Traversing through the streets is no walk in the park though, due to many encounters with groups of soldiers. As missions are completed, increasingly more difficult enemies begin to inhabit the city. Although the concept seemed good at first, this was one of the issues I had with the game. Sometimes the fights were just as fierce as the actual missions, and after traveling across town to load up on ammo before the next mission, the last thing I wanted to do was waste that ammo on the way back. The weapons were a major highlight of the game, with the basic WWII-style weapons feeling very good. They were well balanced, and handled pretty much how you would expect them to. But what really sets this game apart is the inclusions of sci-fi weapons, which are both devastating and entertaining to use.
The controls in Wolfenstein are standard FPS fare, with the lone exception being the Veil powers. These were all controlled with the directional button. While the standard power illuminates enemies, and increases overall movement, the other powers are used more for specific tasks like slowing time to make it past machine gun fire, or activating a shield to fight off large waves of enemies. To prevent players from exploiting these powers, the game provides a limited amount of energy. But with so many areas to help regain any power loss, you’ll rarely be placed in a situation where you can’t use these powers.
The graphics were pretty solid, and help this game stand out amongst other shooters on the market. There is some occasional slow-down when transitioning in and out of the Veil, but it wasn’t too distracting. The audio effects were rather pleasing, with the harsh sound bullets flying, guns firing, and bombs ripping through the environment. It felt like I was trying to survive in an actual war zone. The voice acting was also pretty good, and, besides the occasional bad accent, the characters were pretty believable.
But Wolfenstein is not without its problems. As you may have heard, this game does have a multiplayer, and judging by the trophies it seems to be a big focus of the game. It’s all the more disappointing then that the servers were consistently down. It seems pretty bad for a game to be released nowadays with such a severely botched online mode. I’m not sure if it was just me, but that really put a damper on my attitude towards this game. There is also no replay value once you beat the game. And unless you want to earn all the trophies, you might as well move on. Maybe the multiplayer would have helped out, but unfortunately it just wouldn’t work.
