YMMV / Return to Castle Wolfenstein

• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • The whole "sexy Nazi dominatrix" thing the Elite Guards have going may seem like the sort of silly, salacious fanservice dreamt up by the same sort of people that made games like SiN, Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.², or Deathtrap Dungeon, but is actually a classic trope that goes all the way back to the old pulpy World War II era men's adventure magazines that the Wolfenstein series draws a lot of inspiration from (though Germans didn't have such fantasies).
  • The "Snooper" rifle is based on actual early night-vision scopes mounted on M1 Carbines, which were powered by a heavy backpack-sized battery.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Once you get over the grandiosity of Heinrich I and realize how limited his effective range is, the fight becomes a laugh as you kite him around and run away from him when he causes you to gravitate toward him. The Venom Gun chews him up while Panzerfaust rockets help soften him up. Even the Tesla Cannon is effective, hitting Heinrich and his undead simultaneously. And yes, he's listed as That One Boss boss too, that's YMMV for you. Doubles as a Breather Level given the rest of the game.
• Catharsis Factor: Elite Guards give you hell. Then you get your hands on a flamethrower and the tides turn. Enjoy their screams.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Proto Soldats, especially the ones toting panzerfausts. These walking tanks can mush you with a single hit.
  • Über Soldats with Tesla guns are even worse. The bolts practically home in on you at ludicrous range.
  • Loopers are crazy fast, tough and can fry you in matter of seconds. It's almost impossible to kill one without losing at least a third of your health/armor.
  • Elite Guards can be incredibly frustrating to deal with. They're more competent than most guards, taking effective cover and dodge-rolling, and very accurate with their Sten. On top of that, each bullet hurts badly. Mercifully, they are only in a select few levels, their health is low and they often fire their Stens until they overheat, leaving them vulnerable.
  • The Black Guard Paratroopers are close behind Elite Guards in deadliness, but not quite as bad as said Elite Guards. In the penultimate level, they also show up alongside the Elite Guards, making for a deadly combo.
• Game-Breaker:
  • The Sten. It's silenced, fully automatic, quite accurate, does more damage per bullet^* 10 than the Thompson^* 8 and the MP-40^* 6, and uses the same type of 9mm ammo as the MP-40, so almost every German soldier killed is a generous resupply. As long as it's fired in short bursts to avoid overheating, it's one of the deadliest weapons against any regular enemy even in open non-stealthy combat.
  • The FG-42 Paratrooper rifle has good accuracy, a decent fire rate and good damage, though using it too much will drain the relatively uncommon 7.92 ammo it uses. Thankfully as the game progresses you start fighting Black Guard Paratroopers which drop FG-42s, allowing you to scavenge ammo.
  • The Venom Gatling Gun is a close-range devastator, able to mow down a group of Nazis in seconds, and is reasonably accurate when fired in controlled bursts. 12.7 mm ammo is moderately frequent after the Secret Weapon Facility mission, and the capacity is very generous at 1500 total rounds. It takes the edge off of encounters with Proto-soldats and Über-soldats, and chews up the Final Boss to boot.
  • The shotgun in the console versions instantly kills most enemies and doesn't require aiming. It's only balanced by the fact that ammo is scarce.
• Jerkass Woobie: Zemph is a Nazi Scientist, but he has to put up with the abusive and reckless Helga von Bulow. He's constantly berated by her, despite being absolutely right to be cautious when dealing with the undead. He's ultimately killed by her when he threatens to report her to their superior.
• Most Wonderful Sound: The gib splat sounds incredibly satisfactory. Or the explosions. Or both the firing^* especially in accord with the aforementioned splat sound and reloading sound of Venom gun. Or the screams of enemies you set ablaze with the flamethrower.
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: The story is mostly told in the way of the skippable briefing cutscenes, and optional logs that you can pick up and read. You can blaze through and complete all levels without seeing or reading most of them.
• Polished Port: Both the PlayStation 2 and Xbox ports of RTCW contain a new prologue level set in Egypt that shows what B.J. and Agent One were doing before their arrival at Castle Wolfenstein, and includes a new shotgun weapon and Egyptian mercenary enemies, and B.J. is fully-voiced for the first time in the series, with remastered cutscenes to boot. The Xbox port, Tides of War also features online multiplayer, an exclusive co-op mode (with Agent One as the second player, surviving his death in single-player mode), a few exclusive enemies (a lightning shooting priest and mecha dog) and Wolfenstein 3-D as an unlockable extra that you obtain after completing the main game.
• Porting Disaster: The PlayStation 2 port, Operation Resurrection, unfortunately suffers from frame rate issues with multiple enemies on screen, and levels are broken up into smaller chunks. Unlike the Xbox port, the PS2 version lacks any form of multiplayer, or the new enemies outside of the the newly added prologue level.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Weapon pickups provide random amount of ammunition in a certain extent. This is especially bad with the panzerfaust since it's quite rare and every shot matters. Due to this, many players resort to Save Scumming to get the maximum amount from every pickup.
  • The game includes a toggle option to force manually picking up weapons, ammo and the like by pressing the Use key, emulating what would become standard in Wolfenstein: The New Order. The problem is that the system is not fully developed and very hit-or-miss, making it impossible to pick up certain key items in particular, so most players — even those coming back to the game after TNO — leave it off.
• Scrappy Weapon:
  • Grenades. Nazis easily run away from them, and can kick them back at you. It takes B.J. a long time to charge them and throw them at long distances, and they easily bounce in wrong directions like rubber balls. Unless you have a height advantage or are a master at cooking grenades, save them for undead enemies.
  • The Tesla Cannon is a rather situational weapon. It may stun foes, but there's a chance they — especially Elite Mooks — can fire at you while the lightning is electrocuting them, and the Tesla's mechanics preclude scoring headshots.
• That One Boss:
  • If you already have trouble fighting the Proto-soldat, than you'll be in hell once you fight the Übersoldat. The Tesla Gun prevents you from ever moving away to safety, draining your health away unless you're lucky enough to find a barrier, forcing you to take potshots. Even worse is that a dozen of enemy scientists will take potshots at you with their Lugers, while you're desperate for armor and health. The mission's end cutscene even mentions that BJ is beaten pretty badly after the battle.
  • Heinrich I. Not only does he take a lot of abuse, deal a lot of damage with his sword (one strike is either a One-Hit Kill or takes away most of your armor and half your health), and have an army of zombie warriors protecting him, but he summons ghosts to smother the player should the player stay too far back. Touching these ghosts will darken the screen, slow you down, and take massive chunks out of your health all at the same time. They're also intangible, so you can't take cover from them. Also, you aren't even given any Panzerfausts during this battle, so you better have saved them up from earlier; otherwise, the Venom gun is almost mandatory.
• That One Level:
  • "The Defiled Church" is crawling with Elite Guards who tend to camp out in each room, taking effective cover. They're also very accurate and their Stens hurt a lot.
  • The penultimate mission "Return to Castle Wolfenstein". You get reacquainted with the undead, who are much stronger this time around (though you have heavier weapons to compensate). The second half of the level is a gauntlet with the best troops the enemy has to offer. The Elite Guards fight alongside Black Guards so your life is constantly hanging on a thread.
  • Both infiltration levels can be really frustrating, but the winner is the first one: it takes place in daylight and guards randomly activate the alarm even when they should not. The second one even has checkpoints that can screw you over if you kill an officer when an alarm is or about to be triggered.

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