Great...but only potentially.

User Rating: 3.5 | Return to Castle Wolfenstein PC
This could have been a great game, but it isn't. Its main drawback is the lack of ATMOSPHERE. The events of RTCW are supposedly taking place in Nazi Germany, but the game utterly and completely fails to give you the feeling that you are, indeed, in Nazi Germany. First, and foremost, the uniforms are all wrong. I mean, if you guys are making a game about the Nazis, the least you can do is READ UP ON GERMAN UNIFORMS. Why repeat the mistakes of the first Wolfenstein? Second, some of the enemies are women (one of them is even an SS-Oberfuehrer). The Nazis did not employ women as soldiers, let alone put them in charge of anything. Third, why invent an "SS Paranormal Division" when there existed a REAL organization concerned with both the occult and superweapons – Ahnenerbe? This may sound like quibbling, but things like that deprive the game of plausibility, and hence, of atmosphere. I'm not speaking about the fact that the Germans all speak English, and their documents are also in English. The "occult" side is also messed up: what, pray tell, are Egyptian symbols doing in an ancient German castle? The whole game has a phony feeling about it.
The gameplay is rather dull. The levels all look monotonous, with the exception of the "chateau" near the ending (why "chateau"? are we in Germany, or in France?) which is rather beautiful. The enemies are pretty much alike, including the bosses. And, to cap it all, the graphics are quite unimpressive. You just have no motivation to go on playing. Summing it up, RTCW is one of the crappiest games I've ever played.