The game that got me into the genre... Great gameplay, great action, great story, can the nazi's too!! A 'MUST' play!
System requirements:
All current TE members rigs will play this... nuff said!
The Review:
My Take: The game that got me into the genre (fps). I am a relatively new gamer, started in late 2000 only, and RTCW was only the second original game I bought, (first being Max Payne). It’s been many years since, but RTCW always holds a place special. Great and continuously gripping story that really involved you, good graphics, and last and most importantly the tight gameplay made this game worthy of a place on Vandy’s “best of all time’ list. It joins a select few games that I’ve really enjoyed and just couldn’t get enough of!
The Game & the Story:
A first person shooter set in 1945, Germany, plays you as William J Blaskowitz or ‘agent Blaskowitz’, as he’s known. A covert operator who’s comfortable behind enemy lines, where espionage is his primary goal. You start imprisoned in castle Wolfenstein, then escape, and have to blaze your way to safety, err…. relative safety.
The very purpose of your mission is to uncover info about what the Nazis are up to around castle Wolfenstein, all you know is there are a couple of large dig sites, where the Germans have been excavating god knows what.
As the game unfolds gradually you discover the Nazis are using dark magic and trying to revive a 1000 year dead King, Heinrich Himmler who they plan to use to turn the tide of war. As a retinue to Heinrich, they are also creating Super Soldiers, in their top secret bio labs. Add some weapon research thrown in on the side and you have a recipe for disaster, for the allied powers that is. Stopping all of this is what you are tasked with doing, the stuff that makes heroes!
Your enemies throughout the game will include German soldiers, undead (from all the artifact digs), and later on more powerful troops utilizing more powerful guns. You also get to lock and load with a few Super Soldiers, who’ll give you more than a fair run, although these are few and far between. You’ll also face some tough albeit hot looking females, Helga Von Bulow’s personal guard. Then there are the mutants and failed experiments in the Norway labs, a very god mix of baddies I say.
What’s special is the actual way in which the game plays. The action is very real, very involving and tactical as well. Just running guns blazing will get you nowhere. You even have silent weapons for a stealthy take down. Blaskowitz has a formidable arsenal, ranging to some 11 weapons, and guns like the venom gun (which you will be tasked with stealing, along with one blueprint) can virtually chew your enemies to pieces.
A multiplayer is also included with some decent maps, reminiscent of the single player campaign, but really this is one game that you will enjoy better solo, the single player experience is enough to make a believa outta you!
The Levels:
Level diversity is good, with a good visual mix as well. Each level also blends in very well gameplay wise to the previous one, so you always feel that you’ve actually just accomplished a mission and gotta keep up the good work by moving on and achieving the next set of goals. You will find a large variety of environs to explore, from the castle, to catacombs, to an airstrip, the town of Kugelstadt, the X labs in Norway and even a submarine bay.
Mission goals are also very diverse, perhaps one of the best. One of my favorites is silently taking down 5 key German officials who are all in one village, for the occasion of the resurrection of King Heinrich. Another favorite, sabotaging the U2 rocket facility underground, causing the warhead and its launch assembly to get destroyed. You’ll find the action very hot throughout, with the Nazi’s fanatically huntin you’re a##, at times you’ll need to sneak, and at times its flat out shoot, duck n reload n repeat.
The Graphics & Sound:
Graphics and sound were some of the best of their time. Wolfenstein was all about being alone, and taking up the gauntlet, shooting your way through levels, going sneaky when it was required of you. The game used an enhanced Q3 arena engine, and featured great looking interiors and even better looking exteriors. Weapon effects were pretty good too, both visually as well as aurally. Weapon recoil and feedback too was very good, the weapons actually reminiscent of what was used in WW2.
Weapon sound was also one of the highlights, a machine pistol (the MP40) actually sounds like its original snarl. Gore level has been kept down with RTCW and you’ll rarely see blood, a bit of an irritation really when you want to see those fascist pigs bleed.
Extro:
IMO one of the must plays of all time. A game that changed the way I played, and to some extent made me a bit of a hardware freak as I can now lay claims to being. Gameplay was its strongpoint, the variety and objectivity of missions another strong point, backed up by a more than adequate graphical and sound experience.
Play this game, you really need to. Doesn’t matter if it’s half a decade old; play it, and you’ll have the distinction of playing one of the genre defining masterpieces this side of the Y2K!