The Wolfenstein franchise is alive and well. It's been years since Return To Castle Wolfenstein, and many more years since the original Wolfenstein Blitzkrieg'ed gaming and changed it forever. Just recently, two iPhone games based on the exploits of OSA Agent BJ Blazkowicz, including an RPG, were released. Now, Raven,  id, and Activision, one of my favorite trios in gaming, have teamed up to bring Wolfenstein onto a PS3, 360, or PC near you. Does this title deserve your attention going into another busy holiday season? Read on and decide for yourself...mach schnell, schnell!

Das Story

Wolfenstein can be described as an action-centric FPS with distinct old school themes and design combined with some current gen design elements built on a modern game engine. My  favorite part about the campaign experience is that it's just a lot of fun to play. The story is okay, there some miscellaneous issues, and frankly it's not a game that took my breath away, but it's certainly fun and very hard to put down once you get started.

To set the stage, an opening cutscene has the daring Blazkowicz aboard a Nazi battleship, undercover. The ship is set to blow London to bits with its powerful missiles, but BJ manages to halt the tragedy just in time. Without the help of a special medallion, BJ wouldn't have been able to overpower the crew and escape before the entire ship was destroyed. It's confirmed later that BJ nabbed this strange medallion while aboard the Nazi battleship.

After narrowly escaping, the cutscene continues with BJ arriving at the OSA (Office of Secret Actions) to receive his orders. He's informed by two high ranking OSA officers that the medallion is under the scrutiny of a battery of experts and is believed to be very powerful. Meanwhile, the Nazis have recently begun an occupation and 
general terrorism against a small German town known as Isenstadt, and this action and others have the OSA interested in finding out just what they're up to. There is clearly something special about this city and its surroundings. It's up to BJ to meet up with the local resistance, repel the Nazis, and keep them from obtaining whatever it is they are after.

Obviously, Wolfenstein has a strong paranormal angle to its story, and that's one thing that intrigued me about this game when I first heard about it. Over the course of sixteen missions, nearly half of which are optional, about a dozen cutscenes, and a hefty dose of NPC interaction, the story of the Thule civilization,  the Black Sun, and the Veil are all explained. I'll do my best not to spoil anything for you, but suffice it to say the Nazis are trying to harness the infinite power of another dimension known as the Black Sun. This dimension was known to the ancient Thules, but they were wiped out by some kind of cataclysmic event. The Nazis, brash as always, believe they can succeed where the Thule failed and, you guessed it, harness its power in order to build an unstoppable army hellbent on world domination.

unVeiling the Powers

With such a generic plot, it's not too hard to predict what is going to happen next, but Raven have spiced up the plot in several ways to make it more than just sufficient. As BJ, players won't just sit back and fight with standard weaponry and tactics. Instead, within the first hour of gameplay, BJ earns his first of four Black Sun powers. This first power, The Veil, instantly changes BJ's perspective on the world by shading everything into a nice green tone. Enemies are highlighted in an extra bright green while (important) destructible objects are colored red. You'll see more than just enemies while looking through The Veil, though; BJ will also see hidden passageways and secret areas that are invisible without it. There are also these fish-looking geists (spirits) floating about. If you shoot them while they are near enemies, they will burst into electric energy and kill all nearby foes, great for taking 
out entrenched Nazis. On the other hand, if you kill these geists near a Dark Sun pool, they will attack you. Another advantage of using The Veil is that BJ runs  faster while The Veil is enabled.

The other three powers that BJ will discover for his medallion are Empower, Shield, and Mire. Mire slows down time while the player continues to move at normal speed; it's used to slow down incredibly fast enemies, dodge bullets from gun nests, and get past environmental hazards and puzzles. Enabling Mire also creates a short range shockwave that will send objects and enemies flying back, which looks really cool in conjunction with the ragdoll physics. The Shield power creates a bubble of reflective energy around you that will offer you some protection while also reflecting bullets back towards the enemy. Empower is actually used to defeat shields; it gives your weapons a stronger punch in general, but is also required to blast through shields that the enemy turns up.

All four of these abilities, and all nine weapons, can be upgraded at The Black Market. All upgrades require money, and most also require that you complete some mission or another before you're allowed to purchase the upgrade. There are too many upgrades to possibly afford during your campaign, so choose, but choose wisely (not the only Indy reference I make in this review). Fortunately, if you decide you don't want an upgrade after you purchase it, the Black Market will buy it back -- but only at 50% of what you paid for it.

Straight Cash And Upgrades

So how do you go about paying for all this stuff? Well, each mission, upon completion, does net you several hundred to about a 1,000 "dollars," but most of your income comes from finding gold and treasure. Remember all of that gold and treasure that BJ was nabbing while in Castle Wolfenstein all those years ago? That gameplay 
element is back in Wolfenstein but in a much more expanded form. Before I detail that, let me explain the Black Markets.

The Black Markets are where your money goes; ammo resupplies and upgrades are all sold here and include a variety of enhancements for all weapons and a handful for the Dark Sun, or medallion powers.  Weapon upgrades vary depending on which weapon is being upgraded, but generally include things like reduced recoil, larger clips, faster reloading, better accuracy, more damage, and so forth. Each weapon upgrade is given a cool name and a drawing of the weapon shows the upgrade part and how it changes the appearance of the weapon, while a short text description tells you what it does. Upgrades take effect immediately, and they are certainly noticeable in 
use.

As for ability upgrades, there aren't nearly as many of these, but unlike the weapon upgrades, all of these are important. The Veil can be upgraded to allow BJ to see enemies through walls, but this isn't as effective as it sounds, although I didn't regret the purchase. The Mire ability can be enhanced to slow time further, and provide a great short range shockwave blast to nearby foes, while the Shield can offer better reflectivity and damage or 
even vaporize enemies that come in contact with the Shield. Lastly, Empower upgrades increase the damage weapons inflict upon their foes -- Empower combined with Mire is perfect for taking out the Dark Sun-infused Scribes and those pesky jetpack Nazis.

Collectibles, Dark Sun

Getting back now to the collectibles; each mission, as well as the three main hubs that interconnect missions (more on those soon), have three types of collectibles. Keen-eyed gamers who love finding hidden collectibles will want to hunt down every piece of Gold, Intel, and Tome they can find. Gold comes in three forms: a bar, a sack of coins, and as a statue. Gold is the most common of all collectibles, but finding all of them in any one mission isn't easy. Whenever you find a piece of Intel -- maybe it's a clipboard on the wall, a briefcase by a desk, or by rifling through a file cabinet -- you have the option to read that Intel right then and there. Usually, these bits of Intel are voiced over bits of dialogue that help give some background to the story and its characters. These memos or notes between Nazi officers tend to talk about the importance of the Black Sun project, how security is being stepped up, and other generally dismissible tidbits like that. Other Intel is made up of concept art of various characters, devices, and weapons from the story.

Lastly, Tomes are the most rare collectible, but finding them is important to being able to increase BJ's ability to store Black Sun energy, which is depleted by using any of the four powers I mentioned earlier. Players who find sixteen or more Tomes have the ability to purchase a Veil upgrade that allows them to hold nearly twice as much Dark Sun energy as before. I must have fallen just short of finding my sixteenth tome, but there is enough Dark 
Sun juice around to keep you stocked fairly comfortably throughout the campaign. Players can monitor their Dark Sun reserves in the lower left of the HUD; a small fill line drains as powers are used, with Empower and Shield draining your reserves much faster than The Veil or Mire. The Veil drains only enough to where you need a Dark Sun refill only about every minute, while using Empower or Shield will exhaust supply within about twenty seconds, if not less.

Refilling the Dark Sun power within you is usually done via Dark Sun pools. In normal vision, these appear as heat waves -- that distinctive, clear, wavy effect seen in real life. When viewing using The Veil, these pools stand out as  in bright blue and white colors. Pools take a few seconds to fill you up, but Dark Sun barrels are also around. These barrels exist, or are explained I should say, because the Nazis are harvesting and doing a tremendous amount of experimentation with Dark Sun. These barrels can be shot or thrown to create a brief short range gravity lapse that pops the weaker enemies and objects into the air. Their primary use has you walking up to them to tap a button, at which point you get an instant Dark Sun fill up.

Openness & Enemies

I've discussed several aspects of Wolfenstein thus far with several more I want to cover. Next would be the open world element. Honestly, having not read up a whole lot on this game before diving into it, I was expecting a very straight-forward, traditional style FPS where completing one mission leads directly to another. While Wolfenstein does have a lot of old school FPS design to it, it differs here. After busting your way through the Train Station, players are dropped into the west side of Isenstadt. An NPC gives you a quick rundown of your 'journal.' I can't remember if it's actually called the journal, but it's basically your guide that includes quite a few entries. First of all, a map is included with markers indicating the location of safe houses of the two local resistance groups. Black Markets and hub exit areas are shown, as are markers for mission giver NPCs and your currently selected mission. Other tabbed entries in the journal view include game stats, purchased and available upgrades, previous mission objectives and collection stats for those missions, and a few other things.

So, indeed, Wolfenstein lets players choose which mission they want to tackle next, to some extent. All told, there are sixteen missions, but five or six of these are optional. Optional missions are usually shorter and have other obvious benefits like expanding the story, giving the player the chance to find more gold, and just enjoy other areas to explore. Story missions are assigned directly from the safe house of either the armed resistance group Circle of Kriesau (spelling may be off on that one) or the non-violent paranormal investigative group, Golden Dawn. Which missions are required to advance the story are therefore very clear.

Not surprisingly, all missions have BJ ripping apart dozens of Nazis. By the end of the game, thanks in part to respawning patrols that pop up in the mission hub areas, I had killed about 1600 Nazis. Nazi enemies range from officers with Kar98 rifles to SS with MP43s, the most commonly used weapon in the game just ahead of the classic MP40 (that BJ holds during every cutscene). Other Nazi foes include plasma gun wielding Heavies that require three precise shots to take down. Snipers, flamethrowers, gun nests, jetpack Nazis who drop bombs, and even a couple of tanks just about round out your normal Nazis. Other, more difficult enemies include Scribes, Elites, Assassins, and a couple of other Dark Sun-mutated bad guys. The Scribes are often deployed along with weaker soldiers because they can raise a shield around them, making them invulnerable unless you use Empower. Scribes can also fire some wicked fireballs and they move extremely fast, so they're fun to fight. Assassins are nearly invisible, unless using The Veil, and can teleport too. Their blades will mince BJ within seconds. Elites are also melee oriented; these are fast moving female soldiers who can also resurrect a dead Nazi and make them 
into a hellacious reanimated skeleton that are best dealt with the gravity weapon.

AI And Concerns

Any time you talk about CPU controlled enemies, it raises the question of their AI capability. With Wolfenstein, these Nazis do certainly depend more on numbers and firepower than smarts, but they're also quick to use cover, throw grenades, and attempt to flank you. Then again you will witness the occasion where a Nazi doesn't run away from a thrown grenade or takes cover in a spot that doesn't actually afford him any cover. The average FPS gamer won't have a lot of trouble dealing with most Nazi onslaughts, but it's not to say that battling through the campaign isn't both fun and challenging. The difficulty, I thought, was very nicely balanced throughout, and it's supplemented by a lot of well placed checkpoints, too. Load times are swift as well, so dying, while never good, isn't a big deal in Wolfenstein. That said,you won't die all that much; in fact, there is an Achievement/Trophy for only dying three times throughout the whole campaign. For most games, that'd be ludicrous, but I can see it happening here if a dedicated gamer wanted to tackle it on their second play through. I think this is quite possible due to the health system (cover and heal) and amount of objects there are to take cover behind. It doesn't hurt that BJ has an incredible offensive arsenal, too.

Speaking of objects -- there are like a million breakable objects in Wolfenstein. What really gets me is that they respawn in each of the hub areas every time you leave and comeback. Actually given that, in reality these breakable objects are infinite in number. Being the thorough gamer I tend to be, I spent a lot of time smashing through crate after crate, box after box. I was expecting that gold or intel might be hidden in these so I was meleeing away on all these crates and boxes. Whatsmore is that 99% of all the crates and boxes are empty; just plain old, empty crates, all around Isenstadt, the Farm, the Church, the Airfield, the Train Station, the Cannery, the Castle -- you get the idea. Why are there so many empty crates and boxes around? Got me. Some do provide ammo, others have gray cans, and certainly some gold is hidden behind these breakables, but there are just 
far too many of these around. I thought the combination of collectibles and these breakables interfered with the pace of the game. Often, the atmosphere in being created by the NPCs is one of urgency. This is strongly countered by the constant desire to search for collectibles which means exploring every nook and corner and smashing every crate, box, and barrel in sight. Ammo is plentiful, but not so much that you can blast through every crate you see, leaving melee smashing to be the safest option. Most crates take two or three swings and some crates simply won't break at all, further disrupting the flow. Honestly about halfway through the campaign I just stopped breaking crates. Any reward to be found just wasn't worth the tedious and flow-disrupting nature of these breakables.

NPCs, Additional Thoughts

If breakables is the worst I can come up with for Wolfenstein's campaign, it must be a hell of a game right? Well, in a lot of ways it certainly is. As I said at the top of this review, the sheer fun factor made me play this game nearly nonstop from beginning to end. As I played though, I recognized a lot of cliched FPS themes and design that made me smirk at best, and roll my eyes at worst. Not one of these design decisions detracts from the gameplay too much in itself, but the sum of them did degrade the overall quality of the campaign. The design I am talking about includes things like each mission boiling down to getting from point A to B, and destroying whatever is at B by shooting at it repeatedly or planting some dynamite. Also, being able to carry eight massive guns and several grenades at once. The rooms full of weapons and ammo right before a boss fight is contrived too, as are times when BJ needed to destroy some massive power generator, super weapon, boss, or whatever. During these sequences, which are cliched enough, the areas are all set up in such a way that BJ just has to hop onto an AA gun or turret and blow the thing to hell. A handful of turret sequences popularized by Medal of Honor are included. The 
final boss fight drags on too long as well.

Other negative points I noticed were with the friendly AI or NPCs. NPCs that run with you are pretty dumb and often ineffective. Having smart, capable AI running with the player can add a lot to the atmosphere of a game but if the player notices, that hey, nothing happens if I don't do the work myself anyway, it takes away from the experience. To be fair though, the friendlies in Wolfenstein do actuallly kill and get killed on occassion but they also sit back and let you do most of the work. Additionally, the AI's rampant, unwarranted frantic yelling is silly and might make you roll your eyes.

Talking with NPCs is cool in that it adds another layer to the gameplay, but it isn't an interactive system. You simply walk up to an NPC, an icon appears if they have something to say and you press the prompted button. The NPCs generally have a few lines of dialogue to say and then suddenly they will say something like "I'm too busy to talk." What's odd about this however, is that that the voice over that spoke the earlier dialogue usually sounds completely different than the "too busy" line (whichever form it may be). To me it really threw the immersion off to have an NPC go from talking one way to suddenly sounding so different. Yeah, it might be a small gripe, but you will invariably notice it, and to me it shows a lack of polish. Similarly, some other effects are off too. When going about smashing breakables, sometimes the sounds are incorrect. I came across a stack of boxes at the Farm that looked like wood but sounded like rock when struck. Other times glass of an unbreakable window texture sounded very meek compared to an actual breakable window.

Presentation And Multiplayer

Despite those audio issues, most of the voiceover work and sound effects are excellent. Combined with a surprisingly impressive soundtrack, the overall audio presentation is commendable. I was expecting a very rote and forgettable soundtrack, but Wolfenstein features some great tracks. One of them reminded me of the Ark tune from Raiders of the Lost Ark -- that kind of slow, ominous tune, perfect for a Nazi-paranormal atmosphere when you're in between firefights. Of course, as often you hear a much faster paced, drum-pounding track to match the on screen action.

Built on the id Tech 4 engine, Wolfenstein packs a great visual appeal. The physics are also great, and few things look as cool as enabling Mire and watching a half dozen Nazis and some objects go flying in slow motion from the shockwave. Wolfenstein does also have all the nice blood and gore effects that you would expect from a Raven title. Character animations, like running, taking cover, and death animations are all nicely done. This is also a very 
colorful game, which I can appreciate, although too much Veil usage can make the visuals monotonous, so I wouldn't suggest trying to leave it on all the time.

Summing up with multiplayer, Wolfenstein features a team based multiplayer component that is actually built on a modified Enemy Territory: Quake Wars engine. Eight maps and three playable classes (Soldier, Medic, Engineer) are available from the get go along with all weapons. Each class also has unique Veil powers at their disposal to help them get the job done in three different game modes. Game modes include Team Deathmatch, Objective, and Stopwatch. Objective is a mission based, attack or defend mode whereas Stopwatch requires completing objectives within a certain time frame. I have only played a limited amount of multiplayer at this point, which is all online by the way (no local play), and so far it's been fine. I doubt we'll see the community that Return To Castle Wolfenstein generated years ago, but I'm confident there will be a sizeable, long lasting community very soon.

In sum, this sequel to Return To Castle Wolfenstein is well worth your attention going into this Holiday. Let's get to the summary...