Against the better judgement of the part of me that values free time and productivity, I went out and bought the latest Wolfenstein title on launch day (yesterday, aka: August 19th).  The reviews of it seem positive, and the gameplay videos look impressive.  Any game that’s got particle guns and flame throwers seem like they’re worth a shot.

It’s been a while since I bought a new PC FPS, mostly because its hard to top the greatest FPS ever… TF2.  I’ve purchased a few titles in the last 2 years that I hoped would pull me away from TF2 including Farcry 2 and Fallout, but sadly neither title held my interest.  So, does Wolfenstein fare any better?  Let’s see.

First off, the installer was simple.  Not surprising, but many of us have become spoiled by Steam over the last few years.  Click a button, walk away, and *poof* a game is installed.  So any installer that requires a bunch of babysitting puts the game off on a bad foot.  The installer installed Punkbusters and the latest DX9 by default, FYI.

The rig I installed it on is an i7 920 oc’d to 3.4GHz with 3 GB of 1066 RAM, ATI 4870 1GB, SSD for the OS, and a 500GB drive for data.  When I started the game, I dialed everything up to the highest setting at 1920×1200 and let it rip.  Reviews had said that Wolfenstein didn’t push the hardware too hard, and I found that to be the case.  The game is limited to 60FPS by default; it can be overridden, but with v-sync on it doesn’t matter anyway.  The game and quicktime events played smoothy and without problem.

The game starts a little slow.  I’m not much on cinematic, and the first 2 or 3 minutes are just a quicktime event setting everything up.  The general premise is this:  It’s Indiana Jones vs. the Nazis, but in this case the guys name is BJ and he has no problem using guns.. big guns.

Controls are intuitive, though I’m used to the TF2 layout and inadvertently through a grenade a few times when I was trying to do other things.  There’s support for a joystick or hand controller but on a PC, what’s the point.  The weapons you get at the start have the accuracy of a blind, drunk person throwing darts.  It’s actually a bit frustrating at first, but after the first level you find out you can upgrade your weapons as you collect money.  This is a relief because over time the weapon upgrades cause your shooting to actually result in hitting your target as opposed to making patterns on the wall behind him.

Probably the best part of the game is the old-school Wolfenstein secrets are still in play.  Each level has various amounts of gold, intel, and other secrets you can find if you want.  Just like the original W3D, you can complete each level without finding all the secrets.  However you can poke around and find them all and be rewarded for your efforts.  Behind rubble, hidden passages, and alternate routes you’ll find secrets.  It’s really shocking how well that mechanic has translated from the original 2d shooter to this game.

You also get some pendant thing that gives you various powers including seeing in to a different dimension and slowing down time.  Using the pendant is required to finish most levels, and you get skilled at using it very quickly.  I was really expecting this mechanic to be a gimmick that would make me want to hurt small animals, but honestly it’s fun… very unexpectedly so.  It has been integrated into the gameplay effectively and becomes second nature in no time.

A quick note about the enemy AI.  On the default difficulty, they’re dumber than a bag of rocks.  On more than a few occasions I watched an enemy throw a grenade only to have it bounce off a wall back at them and blow them to bits.  It’s worth playing the game at that difficulty just to watch the keystone cop-ness of it all.

I’m about 25% through the single player campaign and have no plans of letting up.  I find myself still lusting for TF2 after I’ve played Wolfenstein, but more because I want something more fast paced that requires less thought than Wolfenstein.  I’m enjoying the challenge Wolf is providing.

As far as the multiplayer experience is concerned, I’m not nearly as impressed.  First, I’ve had a number of technical difficulties.  Mostly after some period of time the game will freeze.  Once I kill it I can’t get it to restart… further it seems to anger Windows Explorer and requires me to reboot.  Strange, and I hope future patches address the issue.

For multiplayer you can choose either Nazi’s or Resistance and then have the choice of several classes including soldier, medic, and engineer.  These roles are poorly documented, and I can barely figure out what makes the medic and engineer useful.  Full Disclosure: I haven’t played RTCW:ET so maybe if I had these classes would make sense to me.  But as a newbie, not having _any_ explanation of the classes, how to use them, etc, is inexcusable.  For instance, when you pick engineer you get a little splash screen that says the engie can build and lay mines and do other cool things.  But there is no explanation of how to do it.

Overall the gameplay feels basically like CounterStrike:Source with respawning.  You can get money and upgrade weapons, there’s a rough sense of tactics, but you get mowed down really quickly when you round a corner and someone gets the jump on you. Without upgrades you’re sitting ducks for more veteran players.  Their are definitely better weapons available than in CS:S, but still…  I’d rather play TF2 or Q3A or even UT, frankly.  The levels so far are uninspiring but adequate.

Overall, the game is worth the investment.  I imagine the single player mode will have some replayability once I finish the campaign, but I really hope the multiplayer becomes more refined as Rare releases patches and upgrades.

…I’m off to kill me some Nazis…