Wolfenstein The New Colossus is no different, it offers a plot heavy single player campaign with no multiplayer aspect, a few DLC missions and some difficulty modes. Is the experience worth the £50 admission?
STORY AND NARRATIVE
The New Colossus is a direct sequel to The New Order, after killing Death Head, B.J. is in a rough state, he's wheel chair bound and virtually incapacitated. After General Engel murders Caroline, one of B.J's close compatriots, he inherits her power armor. This overcomes B.J's physical afflictions and allows him to return back to the front line and bring the fight to the Nazis.
B.J. is pretty focused on avenging Caroline and spends a good chunk of the game referring to her in inner monologues. In fact this game sees are far more subdued and withdrawn B.J. He had a personality in The New Order but it definitely feels like the developers really want to flesh him out and make him more layered and complex, showing the toll of his actions on his mental state opposed to the single-minded mean Nazi killing machine.
The story is all the more better for this character development and B.J. isn't on his own. Many other recurring characters get more dialogue and a place in the game world. Several new characters appear but none have as much lime light or development as Grace and Spesh, whom are both great characters that add a lot to the existing cast.
Despite being the main antagonists of the game, ruling most of America and even having bases on other planets, the story is less about the Nazis and their cruel rule of the world, the game assumes you've played The New Order. The Nazis are rooted in, they're the bad guys and you've got to stop them. General Engel is the face of the enemy, due to her conflicts with B.J. in The New Order she actually has a personal investment in seeing him dead and so ultimately she assumes the role Death Head had in the first. Unlike Death Head, Engel gets a fair bit of screen time but has no character development. We meet her Daughter, a disappointment to her, but other than the initial conflict they have during the beginning section of the game the two are never seen together again.
The crux of the story and why your playing is that B.J. along with the crew aboard the Eva's Hammer are journeying around America stirring up the rebellion. They gave a huge boost when they convince Grace to join them who assumes the commanding role. Under Grace's guidance she and B.J. pull together a swathe of support in opposing the Nazis.
The objective is there propelling the characters forward around the world, but really the story is far more personal and deals with various different issues affecting the different characters. For instance, I had saved Wyatt in The New Order and so in The New Colossus we see his character develop from them and interestingly they've chosen to show what post-traumatic stress can do to a person's psychology and also deals with substance abuse. It's told smartly and personally and doesn't feel cheesy, tacked on or tactless.
The dialogue is superb in The New Colossus, the pacing of the story and direction are amazing and complement the gameplay well. The game doesn't waste time talking, the dialogue sections is snappy and earnest, granting the characters an air of authenticity. The story never over steps the mark and pulls you out of gameplay too long, it's there throughout but every scene is a worthwhile experience and joy to watch.
GAMEPLAY
If you've played either of the last two Wolfenstein games, you'll be in familiar territory with The New Colossus. The structure of the game is mission based and each mission is a level that you atypically initiate from your base the Eva's Hammer.
There is no real mission objective, you effectively go from point A to point B defeating Nazis and the objective you were headed to is played out in a cut scene. The levels are designed to be open, to allow for experimentation and a varied approach to encounters. The two options are basically shoot your way through or sneak through, but the game grants no reward to how you play. In one way it's good, there's no clear path the game wanted you to choose but at the same time, when your choice works out extremely well and you deal with a situation expertly it's nice to get some sort of reward from the game.
When it comes to gunplay and movement, B.J. himself has some collision issues, he's quite a floaty character and depending on what object you touch, bouncing off the environment is commonplace and even on small objects. It can be frustrating in frenetic moments.
I also found the game to be lacking when registration inputs to vault up ledges or hoist out of water and again such moments can be frustrating as it's not just the occasional occurence and when it happens it can take more than one attempt to get the game to register the correct action.
Gunplay however is much more solid, predicting weapon recoil is easy and the feedback enemies give when you shoot them is clear and obvious. Dual wielding returns and it basically renders any other method of shooting pointless, especially once you obtain the shotgun that shreds almost everything. I like that whilst they have grounded the story and characters they've kept the crazier elements of the gameplay intact.
Weapon variety isn't as much as you would expect from such a game, it covers the basics of pistols, submachine guns, assault rifles and shotguns with a few extra weapons thrown in. Most weapons can be dual wielded and you are restricted to the same weapon, which is great. Weapons can also be upgraded in the main menu by collecting upgrade parts in the game world. Some upgrades are marginal or seem somewhat useless but most provide solid bonuses to a weapon of choice.
There are also grenades and throwing axes, but I found them to just fit in nicely and round out the arsenal than to be a commodity worth valuing and lastly there are the heavy weapons. You always keep your default diesel powered explosive launcher but you can retrieve and unmount heavy weapons from the environment. These weapons have very limited ammo and you can't stow them for later use, they also restrict movement speed and options. On the flip side, they do some serious damage.
There's a healthy variety of enemies and they're introduced reasonably well paced, you will see a lot of reskinned versions of the standard soldier classes by the final level but it's not that big of an issue as the enemy A.I. is enjoyable to fight. They're not overly predictable and regularly attempt to flank the player, the only areas they lack in, is dealing with a charging assault or doorways, the latter easily allowing for 'cheesing'.
There are also mechanised enemies, these range from small attack dogs, to mechanised soldiers all the way up to large bi-pedal attack armour.
The enemy classes start off simple enough, but as the game goes on the mixture of types in each situation becomes varied enough to maintain player engagement. Some appearances are restricted by location and story relevance but overall the engagements are frequent and varied.
When it comes to criticism, level design isn't particularly amazing which is a shame as the locales you visit are varied and interesting but most levels play the same, they start with a multi-branching location that allows for stealth and eventually narrows into a corridor shooter.
I really felt like Wolfenstein's deeper and richer narrative was very much at opposition to it's shallow-ish gameplay. A few times the game allows for some exploration but these moments are brief and don't mesh especially well with the iffy player collision. I really felt that The New Colossus could've pulled back from the mission structure and keep the events more open, play more like Half Life 2 where the player can travel from one destination to the next and open player interactions so that exploration is more prevalent. Unfortunately all these parts of the game unfold in a cutscene.
The best way to explain Wolfenstein The New Colossus is that it can't decide if it wants to be more like Doom or more like The New Order and so it gets stuck is this middle, undefined ground where it feels like we're missing some gameplay features and scenarios. For instance, we're shown these cool motorbikes in one level, but we never get the opportunity to ride one, instead it's limited to a cut scene that splits two levels apart.
My only other glaring issue with The New Colossus is the previously mentioned mechanised units, they're generally speaking terrible bullet sponges that don't excite interesting interactions. They play out like those same old boss battles you remember from games like Duke Nukem and the original Doom. pumping hundreds of bullets into a moving target that can suddenly wipe you out with a couple of lucky shots is not fun or challenging.
Overall, the game is fun to play and that's mainly because the weapons are so enjoyable to use and the Nazis soldiers make for great targets, it's not enough to keep you engaged for hours but The New Colossus' short run time means things don't stale before they end.
AUDIO
Before going too far into this section of the review, The New Colossus deserves a round of applause for the voice acting. Great casting, direction and performances lead to an ear pleasing, enjoyable and engaging story. If this game had hammy dialogue and awful voice acting I don't see how it could be regarded as anything other than ridiculous. But despite the lunacy of the plot and the over-the-top themes of the world the voice acting is so grounded, so real and immersive.
I love that the German characters speak in German too, the game pulls no punches or allowances, read the subtitles and be immersed. The level of professionalism in this game's voice work is amazing and in its own right deserves some form of award.
That said, the rest of the audio design is pretty standard. Guns sound like guns, explosions like explosions and eviscerated Nazis like eviscerated Nazis. The sound effects do their job, punctuating your ears with rhythmic violence.
It's hard to remember much of a soundtrack as you tend to play to the beat of your own gun but what does play is atypically aggressive hard rock sort of music, interspersed in the story sections are softer melancholy melodies that calm everything down.
The best thing the audio design of such a game can do is not be irritating, the guns are loud sure, but the sound effects aren't repetitive I didn't get bored of hearing the shotgun blast a hail of shrapnel into the armored chest of a Uber Commander and I never was pulled out of the immersion by some misplaced music track.
GRAPHICS AND PRESENTATION
The New Order is a stunning game with amazing visuals. I played the Xbox One version on a standard Xbox One and I can't recall a single moment where the frame rate dropped. Textures generally were always loaded up, only a few occasions I spotted blurry loading textures but such things are pretty much a non-issue and that's me nit picking to find fault in the visuals.
The steady and detailed graphics mean you can enjoy the rich and varied landscapes, there is no boring color palette in The New Colossus; there's an absolute plethora of colors and lighting choices that give each location their own feel and makes them vibrant. I especially like Eva's Hammer, it's a relatively small location but is home to a variety of design choices that reflect the eclectic mix of people on board.
The user interface is pretty minimal, your health, armor and ammo count are always visible and your inventory only appears when you access the weapon wheel. There's very little disturbance to pull you out of the immersion. When you do need more information you will have to haul yourself out of the game world to check the menu where you will see your objectives, perks and perk levels and also the list of tutorials. The menus are clean and straight forward and load nice and quick. There's nothing exceptional, just functional and within form.
REPLAYABILITY
The main campaign will last you roughly around ten hours on the normal mode, if you're not going out of your way to find all collectibles. You can add a couple of extras hours for the each harder difficulty mode.
Once the main story is completed, there are arcade like missions you can access from the main menu where you have to complete your objective in the best time etc, the missions are pulled straight out of the main campaign and so feels quite tacked on.
At this point in time the three additional DLC packs are available to play, however I haven't purchased these and so cannot expand on how much extra game you're getting for your buck.
Sadly, once you've seen the story there isn't a lot to go back and explore. The game does try to give you extra reasons to explore previous areas to hunt down specific Uber Commanders but this didn't particularly interest me as worthwhile pursuit of my time.
OVERALL
Wolfenstein The New Colossus is a slightly different beast from The New Order, narratively for the better, gameplay not so. I remember The New Order being so much more dynamic and adventurous. This time the gameplay is on the repetitive side, fortunately the game is fun to play and short enough not to out stay it's welcome. The story is the highlight of the whole package, it's well written, executed and acted and stands as a testament to how viable a videogame is when it comes to creating a story and making that story feel believable.
I don't suspect mileage will vary from player to player; the campaign lasting around ten hours for an average run through on normal.
No multiplayer generally means no reason to stick around, there are a few DLC missions to play but there's simply not enough additional content to enjoy. Having said that, it's such an amazing story and a fun game it deserves to be played. Just be prepared to get through your journey very quickly, so you might want to grab this when it's on a good deal.
Thanks for reading and hope you found this review helpful!
The New Colossus is a direct sequel to The New Order, after killing Death Head, B.J. is in a rough state, he's wheel chair bound and virtually incapacitated. After General Engel murders Caroline, one of B.J's close compatriots, he inherits her power armor. This overcomes B.J's physical afflictions and allows him to return back to the front line and bring the fight to the Nazis.
B.J. is pretty focused on avenging Caroline and spends a good chunk of the game referring to her in inner monologues. In fact this game sees are far more subdued and withdrawn B.J. He had a personality in The New Order but it definitely feels like the developers really want to flesh him out and make him more layered and complex, showing the toll of his actions on his mental state opposed to the single-minded mean Nazi killing machine.
The story is all the more better for this character development and B.J. isn't on his own. Many other recurring characters get more dialogue and a place in the game world. Several new characters appear but none have as much lime light or development as Grace and Spesh, whom are both great characters that add a lot to the existing cast.
Despite being the main antagonists of the game, ruling most of America and even having bases on other planets, the story is less about the Nazis and their cruel rule of the world, the game assumes you've played The New Order. The Nazis are rooted in, they're the bad guys and you've got to stop them. General Engel is the face of the enemy, due to her conflicts with B.J. in The New Order she actually has a personal investment in seeing him dead and so ultimately she assumes the role Death Head had in the first. Unlike Death Head, Engel gets a fair bit of screen time but has no character development. We meet her Daughter, a disappointment to her, but other than the initial conflict they have during the beginning section of the game the two are never seen together again.
The crux of the story and why your playing is that B.J. along with the crew aboard the Eva's Hammer are journeying around America stirring up the rebellion. They gave a huge boost when they convince Grace to join them who assumes the commanding role. Under Grace's guidance she and B.J. pull together a swathe of support in opposing the Nazis.
The objective is there propelling the characters forward around the world, but really the story is far more personal and deals with various different issues affecting the different characters. For instance, I had saved Wyatt in The New Order and so in The New Colossus we see his character develop from them and interestingly they've chosen to show what post-traumatic stress can do to a person's psychology and also deals with substance abuse. It's told smartly and personally and doesn't feel cheesy, tacked on or tactless.
The dialogue is superb in The New Colossus, the pacing of the story and direction are amazing and complement the gameplay well. The game doesn't waste time talking, the dialogue sections is snappy and earnest, granting the characters an air of authenticity. The story never over steps the mark and pulls you out of gameplay too long, it's there throughout but every scene is a worthwhile experience and joy to watch.
GAMEPLAY
If you've played either of the last two Wolfenstein games, you'll be in familiar territory with The New Colossus. The structure of the game is mission based and each mission is a level that you atypically initiate from your base the Eva's Hammer.
There is no real mission objective, you effectively go from point A to point B defeating Nazis and the objective you were headed to is played out in a cut scene. The levels are designed to be open, to allow for experimentation and a varied approach to encounters. The two options are basically shoot your way through or sneak through, but the game grants no reward to how you play. In one way it's good, there's no clear path the game wanted you to choose but at the same time, when your choice works out extremely well and you deal with a situation expertly it's nice to get some sort of reward from the game.
When it comes to gunplay and movement, B.J. himself has some collision issues, he's quite a floaty character and depending on what object you touch, bouncing off the environment is commonplace and even on small objects. It can be frustrating in frenetic moments.
I also found the game to be lacking when registration inputs to vault up ledges or hoist out of water and again such moments can be frustrating as it's not just the occasional occurence and when it happens it can take more than one attempt to get the game to register the correct action.
Gunplay however is much more solid, predicting weapon recoil is easy and the feedback enemies give when you shoot them is clear and obvious. Dual wielding returns and it basically renders any other method of shooting pointless, especially once you obtain the shotgun that shreds almost everything. I like that whilst they have grounded the story and characters they've kept the crazier elements of the gameplay intact.
Weapon variety isn't as much as you would expect from such a game, it covers the basics of pistols, submachine guns, assault rifles and shotguns with a few extra weapons thrown in. Most weapons can be dual wielded and you are restricted to the same weapon, which is great. Weapons can also be upgraded in the main menu by collecting upgrade parts in the game world. Some upgrades are marginal or seem somewhat useless but most provide solid bonuses to a weapon of choice.
There are also grenades and throwing axes, but I found them to just fit in nicely and round out the arsenal than to be a commodity worth valuing and lastly there are the heavy weapons. You always keep your default diesel powered explosive launcher but you can retrieve and unmount heavy weapons from the environment. These weapons have very limited ammo and you can't stow them for later use, they also restrict movement speed and options. On the flip side, they do some serious damage. There's a healthy variety of enemies and they're introduced reasonably well paced, you will see a lot of reskinned versions of the standard soldier classes by the final level but it's not that big of an issue as the enemy A.I. is enjoyable to fight. They're not overly predictable and regularly attempt to flank the player, the only areas they lack in, is dealing with a charging assault or doorways, the latter easily allowing for 'cheesing'.
There are also mechanised enemies, these range from small attack dogs, to mechanised soldiers all the way up to large bi-pedal attack armour.
The enemy classes start off simple enough, but as the game goes on the mixture of types in each situation becomes varied enough to maintain player engagement. Some appearances are restricted by location and story relevance but overall the engagements are frequent and varied.
When it comes to criticism, level design isn't particularly amazing which is a shame as the locales you visit are varied and interesting but most levels play the same, they start with a multi-branching location that allows for stealth and eventually narrows into a corridor shooter.
I really felt like Wolfenstein's deeper and richer narrative was very much at opposition to it's shallow-ish gameplay. A few times the game allows for some exploration but these moments are brief and don't mesh especially well with the iffy player collision. I really felt that The New Colossus could've pulled back from the mission structure and keep the events more open, play more like Half Life 2 where the player can travel from one destination to the next and open player interactions so that exploration is more prevalent. Unfortunately all these parts of the game unfold in a cutscene.
The best way to explain Wolfenstein The New Colossus is that it can't decide if it wants to be more like Doom or more like The New Order and so it gets stuck is this middle, undefined ground where it feels like we're missing some gameplay features and scenarios. For instance, we're shown these cool motorbikes in one level, but we never get the opportunity to ride one, instead it's limited to a cut scene that splits two levels apart.
My only other glaring issue with The New Colossus is the previously mentioned mechanised units, they're generally speaking terrible bullet sponges that don't excite interesting interactions. They play out like those same old boss battles you remember from games like Duke Nukem and the original Doom. pumping hundreds of bullets into a moving target that can suddenly wipe you out with a couple of lucky shots is not fun or challenging.
Overall, the game is fun to play and that's mainly because the weapons are so enjoyable to use and the Nazis soldiers make for great targets, it's not enough to keep you engaged for hours but The New Colossus' short run time means things don't stale before they end.
AUDIO
Before going too far into this section of the review, The New Colossus deserves a round of applause for the voice acting. Great casting, direction and performances lead to an ear pleasing, enjoyable and engaging story. If this game had hammy dialogue and awful voice acting I don't see how it could be regarded as anything other than ridiculous. But despite the lunacy of the plot and the over-the-top themes of the world the voice acting is so grounded, so real and immersive.
I love that the German characters speak in German too, the game pulls no punches or allowances, read the subtitles and be immersed. The level of professionalism in this game's voice work is amazing and in its own right deserves some form of award.
That said, the rest of the audio design is pretty standard. Guns sound like guns, explosions like explosions and eviscerated Nazis like eviscerated Nazis. The sound effects do their job, punctuating your ears with rhythmic violence.
It's hard to remember much of a soundtrack as you tend to play to the beat of your own gun but what does play is atypically aggressive hard rock sort of music, interspersed in the story sections are softer melancholy melodies that calm everything down.
The best thing the audio design of such a game can do is not be irritating, the guns are loud sure, but the sound effects aren't repetitive I didn't get bored of hearing the shotgun blast a hail of shrapnel into the armored chest of a Uber Commander and I never was pulled out of the immersion by some misplaced music track.
GRAPHICS AND PRESENTATION
The New Order is a stunning game with amazing visuals. I played the Xbox One version on a standard Xbox One and I can't recall a single moment where the frame rate dropped. Textures generally were always loaded up, only a few occasions I spotted blurry loading textures but such things are pretty much a non-issue and that's me nit picking to find fault in the visuals.
The steady and detailed graphics mean you can enjoy the rich and varied landscapes, there is no boring color palette in The New Colossus; there's an absolute plethora of colors and lighting choices that give each location their own feel and makes them vibrant. I especially like Eva's Hammer, it's a relatively small location but is home to a variety of design choices that reflect the eclectic mix of people on board.
The user interface is pretty minimal, your health, armor and ammo count are always visible and your inventory only appears when you access the weapon wheel. There's very little disturbance to pull you out of the immersion. When you do need more information you will have to haul yourself out of the game world to check the menu where you will see your objectives, perks and perk levels and also the list of tutorials. The menus are clean and straight forward and load nice and quick. There's nothing exceptional, just functional and within form.
REPLAYABILITY
The main campaign will last you roughly around ten hours on the normal mode, if you're not going out of your way to find all collectibles. You can add a couple of extras hours for the each harder difficulty mode.
Once the main story is completed, there are arcade like missions you can access from the main menu where you have to complete your objective in the best time etc, the missions are pulled straight out of the main campaign and so feels quite tacked on.
At this point in time the three additional DLC packs are available to play, however I haven't purchased these and so cannot expand on how much extra game you're getting for your buck.
Sadly, once you've seen the story there isn't a lot to go back and explore. The game does try to give you extra reasons to explore previous areas to hunt down specific Uber Commanders but this didn't particularly interest me as worthwhile pursuit of my time.
OVERALL
Wolfenstein The New Colossus is a slightly different beast from The New Order, narratively for the better, gameplay not so. I remember The New Order being so much more dynamic and adventurous. This time the gameplay is on the repetitive side, fortunately the game is fun to play and short enough not to out stay it's welcome. The story is the highlight of the whole package, it's well written, executed and acted and stands as a testament to how viable a videogame is when it comes to creating a story and making that story feel believable.
I don't suspect mileage will vary from player to player; the campaign lasting around ten hours for an average run through on normal.
No multiplayer generally means no reason to stick around, there are a few DLC missions to play but there's simply not enough additional content to enjoy. Having said that, it's such an amazing story and a fun game it deserves to be played. Just be prepared to get through your journey very quickly, so you might want to grab this when it's on a good deal.
Thanks for reading and hope you found this review helpful!
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