Introduction
Wolfenstein 2 The New Colossus is the action packed sequel to Wolfenstein The New Order. Developed by MachineGames, and Published by Bethesda, it was released in 2017 for Xbox, PS4, and PC. Later coming to Switch in 2018.
*Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers, strong language, and possibly other offensive material. Please be warned before you read further!
Review
The New Colossus picks up 5 months after the end of The New Order. The USA has become a shell of itself, and the Nazi regime is still in charge. DeathsHead is dead and General Frauz Engel is in charge. Billy Blazkowicz is now labelled a criminal, and is a monster. Kind of like the boogeymen. If you don’t be good, Terror-Billy will come and get you! So eat your vegetables and don’t talk back!
The story is just as good as it was in the first one. The action has been cranked up a notch, if that’s even possible, and the game is a constant fun time! The story runs as basic as any War Based FPS. Stop the bad guys, by messing up their facilities, and plans, and killing the general! Sure it sounds basic, but it’s written so well! Billy is at the end of his rope, and the whole game, he finds himself trying his ‘damndest’ to stop the Nazi before he succumbs to his injuries. He’s dark, he’s depressing, and he pushes away everyone he loves. You also learn more about his life when he grew up. It was hinted at in the first game, but never touched on. But my god is it touched on.
This game doesn’t shy away from dark subject matter either. Unless of course you’re in a country with heavy censorship. But considering it’s in a world where the Nazis and their perspective on blonde hair, blue eyes are the master race, there are a lot of slurs against certain ethnicities and religions. There’s even a stage when you’re in Roswell, New Mexico, and you see people walking around in KKK outfits, and having a laugh with their Nazi Overlords. The world truly does a truly good job at showing how the Nazis truly were, and would have possibly been! It felt oh so good to be able to take my biggest gun and blow them all to kingdom come let me tell you.
My only issue with it all though, was Billy never feels happy. The dark depressing killing machine really has no emotion. Which I get. He’s dying, the world is still a shithole, but damn! Everyone in the game is like “WOO! REVOLUTION! KILL THE NAZIS! WE’RE GONNA WIN!”. Then there’s Billy…the party pooper. When he talks, he mumbled, he talks in a low voice, when he stops a major Nazi operation it’s not a “I DID IT! FUCK YOU GUYS!”, it’s more of a “….Yay….I guess…” Though there are side quests in the game, where you go around killing commanders in the regime, I always wondered how you unlocked them. I only found out, AFTER I beat the main game. Then at that point I just shrugged my shoulders and went “meh. Too late now!”. So I never really saw how Billy felt when killing big leaders.
Now the gameplay is where it all comes down too. It’s fast, it’s frenetic, it’s amazing, and it has a touch of old school in it. It has the classic health and armour system in it, just like The New Order. So if you run low on health, you can’t just hide and wait for it to come back. You’re basically dead to rights. Though there are some perks you can unlock that do regenerate some of your health. These perks are acquired by doing certain actions in the game. Like stealth kills, or headshots, or even killing while dual wielding, and I dual wielded a lot! The game somehow feels like the old school action games, where you’re meant to hip fire or dual wield. Yes you can have one weapon and aim down sights, but that felt way too bouncy for me. As opposed to having a shotgun in one hand, and a machine gun in the other. Or maybe I just suck and aiming down sights is the way to go!
There’s also a sense of exploration in the game. At one point in the game, you unlock special traversal equipment. I won’t exactly say why, but it makes the game a bit more vertical! So depending what you select, you can crawl through vents, or even run through walls! You can possibly unlock all of the traversal tools if you find them in the side missions, but I never unlocked one of them to be able to see them all. Though they do help when you have to be stealthy to kill some officers so they don’t call in reinforcements! Though the stealth kind of sucked. If your pistol or your throwing axe never killed an enemy first try, the alarm will go off, and you’ll either have to restart if you want to be stealthy, or go in guns blazing! If you don’t kill the officer fast enough though, your guns will run dry quickly.
One of my favourite parts of the game though? In the Homebase of the game, which is kind of like the hub, you can find an arcade cabinet that has THE ENTIRETY of Wolfenstein 3D on it. With some asset swaps of course. So instead of Hitler’s face on the walls, it’s Billy’s. You kill all of the good people instead as the bosses. It was so fun to be able to run through it. It even plays like the original version. Though as I played through it, it became evident that I would’ve had a hell of a time without the internet. There were a few times I needed a guide to find a key to beat a level. But to have the opportunity to play the full game, is phenomenal!
The music is also heavy metal when you blaze through the army of the regime. The game also looks fantastic. I never truly noticed any terrible looking textures either. But the game did have a few issues where the game crashed. Whether it was because too much was going on or what. At one point I did a stealth kill, and as I started chopping the legs off the enemies, the game crashed.
Rating
Pros:
- Great Writing
- Fun Gameplay
- Full Wolfenstein 3D Emulation
Cons:
- Emotionless Main Character
- Frequent Crashing
- Annoying Stealth
Summary
Wolfenstein The New Colossus cranks up the dial on an already fun game. Between the well written story, the interesting world view, and the weapons that help you blow through your enemies, this game is worthwhile. Plus it has one of the most accessible versions of Wolfenstein 3D! So I’ll be picking up a copy for my shelf for that reason!
Game & Developer Information
Developer Website: MachineGames
Developer Socials: Twitter
Publisher Website: Bethesda
Publisher Socials: Twitter
PSN Store Links: €39.99 Germany / $39.99 North America
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