I had a hard time putting my thoughts of this game into words.
On one hand, I've beaten the game multiple times and enjoyed it immensely. The gameplay itself is freaking amazing, bringing in the old school run and gun gameplay from the past instead of the cover based/whack-a-mole style shooting of modern FPS. The plot is also incredibly engaging, with a large cast of unique characters, and unlike Bioshock Infinite, WTNO didn't pull any punches when depicting the true evils of racism and Nazism.
On the other hand, I find myself constantly criticizing the game compared to Wolf'09 and had nowhere near the enthusiasm for it that I did for its predecessor despite everyone and their mothers telling me it's a superior game. But I'm finally able to put my honest thoughts of this game into words.
This game is an interactive movie.
I generally don't play games to be told a story. I play games to reach through the fourth wall and BE PART OF a story. As a result, I've always considered player characters to be less actual characters and more a manifestation of me into the game world. Therefore, it's much more important to me for the player character to accurately reflect me during gameplay rather than be a compelling character in their own right. When I play WTNO, I'm having fun running around causing all sorts of mayhem (exacerbated by the aforementioned amazing gunplay), which means I end up taking the persona of a cocky badass straight out of a pulpy adventure novel/80's action flick. Because BJ had this characterization (what little there was) in previous games, BJ's thoughts and feelings during the story aligned with mine during gameplay, and there's no disconnect. Now, in order to give BJ more depth, they turned him into a brooding Byronic Hero, which is a compelling characterization, certainly, but it does get very awkward when I'm still having fun blasting my way through the Nazi hordes only to suddenly have BJ start moping about how his life sucks. Eventually, I ended up feeling less like I'm someone in the game world and more like an actor following a script.
Now the script is still amazing for sure and I have no reservations recommending this game to everyone. It's just that it's still an interactive movie when I've always cared more about immersion and gameplay over story, so the dissonance is incredibly bothersome to me.
A Great Interactive Movie
I had a hard time putting my thoughts of this game into words.
On one hand, I've beaten the game multiple times and enjoyed it immensely. The gameplay itself is freaking amazing, bringing in the old school run and gun gameplay from the past instead of the cover based/whack-a-mole style shooting of modern FPS. The plot is also incredibly engaging, with a large cast of unique characters, and unlike Bioshock Infinite, WTNO didn't pull any punches when depicting the true evils of racism and Nazism.
On the other hand, I find myself constantly criticizing the game compared to Wolf'09 and had nowhere near the enthusiasm for it that I did for its predecessor despite everyone and their mothers telling me it's a superior game. But I'm finally able to put my honest thoughts of this game into words.
This game is an interactive movie.
I generally don't play games to be told a story. I play games to reach through the fourth wall and BE PART OF a story. As a result, I've always considered player characters to be less actual characters and more a manifestation of me into the game world. Therefore, it's much more important to me for the player character to accurately reflect me during gameplay rather than be a compelling character in their own right. When I play WTNO, I'm having fun running around causing all sorts of mayhem (exacerbated by the aforementioned amazing gunplay), which means I end up taking the persona of a cocky badass straight out of a pulpy adventure novel/80's action flick. Because BJ had this characterization (what little there was) in previous games, BJ's thoughts and feelings during the story aligned with mine during gameplay, and there's no disconnect. Now, in order to give BJ more depth, they turned him into a brooding Byronic Hero, which is a compelling characterization, certainly, but it does get very awkward when I'm still having fun blasting my way through the Nazi hordes only to suddenly have BJ start moping about how his life sucks. Eventually, I ended up feeling less like I'm someone in the game world and more like an actor following a script.
Now the script is still amazing for sure and I have no reservations recommending this game to everyone. It's just that it's still an interactive movie when I've always cared more about immersion and gameplay over story, so the dissonance is incredibly bothersome to me.