This review contains spoilers
Well its been a bit since I did a review, lets get back on track, shall we?
Bit of background, I initially played this game when I was about 8, on the original Xbox. One of the first things I noticed is how the game felt like it skipped a whole level, turns out the console versions had an additional prologue level, who knew!
I remember liking this game as a kid, so revisiting it I expected to have a good time going in, it has Wolfenstein in the name! Its gotta be good!
RtCW is fine
The story is not super deep. Bj Blazkowicz returns to kill Nazis, discovering an operation to resurrect Heinrich, an ancient dark knight empowered by black magic, and use him in combination with an army of cyborg super soldiers to win the war. Yes the story is dumb, its played so honestly and you could honestly blink and miss it and it wont affect how the game plays out. Yes, in-game documents exist to deepen the world but in truth, you wont get much from them besides "I just hope X doesn't do something stupid", and rest assured, X did the stupid thing.
Music is fine, the game has some memorable tracks that are stuck in my head for sure. (The track Action! is one I like a lot actually: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zly9d5_8zpI) But truth be told I dont know if the music is like, That amazing? Its just fine.
Visually, the game is aging like dirt. Everything is kinda awkwardly blocky and some of the vista's and valleys give me an eerie vibe, like I am in gm_flatgrass or something. enemy models like the sexy black witch lady towards the end show their age big time. Though, I do think the Super Soldiers are very unique! I like the knight aesthetic they have combined with their robotic bits, drives the whole cross between old magic and new tech home nicely and I kinda wish we saw more of that. Graphics are serviceable and if you aren't a fetish for HD textures, they serve the game just fine.
Gameplay wise, the game is, and I hate to keep using this word, fine. You got a good variety of weapons and while some end up falling off like the hand guns, you end up having a decent arsenal of weapons towards the end. That being said, this arsenal is hardly unique either, with the only weapon of note I remember being the Fg42 which became my workhorse weapon towards the end of the game. Even the tesla canon or the Minigun come across as kinda meh, they are the kind of guns you only pull out on a boss or big encounter and while ammo is plentiful for them in the last few levels, their range and accuracy made it so that I was just better off sniping guys off with the Fg42 anyway. All the guns feel samey, serviceable, but kinda samey. The game lacks a Shotgun, which I am taking half an entire star off for that alone. What the fuck.
Level consist of you killing your way to an exit, sometimes you gotta not trigger an alarm, sometimes you gotta backtrack and hunt a guy, one time you even escort a tank (for 2 seconds). Levels are surprisingly varied, though some do end up feeling samey towards the end and while there are secrets to find it doesn't shake much up. Maybe at the time it didn't need to.
For more context, I played on the second highest difficulty because I found early on it was very easy for you to die with little reaction time, turns out the console ports made the game easier. Once I got into the flow of the game it wasn't really hard, just a few parts where you had to deal with enemies that killed you really fast with little way to stop them if you don't react fast enough (The Lopers are probably the worst for this, constantly jumping your rockets and gunfire, actually they were the most fearsome enemies in my opinion and they were gone quick)
RtCW is the Maple Bacon Quarter Pounder from McDonalds for me. I had it once, really liked it, and when it comes out every year or so, consider getting it, maybe I do, maybe I don't, I don't lose sleep over missing out. Now that I just got my burger again, I recall that it is just McDonalds with a fun sauce. Its fine, I'm not offended or angry, but I am not impressed. It hasn't aged that bad, but I don't know if McDonalds Burgers really age anyway, maybe something they put in the meat, maybe the game was so simple that age wasn't gonna bother it much.
Don't lose sleep on skipping this one, Don't spend over 5 dollars for it either. Its just fine.
Update: apparently a shotgun exists in the console port. The fuck?
Bit of background, I initially played this game when I was about 8, on the original Xbox. One of the first things I noticed is how the game felt like it skipped a whole level, turns out the console versions had an additional prologue level, who knew!
I remember liking this game as a kid, so revisiting it I expected to have a good time going in, it has Wolfenstein in the name! Its gotta be good!
RtCW is fine
The story is not super deep. Bj Blazkowicz returns to kill Nazis, discovering an operation to resurrect Heinrich, an ancient dark knight empowered by black magic, and use him in combination with an army of cyborg super soldiers to win the war. Yes the story is dumb, its played so honestly and you could honestly blink and miss it and it wont affect how the game plays out. Yes, in-game documents exist to deepen the world but in truth, you wont get much from them besides "I just hope X doesn't do something stupid", and rest assured, X did the stupid thing.
Music is fine, the game has some memorable tracks that are stuck in my head for sure. (The track Action! is one I like a lot actually: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zly9d5_8zpI) But truth be told I dont know if the music is like, That amazing? Its just fine.
Visually, the game is aging like dirt. Everything is kinda awkwardly blocky and some of the vista's and valleys give me an eerie vibe, like I am in gm_flatgrass or something. enemy models like the sexy black witch lady towards the end show their age big time. Though, I do think the Super Soldiers are very unique! I like the knight aesthetic they have combined with their robotic bits, drives the whole cross between old magic and new tech home nicely and I kinda wish we saw more of that. Graphics are serviceable and if you aren't a fetish for HD textures, they serve the game just fine.
Gameplay wise, the game is, and I hate to keep using this word, fine. You got a good variety of weapons and while some end up falling off like the hand guns, you end up having a decent arsenal of weapons towards the end. That being said, this arsenal is hardly unique either, with the only weapon of note I remember being the Fg42 which became my workhorse weapon towards the end of the game. Even the tesla canon or the Minigun come across as kinda meh, they are the kind of guns you only pull out on a boss or big encounter and while ammo is plentiful for them in the last few levels, their range and accuracy made it so that I was just better off sniping guys off with the Fg42 anyway. All the guns feel samey, serviceable, but kinda samey. The game lacks a Shotgun, which I am taking half an entire star off for that alone. What the fuck.
Level consist of you killing your way to an exit, sometimes you gotta not trigger an alarm, sometimes you gotta backtrack and hunt a guy, one time you even escort a tank (for 2 seconds). Levels are surprisingly varied, though some do end up feeling samey towards the end and while there are secrets to find it doesn't shake much up. Maybe at the time it didn't need to.
For more context, I played on the second highest difficulty because I found early on it was very easy for you to die with little reaction time, turns out the console ports made the game easier. Once I got into the flow of the game it wasn't really hard, just a few parts where you had to deal with enemies that killed you really fast with little way to stop them if you don't react fast enough (The Lopers are probably the worst for this, constantly jumping your rockets and gunfire, actually they were the most fearsome enemies in my opinion and they were gone quick)
RtCW is the Maple Bacon Quarter Pounder from McDonalds for me. I had it once, really liked it, and when it comes out every year or so, consider getting it, maybe I do, maybe I don't, I don't lose sleep over missing out. Now that I just got my burger again, I recall that it is just McDonalds with a fun sauce. Its fine, I'm not offended or angry, but I am not impressed. It hasn't aged that bad, but I don't know if McDonalds Burgers really age anyway, maybe something they put in the meat, maybe the game was so simple that age wasn't gonna bother it much.
Don't lose sleep on skipping this one, Don't spend over 5 dollars for it either. Its just fine.
Update: apparently a shotgun exists in the console port. The fuck?