Original Review (September 5th, 2014)
Introduction
I am a little late to the party but I just finished playing Wolfenstein: The New Order and I wanted to give my thoughts on this game. Wolfenstein: The New Order is a first person shooter from MachineGames and Published by Bathesda Softworks. MachineGames was started in 2009 but various members of the team worked on other games such as The Chronicles of Riddick. Bathesda is known for games such as Fallout: New Vegas and the new Doom franchise.
Storyline (Plot)
This is a traditional first person shooter. You may be familiar with some of the plot if you have played previous Wolfenstein games (Wofenstein (2009). You play a soldier named Blazkowicz. You start off fighting the Second World War and you are leading a team to try stop the Nazi operation. However this story has a twist. The Nazi's have won the war and it is 1960. You have been on a vegetative state for almost 12 years and you start the actual game in a mental hospital in 1960. The rest I am sure you know, you try to fight the new regime of Nazi's and try to bring order to the world.
Presentation
The packaging for the game is nice and nothing out of the ordinary. However it gives you a glimpse of what the game is. Nowadays, I think that the cover is not as important as it was 20 years ago. It is not the reason why I wanted to play this game. Back in the NES days, there were games that just looked cool on the cover and you wanted to play them for this reason. Not really the case anymore.
The graphics look really good. It is the second game to utilize id Software's id Tech 5 engine. They looked good on an XBOX 360 so I could imagine that it must look even better on an XBOX One or PS4. This game is also available on Windows and PS3.
You can see that there is some TLC that went into this game, but I do not think that players will be going nuts about the graphics. This is the type of game that people have one thing on their mind and that is to use weapons to beat the enemy.
Gameplay
The gameplay is what you would expect. There are many weapons to choose from and you gain better weapons as you progress through the game. There are a wide range of guns that could suit anyone. There are also melee weapons that you can use when sneaking up on the enemy. For this they did not diverge too much from the original formula that has worked for them so well in the past and copied in so many games.
The camera is typical of a third person shooter where you have control of where you are looking. The controls for this game were tight. This is typical for newer games of this genre on the market.
The story itself is pretty good and keeps you engaged throughout. One of the negatives of this game, are the number of cut scenes. I am going on a limb here and say that this is an interactive movie and not a game with cut scenes. Don't get me wrong. Playing this game is fun when you are actually playing. They should have left some of the cut scenes on the production table.
I read that some people do not like the old school way of picking up ammo and health packages. They do not get picked up automatically. You need to face the item and pick them up with the X button on the XBOX controller. I did not find that this was an issue. Yes it made it feel old school and I enjoyed it. I did not find that it hindered my ability to play this game.
Bottomline
Overall this is an average third person shooter. The graphics are nice and the gameplay is fun but it will not blow anyone away. It does not bring anything new to the table. It is just an old fashion shoot 'em up and if you were a fan of previous games then you will like this one. I would wait until this game is in the discount bin before purchasing. Not worth the full price unless you are a diehard fan.
Rating: 7/10