunplay, and how the second half chooses to go nowhere in the story's end, the game can't seem to hold itself together. It falls miserably in one or the other of two major categories, and when it happens on the same package that you're holding on your harddrive for a whopping 55GB, you start questing how worthy this game is, or if you're just enduring the pain to get through it. This is a very flawed gem, worthy of playing for general single player FPS fans, but not a must have right now. I'd wait on it, see where it goes, and realize there's better things out there. Prey was amazing, and as for new releases, holy shit is AC:O surprisingly better than I thought. Wolfenstein had an easy path to being one of the best games of this whole year by just being a good sequel, but it choose not to do that. It's... really kinda sad. I love a lot to this game, and it's the sort of thing I stuck with and pushed through it's faults, but a lot of that pushing was spent angry and away from the fun that I love in this stuff. In a world where Doom succeeded it, it learned nothing from it, but rather fell even further into flaws than it's own predecessor.