Return to Castle Wolfenstein shows what happens when you merge a great single player with an outstanding multiplayer.
If you decide to play the single player (and I highly recommend to), you'll control the american hero B.J. Blazkowicz, who must stop the Nazists to create an army of mechanized soldiers, as well to interrupt a sinister ritual to resurrect undeads. If you're familiar with the first Wolfenstein, then you already know that the developers didn't want to stay far from the original concept. But this game isn't just a remake with better graphics and sounds, but a true sequel that brings a lot of interesting moments and new ideas.
While the original Wolfenstein 3D featured only four weapons, in Return to Castle Wolfenstein you'll have more than 10 options in your arsenal. You'll be familiar with some weapons, such as the pistol Luger and the MP-40 SMG; but there're several surprises too, like the flamethrower, the grenades and the sniper rifle. Most weapons are fun to use, while a few of them are almost useless. Personally, I didn't like any of the thrown weapons and pistols, since they don't seem to work well against any type of enemy (at least on the default difficult setting).
The enemies have a good Artificial Intelligence, although they simply don't know how to make decisions while in groups. They act exactly in the same behavior no matter if they're alone or along with a team. Nevertheless, they can efficiently take cover and even surprise you. Naturally, the mutated enemies and the undead are quite dumb, but very dangerous too.
There're 27 levels divided in seven missions, which can be finished by a regular player in less than 10 hours. Also, the useful quick "save & load" system helps a lot to make things faster. The levels are variety and you'll have some interesting missions, such as infiltrating into a fortress without sounding the alarm, or recovering an important item etc. Most of the maps are filled with corridors and rooms, and occasionally you'll visit a catacomb or a cemetery, but there're also open environments that make good use of the long ranged weapons. You can even use a binocular to study the place before entering in it, and also do a zoom view to get a better angle if necessary.
There're some decent boss battles in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and they can be challenging depending on the difficult setting. Unfortunately, the final boss is a bit easy, and the most simple strategy can be used to beat the though guy. So, your weapons play an important rule while defeating those ones, since there isn't any other device that need be used against them.
If the great single player isn't enough, then you have an awesome multiplayer mode for some fun. I mean, for a lot of fun! The server options allows you to choose between three types of game, all of them are team-oriented: Wolf MP, which the teams must accomplish some missions in a given time; Wolf SW, where a team must attack while the other will defend the objective, and they switch the sides later on; and Wolf CP, my favorite one, where the teams must capture the flags in all of the checkpoints, and finally hold them simultaneously to win the round.
The players can choose between four classes: the medic, the engineer, the soldier and the lieutenant. All of them are useful and necessary for a successful tactic: medics heal wounded troops, the lieutenant can supply teammates with ammo, soldiers are the best to use weapons and make an attack, and the engineer possesses important destructive skills.
Sadly, you can only play Return to Castle Wolfenstein in multiplayer if you have a good internet connection for online games, or friends to play in local area network, since there aren't official bots for off-line matches. Of course, you can find a good bot support in the web, which will help you to train your skills and get used with the maps.
Finally, the multiplayer doesn't support the single player maps for a cooperative game, which would be a very good addition. However, by combining a great single player and an outstanding and innovative multiplayer mode, you still have a solid game with Return to Castle Wolfenstein.