Wolfenstein: The New Order
It’s a gutsy move by developer Machine Games and publisher Bethesda Softworks, to release a first person shooter in our on-line obsessed gaming culture, to release a game that has zero on-line functionality. But then Wolfenstien has some very old school roots, conceived as stealth game back in 1981 and released on the Apple II.
I was somewhat disappointed at first that Wolfenstein: The New Order didn’t have multiplayer functionality, but the disappointment didn’t last long. I’ve played first person shooters in the past that tried to go toe to toe with Call of Duty and Battlefield, and the single player campaigns were meh, and the online, whilst it existed, no one was playing, so it was a waste of time.
What you do get with The New Order, is a solid, immsersive and addictive single player experience. One that will have to coming back night after night to get it finished, quite unlike the grind of the last COD game that only lasted a night and half at best.
The game starts off in 1946 as you – William “BJ” Blazkwicz – take part in a massive Allied raid against a fortress and weapons laboratory run by the nefarious Deathshead. The climax of this mission sees you and some of your squad captured and you having to choose who live and dies, before you escape, suffering a critical head injury and awaking in a Polish asylum some 14 years later.
It’s in 1960 that the game really kicks off, as you discover the horrible truth – the Nazi’s won World War II, America surrendered and the world is under the iron grip of Nazi tyranny.
So with no hope left, what is a heroic America GI to do? Search for the resistance and bring the fight back to the Nazi scum.
And that’s the basic plot for the game. Doesn’t sound like much, but it kicks serious ass. Almost straight away in the beginning mission, you’ll be dual wielding weapons, from pistols to machine guns. Killing Nazi’s has never been so much fun, or fraught with so many challenges.
Through the massive campaign, you’ll go to all sorts of different places, from work camps to flooded underground tunnel systems and on to the moon. You’ll fight a variety of enemies and you’ll die many times over.
But it’s not all guns a blazing – well, it doesn’t have to be. Staying true to the games roots, there are plenty of places were stealth is encouraged for those who want to try something different.
The real strength of the game is that you get drawn into the story and actually care about the characters, feeling pain when some of them die. It’s a pleasure to listen to the conversations, read newspaper clippings and actually enjoy the story rather than trying to skip cut scenes as fast as possible.
And that choice that you have to make early in the game – that impacts who you play the rest of the game. Choose to have one guy killed and you’ll get different perks and route options through out the game, choose the other guy and you’ll get a different set of options. This along with the massive amount of collectibles and mini side missions, along with the varying degrees of hardness available, gives The New Order a decent amount of re-play value.
The thing that really worried me going whilst waiting for the release of The New Order, was it’s multi-platform availability. Would the fact that it was being released on both current and last generation machines mean that the current gen editions would suffer graphically?
The answer is no. Wolfenstein: The New Order is quite possibly the best first person shooter available on the XBox One, and it’s certainly the best looking.
Don’t be put off by the lack on on-line multi-player, this is a game you won’t regret purchasing.
Reviewed on: XBox One
Rating: R18 Contains Graphic Violence and Offensive Language.
Reviewed by: Jonathan
GAMEGUIDE rating:
