Caltrops - Castle Wolfenstein

Forum Overview :: Castle Wolfenstein

by Rafiki 04/05/2015, 10:09am PDT

pinback wrote:

Let's call it "Actually Serious Sam".

I'm 6 hours in, and this isn't Serious Sam. This is Half-Life 2 by a mile. This whole game so far is basically just Half-Life 2 with actual fascists instead of fascist aliens. You're fighting through a world with futuristic enemies with technology advanced to the point it may as well be alien, a dystopian setting that's the familiar contemporary world hyper-mutated by technology, an underground rebel resistance, Alyx in the form of Anya, Alyx's dad in the form of a crippled white lady who is both a rebel leader and a parental figure, and, hell, even Dog shows up:

Here's the New Order Nazis vs. the Combine:

Many of the settings in Wolfenstein even look like they could fit into Half-Life 2, but with the benefit of being detailed with graphics technology 10 years more advanced.

Is that a laser charging station or an HEV suit charging station?

So far, I like the game. It's straightforward and easy to get into, it doesn't take long to get to the shooting, heads explode and limbs explode and you can blow out giant holes in people which is oddly refreshing in a world where every FPS is now just ragdolls and red pock marks. Weirdly, the gore still feels a bit neutered, though. There's a lot to shoot at, and does capture the feel of the old FPS games. I like how the leveling/perk system is integrated and complements play style instead of just giving you XP and choosing abilities. I also like how perks don't really radically change anything from the core gameplay and just provide combat bonuses.

My biggest gripe is that it seems too easy. I have the difficulty on next to highest, and I've been mowing through without much trouble. You can adjust the difficulty on the fly, which probably just adjusts damage instead of adding more enemies. Has there been a game that's done that in the last 10 years? Blood is the last game I remember where not only were enemies deadlier, but they piled them into the level with each new difficulty. My other gripe is that it has the same texture pop-in problem as Rage, which from all my Googling is just an unfixable problem with the idtech engine beyond getting a graphics card with a million gigs of RAM or turning mouse sensitivity down so far I have to pick the mouse up and readjust 5 times to turn 90 degrees. Aside from that, it looks good and runs at 60fps at max settings.