Wolfenstien II: The New Colossus

This has been a few years coming. Originally when this one was coming out, I played the demo on my previous gaming rig, partly to confirm it would run well enough to play... and it wowed me to the point of buying it on the spot. But sadly, I had not reached a point of realizing if Im getting a game like that, I should just play and not let the dice decide what was next. I shouldn't have waited so long, as even now this one was an amazing ride. Step on inside.

If you played Wolfenstien: The New Order, this game starts as that one ended. BJ Blazkowicz has completed his mission and Deathshead is finally dead. Unfortunately, he had a final nasty surprise for our Nazi-killing hero which left him also on death's doorstep. And had it not been for his friends and fellow resistance of their reign, he would have ended with his mission. For those of you who did not play the previous game (and you should), let me back up a second since there are key points that must be addressed for the story here to make sense.

 The New Order did not take place during World War II like you might expect with Nazi enemies in a game. Rather it took place in an alternate history during the 1960s in which Germany won the war and had basically taken over the globe. With this in mind, this last mission to save his friends so that they can fight another day was a success, just one that almost cost him his life.

Instead, it cost him about 5 months of it as he remained in a coma, carried along by his allies on the run. When he comes to, he finds himself in a medical bed aboard a Nazi U-boat and with his legs not working. But he has no time to rest, as those scumbags have come back to claim this boat and take down the team. So BJ gets in a wheelchair and rolls over to help. At the door to his room, one of the resistance hands him a gun before dying himself. This is where your game begins. That's right, you will spend the first mission of this game in a wheelchair since BJ can not move his legs and STILL ruining hoards of Nazi trash. That is just how bad-ass the man is. 

Still, it's not like bad-assery alone will be enough to win the day, as the submarine is captured and hauled out of the water by a flying fortress. The only way to try to get it free is infiltrate and in order to do that, BJ has to give himself up to the enemy forces. What follows will both free the boat and get BJ back on his feet before the resistance can begin to make a difference as they move to rescue the United States of America from the clutches of this evil regime. If this sounds over-the-top, good, cause we are now setting the tone for the rest of the game, all of which will have you playing BJ (or as the Nazis know him, Terror-Billie) from a first person perspective as you make your way through several locations rescuing allies, stealing secret data, and all around ruining the plans of the world's worst. 

And it's not like you will do this empty handed. Strewn about you will find plenty of weapons from super-accurate pistols to fully automatic shotguns backed by some of the tightest gun-play in games today. For the most part, you will be free to your own devices. Hide and stalk your prey, run out guns blazing and rely on your reflexes to carry the battle, or even find a good kill-ground and use the map itself as your weapon. Whatever style fits you, there are really few moments in the game that will force you to one or another. The joy of it all is yours for the taking... well for the most part. There are a few encounters that will force you to play them out in much more specific ways, but they are to be expected as they are basically boss encounters. One that is not, however, is also where the one dark spot in this entire game takes place.

 

About halfway through the game you will face the single hardest moment as you are stuck in a court-room with enemies dropping in as you kill wave after wave of them. You can not prepare for this, and there is very little useful cover, so you will have to constantly be on the move to have a chance. Even so, expect to die more times in this room then in the rest of the game combined. And also unlike the rest of the game, expect to be genuinely frustrated to the point of it no longer being fun, as there is really little you can do to learn how this fight is going to go. And even if you muscle through it, you will experience one of the biggest middle fingers I personally have ever seen to you as the player when you finally do achieve victory. To explain why is spoiler territory, so I will not, but suffice it to say Steam has a little over half the gamers who played finishing this game, and I expect this moment is why.

Although the actual gun-play that will take up most of your time is not the only thing that is done extremely right here. Running on the same Id Tech 6 engine that drove the smash hit Doom 2016, expect this game to look amazing the entire time you play... at any detail/graphic level you choose to use. The game simply looks great throughout your adventure, further enhanced by the music which really needs it's own point this time around as it is both awesome and expansive, ranging from an amazing techno-industrial cacophony of synthesizers and gritty attitude as you fight off the Nazi hoards to the calm but somber tones around the actually darker turns this story will take, there is nothing here the ear will not enjoy. But the real star in my opinion is actually a collectable this time around.

MachineGames clearly had fun making this one and building a world that (thankfully) never happened. Throughout the game, you will find postcards, military tapes, paintings, and many other details you can inspect to piece together this new world. And while I always appreciate stumbling across bits of lore myself, the vinyl records steal the show this time around. In each map there will be a few of these which you can then listen to to hear how popular music of the time might have sounded had they been recorded under the oppressive regime. I only found a few of these but enjoyed the hell out of what I found. (And now I know what House of the Rising Sun would sound like in German and having an accordion as one of it's main instruments.) And while these collector's pieces should be taken with a much lighter note, they are easily a highlight for world-building fans. Although to be fair, the U-boat you will be on between missions houses a LOT of the best world-building parts of the game and that includes the others you can interact with. So make sure you take your time and enjoy it when you get a chance.

Bugs: This is another game that ran almost flawlessly for me, but not quite. On occasion I could see little things like numbers painted on the wall of a base appear only at a certain draw distance, but this is minor and rare considering I set the game to run at High (which is a middle-of-the-road setting for the game). However, the game did crash on me once while I was quitting out for the night. It was on exit and didn't even stop the SteamCloud from storing my saves, so it was hardly an issue. But it did happen so I have to report it.

Overall: What really can I say about this game? While not perfect, it is an absolutely amazing FPS title that anyone who enjoys their action games will love. Tight gun-play, well made maps to use to your advantage (for the most part) a killer sound track and willing to not take itself too seriously and just enjoy the ride, this is one of those games I would recommend most people play. I can really point to one part in the entire game that doesn't hit it out of the park. It's been a while since I played a game that had me going "well let's see what's next before we call it for the night" until past 11 in the evening, and it felt great to get into one.

Score:  

8/10

System Requirements:

• AMD FX 8350/Ryzen 5 1500 or Intel Core i5-3570/i7-3770
  
• 8 GB RAM 
• Nvidia Geforce GTX 770/AMD Radeon R9 290 (4 GB VRAM)
  
• 55 GB hard drive space
  
• Windows 7/8.1/10 (64 bit edition)

System Specs:

• Ryzen 7 (2700) 3.2 Ghz
• 16 GB RAM
• Nvidia Geforce 1660 (6GB VRAM)
• Windows 10 (64 Bit)

Source: Steam