Reviews VideoGame / Wolfenstein The New Order

Yeah, this game is really overrated by the mainstream gaming press. It's trying to take itself so seriously when the very franchise it's a part of is supposed to be over-the-top and silly. B.J. survives more crashes than Leon does in Resident Evil 6, and that is really saying something. The space crash was easily, easily the most ridiculous part.

I do have to say, though, that the age gap between B.J. and Anya is 12 years. So she's not exactly "old enough to be his daughter."

One last thing that's worthy of note is how easy it seems to be to get around. The only place it took effort to get to was going from Poland to Berlin at the beginning, but after that they started Traveling At The Speed of Plot. After B.J. destroys the London Monitor, he gets a frantic radio call that the resistance HQ is under attack, so he and Klaus speed off to the rescue, making it just in time to deliver an ass-whooping to the bad guys. Except I just checked on Google Maps that driving from London to Berlin takes around 11 hours, and that's in our normal world, not a Nazi-dominated globe where you're a wanted terrorist and there are probably checkpoints every turn you take.

Do people really miss shooting Nazis so much that the scores are getting inflated? I mean, I know the Modern Military Shooter genre is getting old, but c'mon...

Considering every one who reviewed it and everyone who played it praise story was good, we really can't trust your opinion.

The story was good and the characters were great. They also gave Blazkowicz so much needed depth.

And they couldn't A-Bomb Deathhead's base in 1946, the game straight up mentioned that Germany beat the allies to the bomb.

Also, you are dead wrong is saying this is the weakest entry , it actually one of the strongest, which why it's getting good reviews.

Also, Anya Oliwa is not a "Mary Sue", it's how male gamers use that term against a female character they don't like to hide their sexism.

Also, BJ's character wasn't ruined, they gave him depth and after what he has seen, it's not surprising he has some PTSD.

Oh and next time, try making a review without cursing, then maybe people will take you seriously.

Depth does not equate with melancholy sad sack boring purple prose. BJ doesn't get PTSD, he shouldn't get PTSD. This series isn't supposed to be about the horrors of war and atrocities and crap. It's supposed to be a fantastical re-telling of World War Two and the secret history of it. Just because the majority claim this story is good does not make it good. BJ's character is ruined because they turn him into a lovesick melancholy jerkwad who waxes poetic about everything and constantly whispers in a pathetic attempt to sound badass. He is not interesting, he is not deep, it fake depth, it has shallow, it is bullcrap. They have ruined a badass character by making him what he is in this game, a weepy little whinny shit.

The Allies exploded the first A-Bomb in 1945. The game claims the Germans used their first A-Bomb in 1948. They didn't beat the Americans, at all. And even if they beat them, that doesn't make the Allied bomb program go away! The reason they don't use it is because if they did there would be no game. It's bad writing, plain and simple.

It's getting strong reviews because everyone is kissing Bethseda's ass! There's no real good shooters out there on next-gen systems currently and the setting is super unique so they let the bullshit of that slide. More accurately also it's getting above average reviews at best. It's not strong it's just hitting at time when people have nothing else so they're just letting it get good reviews for no other reason than that.

Anya is a Mary Sue, it is not sexist to say! Your attempt to demean my opinion by calling me sexist is readily apparent. Every second they get they try to convince us she's super smart and super good at killing Nazis and super pure and the perfect match for BJ. Every friggin second they get they take an opportunity to force her as hyper competent, always insightful, always at the right place at the right time and even compare her to the Statue of friggin Liberty. She's little miss friggin perfect, she's not a strong characters she's boring as hell with no real depth other than her weird fascination with a comatose man she barely knows who is twice her age. She's a Mary Sue, she is not the next Alex or Chell, she's a pathetic attempt at making the perfect boobs and ass for BJ to screw.

I don't have to like this garbage because everyone else does, I don't have to stand for the ruination of my favourite series because everyone else loves this garbage. I will say what I know is the truth about this game and I don't have to go back on it because you're easily impressed by Nazi shooting and splosions.

@Cortez complaining that a women is being used as a (bad) plot device and written without a flaw and unmatched for the protagonist isn't sexism. I imagine there are people who dislike even the idea of women getting into their videogames who might pull the Mary Sue card but given Gamera justified his opinion pretty well, it's unfair to make that kind of accusation.

I haven't played the game, but I'm not sure how I feel about a game which looks at Labour Camps one minute and has you shooting robot dogs the next. You've got to commit one way or the other, or else be a Quentin Taratino level genius

Previous Wolfenstein games had reanimated corpses with machine guns in their chests and cyborg Hitler. Not supernatural, but of questionable realism.

Spear of Destiny was a Wolfenstein sequel in the olden days that had supernatural elements, though.

Hold up, where's the purple prose in The New Order? B.J.'s narration is incredibly straight forward and the word choice is definitely not overly-complex. And how is Anya a Mary Sue? Really, it looks like you're incredibly mad about something else entirely and decided to take it out on the Wolfenstein series by just throwing random words left and right.

It might not harken back to the birth of FPS, but compared to other games in the franchise it seems to be an improvement to a majority of fans.

Reviews are about personal opinions, but you've said a couple of questionable things regarding the game. You say that this is getting good reviews because everyone is kissing Bethesda's ass? People only like this game because Bethesda's tied to it? It was created by MachineGames and built with id Software's current engine, the same one they used for RAGE. Bethesda just published it. If people are praising the gameplay or graphics, that's not kissing Bethesda's ass - that's kissing MachineGames' or id's ass. The average Bethesda fan knows what a Bethesda game feels like, so I doubt people are mistaken on who developed the game.

You also say that the game's events are improbable because in Real Life the Allies developed the bomb first. This game is set in an AU. It's not meant to be realistic in that regard. It can fuck with real world events all it wants, because that's what the story hinges on - the Nazis winning the second world war. Although the A-bomb was used to fight Japan, and never hit Germany in the first place, so neither you or the game seem to have won many points there (for those interested, Germany fell due to the increasingly bad military decisions made by Hitler, beginning with his invasion of Russia. The Allies won due to both trickery to make the Ally presence look much larger with fake tanks and such to try and bluff a surrender, and the increasing mental instability and paranoia of Hitler hindering the Nazis).

While I'm on the topic, the game being an Alternate Universe can mean pretty much anything. Maybe Einstein died before getting to America, and the Nazis used his notes. Maybe he was tortured into using his knowledge for the Nazis. Maybe he didn't participate in the Manhattan Project at all after leaving Germany. There's a variety of reasons as to why America's nuke program didn't win out against Germany's, and any of them could be valid. But it's not plot relevant - it's background noise that may be fleshed out later, but isn't really essential to the game.

"At least previous elements in Wolfenstein were based on things that were real" - I bet they were weeks away from perfecting their Fuhrer-grade mech-suit in WWII. Though yeah, the first Wolfenstein games for DOS and Amiga were pretty straightforward in what you had to do - but even when the series took on a more realistic look after 3D, there were still hordes of undead and Nazi supersoldiers and the like. I'd imagine there's still some hint of "realism" in the game.

This might not be the game you were hoping for, but at the same time you'd be hard-pressed not to admit that it's at the least a step up from Wolfenstein. It might not feel like 3-D or even Return to Castle Wolfenstein in tone, but from the looks of things it's really not that bad of a shooter. I've heard great things about the level design and favorable things about the plot - if you disagree, then that's your business. But you have a really awful attitude about this game, calling out fans who liked the game and blaming Bethdesa for its popularity. You can not like the game - but the way you expressed your disappointment was ridiculous and petty.

So silent protagonist of unquestionable, almighty skill who can blow apart people left and right, see horrific things that would make most of us wet our pants in real life, and lose everyone who he might consider a friend without a word or hint of mourning is a better character?

As well you argue about being "easily impressed by Nazi shooting and splosions" as a bad thing but the implication is that you want that yourself given you complain about W:NO moving away from the "roots" of the series. The roots which you state is light plot if any present, detailed violence, and paranormal or pseudoscience Nazi shenanigans. Wolf 3 D was literally nothing but kill Nazis, find gold.

While yes I will agree that some aspects of the story and characters are poorly done. I did not find Anya that interesting of a character who seemed to be very capable without any prior reasoning for. I guess people have different levels of suspension of disbelief, but I find the idea of the Nazis resurrecting a super powered, ancient ruler zombie-vampire through occult powers just as unlikely as the Jewish super science society.

There are weak areas in the game, but your judgement seems inconsistent with the statements you give to prove the basis of your opinion.

I'm an outsider to the franchise who's never played a Wolfenstein game before, but personally I find the storytelling very compelling. Sure, there are some points that strain Willing Suspension of Disbelief, but the presentation is cinematic in scope and helps gloss over those bumps. Style cannot substitute for substance, but it can certainly help gloss over smaller gaps, and to me that's what happened here.

"Anya is a Mary Sue, it is not sexist to say! Your attempt to demean my opinion by calling me sexist is readily apparent. Every second they get they try to convince us she's super smart and super good at killing Nazis and super pure and the perfect match for BJ. Every friggin second they get they take an opportunity to force her as hyper competent, always insightful, always at the right place at the right time and even compare her to the Statue of friggin Liberty. She's little miss friggin perfect, she's not a strong characters she's boring as hell with no real depth other than her weird fascination with a comatose man she barely knows who is twice her age. She's a Mary Sue, she is not the next Alex or Chell, she's a pathetic attempt at making the perfect boobs and ass for BJ to screw."

I'm sorry, what? She's almost always mission control at best, she has to ask someone else to teach her how to use a gun, even if you accept that she's really the one who wrote the diary, she was only barely competent at killing one at a time and the diary itself states that she's sloppy and risks getting caught. You can make an argument that she's a token woman written in to give the protagonist someone to screw, but, as awkwardly done as the sex scenes are, the dialog at least tries to put some character development into it, which is leaps and bounds above most characters who exist solely to give the male protagonist a girlfriend.

As far as OMG BJ SHOULDN'T BE LIKE A REAL PERSON goes, I think Duke Nukem Forever taught us that the day of the ridiculous fantasy FPS protagonist is long, long behind us. This game may be far from perfect, but in many ways, it's what Duke Nukem Forever so very badly wished it was.

"I don't have to like this garbage because everyone else does, I don't have to stand for the ruination of my favourite series because everyone else loves this garbage. I will say what I know is the truth about this game and I don't have to go back on it because you're easily impressed by Nazi shooting and splosions."

Great review, brah.

@Alhazred

Even though I personally really enjoyed the game and consider it one of the best FPS games to come out in a while, I must say I actually agree with the OP that BJ shouldn't act like a real person. The reason is that even if the "ridiculous fantasy FPS protagonist" is no longer the "in" thing these days, the fact remains that those types of characters are still the most accurate representation of the actual gameplay. Having a character be a moody, PTSD-riddled guy a la Rambo from First Blood is fine and dandy in a movie when we, as the audience, are passive. The character's feelings and actions are 100% the character's, and we are merely along for the ride. But when we're talking about video games, though, the protagonist's actions are longer just that character's, but OURS as well. That character is our manifestation into the game world. That means turning someone like BJ into a real person with issues that a normal human would face after suffering through all the shit he's seen can be jarring because the PLAYER doesn't act like a real person in gameplay. During gameplay, especially gameplay as well done as this, we're happy and enjoying ourselves when we're running around committing acts of mayhem and violence. This leads to awkward moments where BJ is moping about how his life sucks while I'm running around laughing like a maniac dual wielding automatic shotguns. Past FPS protagonists like classic BJ or Duke Nukem (btw, I'm one of the probably five people on the planet who actually really enjoyed DNF, so take my comments as you will) worked far better for FPS games because their cocky attitude is much more in line with how I, as the player, actually acts and feels during gameplay. Our actions and feelings align.

Now I don't think the disconnect is nearly as bad as the OP makes it, and it was certainly far less jarring than other games released recently (I'm looking at you, Bioshock Infinite) due to the fact that BJ still views is Nazi mass murder as an overall positive action and necessary for the greater good, but I can't deny that the dissonance is far more notable here than in the previous Wolfenstein games.

This sort of weird disconnect is the reason why discussions of Ludonarrative Dissonance is such a big topic nowadays, after all.