Things pick up for the last level however and the game finishes strong, though it’s a shame an hour of the experience is not up to snuff with the rest.īig explosions sometimes come in small packagesĪs you progress through the campaign in The Old Blood, you unlock challenge levels which are essentially chunks of existing chapters that can be played in isolation with a timer and score. Using your powerful firearms on these squishy foes is initially satisfying, but becomes tedious after a while, especially given the amount of enemy variety found in the regular Nazi army. Two of the four latter chapters are spent fighting almost exclusively Nazi Zombies, which simply don’t pose much of a threat. Once you blast, stab and pipe your way through Castle Wolfenstein, you will move to a village that will serve as the setting for the game’s more visually interesting but ultimately weaker half. The pipe segments and their many uses are a less fiddly mechanic than the welder in the base game, and also provide some comic relief as BJ finds endless new ways to make use of a seemingly mundane object. You will use the pipe segments to open doors, climb walls, push buttons and kill Nazis. Instead, you obtain a two-piece pipe early on that you will use in a seemingly endless number of ways. One mechanic that has not returned from The New Order is the welding tool. You gain access to almost all of the weapons in the first couple of chapters, meaning you have an impressive arsenal at your disposal for much of the game. You start out with the standard pistol and assault rifle, but quickly find a satisfying bolt-action rifle, automatic shotgun and single-shot grenade launcher that are all immensely fun to use. The meaty gunplay that made the firefights so enjoyable in The New Order is as good as ever, but the weapon selection is overall more interesting. Creeping around the detailed environments is enjoyable, but the game feels best when the lead is flying. The AI don’t seem to react to dead bodies, but somehow every enemy in a level will be alerted if you take two silent pistol shots to down a Nazi instead of one even if he doesn’t yell out. The officers who can be killed to prevent them calling in reinforcements return, and while the option to go through a level in several different ways is appreciated, the stealth mechanics remain underdeveloped. Many areas are structured in such a way that you can choose to approach them stealthily or guns blazing. This proves a compelling opening to what turns out to be the stronger half of The Old Blood, which sees BJ blasting/sneaking his way through the castle. The rails are attached to generators which you can temporarily shut off, giving you a window to detach the suit from the rail and remove the threat. The Nazis have started producing early versions of the heavily armored super soldiers you fight in TNO, but their suits must be hooked up to electrified rails that limit their range of movement. The entire 5-6 hour game is experienced from BJ’s perspective, with story moments kept to a minimum and action setpieces often coming one after the other with minimal downtime.Īfter a bombastic prologue, you are thrown into a stealth level that serves up some interesting gameplay mechanics and narrative context. While the dramatic villains that proved so entertaining in the base game are still around, cutscenes are relegated to very brief first-person interludes between chapters. The Old Blood acts as a prequel to TNO, with BJ infiltrating Castle Wolfenstein to investigate the activities of a German Officer named Helga. While the narrative of The New Order was a very prominent part of the experience, it takes more of a backseat to the action and gameplay in this expansion. Long time fans of the series will be in for some nostalgic nods
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |