I’ll be honest I never cared about the Wolfenstein games. I got the premise but for me there was always something bigger and better available for me to have fun with. This changed when I heard about Bethesda’s acquisition of the Wolfenstein franchise and saw a trailer of their first reboot of the iconic series, which turned out to be a frenetic shooter that I had a lot of time for. Fast forward to present day now time and the sequel is now available and looks just as exciting as the first.
First things first we have to talk about the opening hours of the game. Now I don’t want to spoil anything for you but the opening sequences and then the build up for the story are so intense that at points I was wincing as I played and watched something that very few games have the kind of gravitas to do.
Of course the story is a continuation of the alternate timeline storyline where the Nazis won the war and now rule America and you as BJ Blazkowicz are trying to push back and drive the Nazis out, but in between all the killing and maiming we’re given a range of characters all journeying through their own respective emotions and shortcomings. This is no more apparent then in the outstanding cut scenes or in the respites in between action where you get to sink back into your submarine mission centre and just take your time wandering about talking to compatriots and playing original versions of Wolfenstein in a very fancy party room.
It’s a good job these respites exist as well because this is an exhausting game, not just in the intense story I talked of before but because of the fact that it’s generally a pretty tough game for a multitude of reasons. Some of these reasons good and some of them not so good, of course though the good does outweigh as who doesn’t love blasting Nazis with a variety of brutal and visceral weapons with a mixture of high octane double gun head blasting or whilst using your wits to sneakily slide around maps knifing guys who get too close! No style of play is unacceptable so you can pick and choose how you do your murdering and you can pick and choose any weapons that are at your disposal with the help of a handy weapons wheel. Nothing beats the feeling of sneaking through a map stealth killing captains as you go so no-one ever knew you were there, one the other hand though nothing feels as good as blasting into a room with a machine gun in one hand and a grenade launcher in the other merrily prancing around as you rain death and destruction on all that oppose you.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is an action-adventure first-person shooter video game developed by MachineGames.
Like I said though there is, for me, one negative and that is the games abysmal ability of telling you when you’re taking damage. Yes the screen goes a bit red and there’s a small vibration sometimes but with all the visual and audio stimulation going on I found myself dropping because I didn’t realise I was getting shot by a lone wolf standing behind me. This is by no means a deal breaker for me but with the speed in which you can lose health and shield has seen me at the game over screen more times than I’d like to admit.
Now if you go back and read the words I’ve typed here you’ll notice I don’t go into much detail about specifics of the game, and I do that for a reason. Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus is a game that needs to be played rather than read about at detail. Sure you can read about all the twists and turns and set pieces mixed with KKK and Nazi monstrosities, sure you can read about each character and their harrowing story arcs and sure you can read about how this game gives you a single player experience that not only excites but does so in such a way that it makes other FPS games look like money hungry cash grabs, but reading those things won’t truly show you how much this game has to offer….and that’s why you should play it.
