Publisher: ID Software
Developer: Gray Matter
Release Date: 0-0-0
Score: 8.7/10.0
Gallery: Click here (9).
Multiplayer
RTCW is the sequel to the game that basically started FPS gaming, Wolfenstein3D. For 10 years, gamers have dreamed of the next Wolfenstein. For 10 years, hype has been built up. I am here today to say one thing: The hype hasn't been for nothing. Wolf has captured several thousand players already, with competition already starting on several ladders. At the moment I am typing this, there are over 700 servers. The game has yet to be out a month.
What would I compare Wolfenstein to? Wolf is a lot like Counterstrike and Days of Defeat - a Realistic First Person Shooter. It is also like Team Fortress in that it is class-based. Each class is necessary on every mission. Engineers destroy objectives, Lieutenants call in air strikes and artillery strikes and distribute more ammo, Medics heal, and finally the Soldiers have access to the heavy weapons. None of the weapons are "original" - they are all real - but each one is important and useful in almost every single map.
The multiplayer aspect is simply incredible. While not providing the over-the-top realism of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, RTCW provides players with a fast-paced, balanced game that requires teamwork. The teamwork aspect of RTCW is as important as any of the games in the Tribes franchise. If a team does not have a balance of every single class, they will not (and cannot) win on any mission. Surprisingly, I have not run into any difficulty with this on public servers. Unlike Tribes 2, the teamwork in RTCW seems totally natural. Lieutenants call in air strikes, soldiers give covering fire, and finally the engineer plants the device. While not exactly as easy as this, it just goes to show that the teamwork in RTCW is absolutely painless.
There are three game types in RTCW - Stopwatch, Checkpoint, and Objective. Stopwatch mode sets a time limit to complete your objective - like destroying a particular Anti-Aircraft Gun. After the time limit is over, or when the objective is destroyed, the teams switch sides and play again. Checkpoint mode can best be described as akin to the Capture and Hold mode in Tribes, or Unreal Tournament's Domination. Teams receive points for capturing and holding flags. The final mode, Objective, gives the team a set objective to complete. The three game types are each extremely fun to play.
RTCW came with seven maps out of the box. The truth of the matter is, most of the maps combine several of the game types - giving the Wolf player a unique experience on every map. After playing all of the maps through several times in the last few weeks, I have to say that every map was well thought-out and built for fun. There are very few weaknesses in this department - other then the relatively small number of maps in the box.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein is one of the best first person shooters I have ever played. Combining speed, teamwork, and realism, RTCW gives the gamer the total FPS experience. This game definitely gets my "PC Game of the Year" award.
The wait is over, folks - and it was well worth it.
Single Player
DISCLAIMER: Any discrimination or slurs against nazi's or Germans written or implied throughout this review are completely coincidental and in no way will the Junkyard or its Staff be held responsible. This review, though it contains factual information about the game is presented to you in a comical debate and is meant to be taken that way.
Poseidon: Hey guys, it's Poseidon.
Specter: Hey guys, this is Specter, a local forumulite and friend of Poseidon's. We're here to review Gray Matter and ID Software’s latest title, Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
Pose: I have been waiting for this game since the day I heard about the online multiplayer test. Even though it was only one level, it sure was a taste of great things to come.
Spec: Ever since I heard about a sequel in production, I’ve been following it's progress on Gamespot, watching the videos and viewing the screen shots. When I first saw the particle fire effects from the flamethrower it blew me away!
Pose: So now, down to business... was RTCW worth the wait?
Spec: YES!
Pose: To give you a little background information, you are Army Ranger William "B.J." Blazkowicz who must escape from nazi Germany. This game sticks you in the dungeon of Castle Wolfenstein, from which you must evade capture and more importantly – death! What's more, in cohorts with NATO, you are trying to uncover the nazi’s sinister plot to resurrect a fallen warlord.
Spec: Crazy nazi’s, always with their diabolical plans... when will they learn?
Pose: Probably not
. You make your way through villages, crypts, and churches, burned out cities... you know, the usual. Your main objectives are to gather information on the nazi’s plans and to stop them at all costs.
Spec: The game starts you off with the basic Luger pistol and a knife, until you kill your first soldier and earn yourself a sub machine gun. This expansive level is carefully detailed.
Pose: And who could forget…
Spec: ZE GERMANZ!
Pose: Ahh yes, ze Germanz, the backbone of this game. Without them… well… there would be nothing to shoot!
Spec: Throughout the game you mow down the various nazi scientists, doctors, soldiers, snipers, flame troopers, paratroops, heavy weapon troops, scantily clad assassins, and scientific experiments.
Pose: Ahhh... but you have forgotten one thing, Specter.
Spec: Really, what's that?
Pose: The ZOMBIES!
Spec: And what game wouldn’t be complete without it’s skin-eating zombies? Half-Life, System Shock 2, Resident Evil... they all had 'em. These aren’t just normal zombies either, some shoot blinding spirits, and others are entirely aflame! Though, you'll only have the pleasure of mowing these guys down at the beginning and end of the game.
Pose: Oh, you forgot about the skeletons with shields that can reflect your bullets back at you. This is another neat thing about Wolfenstein, is it's physics, if you will. Shooting a slightly convex-shield surface will not only reflect bullets back at you, but also in angular directions as well; remember, the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection!
Spec: Errr... yeah, so now on to the weapons.
Pose: Right.
Spec: The weapons in this game are awesome, and each one has it’s unique uses and advantages when used on different opponents. The weapons include handguns, sub machine guns, sniper rifles, grenades, and other exotic weapons like flame throwers, a helluva large gattling gun, a paratroop rifle, and the last one is a surprise 
.
Pose: There are also mounted machine guys strategically placed around the maps... you know when you find one, you're in for a frag fest!
Spec: My one problem with the weapons were the grenades, their blast radius is so small that it pretty much violates the definition of the phrase 'splash damage'. They might as well been water balloons!
Spec: Ok, now onto the game play.
Pose: I especially liked the different ways you can approach a mission. This ensures a huge replay value. You could play the game 50 times without doing the same things twice.
Spec: I usually play in a covert style... silent weapons, sniping, and crawling around... whereas, *ahem*, Poseidon on the has a different approach...
Pose: Bustin' down the door and laying waste to the nazi’s with the venom gattling gun! I really loved it when they exploded after taking in healthy amounts of lead.
Spec: *Ahem*, well my way also doesn’t set off the alarms, and doesn't bring in reinforcements.
Pose: That just gives me more Germans to slaughter
.
Spec: Ok, that’s disturbing... Anyhow, there are different types of missions ranging from stealth to escort to strictly assassinations. Don’t worry though; you’ll have no problem getting your gun off in even the most concealed of maps.
Pose: AI in the game are nothing to jump up and down about. They were very predictable -- with the assassins you knew the dive and roll was coming.
Spec: It almost seems like the enemies like to climb ladders, even in the middle of combat. However, they aren't stupid.
Pose: The paratroopers coming in was one of the highlights for me though. You'd walk outside and see them gracefully float down to Earth.
*Flashback*
Spec: "I wonder if you can puncture the parachutes?"
*Click BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*
* Poseidon stares at the raining corpses*
* THUD THUD THUD*
Pose: "Well who'd've thought..."
Spec: Yeah, that was a great addition, and extremely fulfilling!
Pose: We can't forget the German prostitutes who hid in the corner when you entered the room. Maybe if some people wouldn’t shoot them on sight we wouldn’t have failed the mission...
Spec: HEY, they shouldn’t have charged me extra!
Pose: Where was I when this was happening? Oh never mind... onto the graphics!
Spec: The character models are superb, the polygon count for a soldier is amazingly high, hardly any pointy edges are to be found. Furthermore, the detail on the skins is just something else. The same goes for the maps, extremely detailed – you can tell ID took their sweet time creating these. There were some very nice scripted events in some of the maps too, for example a sequence where the captured panzer tank shot out a sniper’s perch in a bell tower...
Pose: Or how about the time when you shot at some explosives and caught a flying air tank in the teeth?
Spec: Yeah, that too! Oh, and how about the time when the scientist’s head hit the window in front of you and you screamed like a girl...
Pose: ... I wasn’t scared... and that wasn't scripted! Seriously though, the graphics are amazing. The characters and maps were very detailed. The scripted events were always great. Pretty much flawless from what I saw. Now moving onto sound.
Spec: If you stopped and listened, almost every soldier or scientist would talk to themselves or others. The characters and voices were synced almost perfectly in the cutscenes... something that is not an easy task. The weapon and creature sounds were pleasant, but I've got a couple complaints about these.
Pose: Like what?
Spec: KINGPIN! They were the exact same sound effects used in ID's older game Kingpin, which was released in 1999. When I first heard the tommy gun in the multiplayer demo I knew something smelled fishy, and it wasn’t Poseidon which was even stranger...
Pose: Well, having never played Kingpin I cannot confirm or deny this, but I thought the sound effects were great nonetheless. It was always funny listening to the nazis talking around the corner, especially the drunken ones! The weapon effects were spectacular I thought. When you shot out a spotlight you could hear the electricity arc, which I thought was amazing.
Spec: Well the new sound effects were very nice... but the music was awe-inspiring. Perfectly timed music and ambient sound added to the suspense as you were hunted down by monsters, or in the heat of combat. And... It’s all about...
Pose: MEGABYTE!
Spec: Yes yes, head director of your organization was played by the same voice actor as the V\virus "Megabyte" from the popular animated series "ReBoot"(non-Canadians might not have seen this).
Pose: The one problem with this game was the amount of difficulty present. Quick save and quick load are your greatest allies in this game -- even on easy mode it was quite a challenge.
Spec: Don’t sweeten it, we got our butts persecuted by the nazi’s over and over again!
Pose: True, true. You could pump some enemies with bullet after bullet into and they simply wouldn't die! A few even took rockets in the teeth, and did not stop.
Spec: Well I hope we've given you a sound view of the game. I give Wolfenstein a fair 8.5 / 10. My reasons for this are:
1. The wimpy grenades.
2. The recycled Kingpin sound effects.
3. The impossibility of some missions without using the quick save option.
Over to you Poseidon...
Pose: Well, I thought this was a great game. I loved the weapons, maps, graphics, and sound. It was not an easy game, and has replay value, which makes it a great buy for any of you FPS players. Also, who can pass up the opportunity to shoot some nazi’s? My tribulations were the weak AI which were very predictable, and like Specter, the grenades were very feeble. RTCW gets a nice 9/10 from me.
From Specter and myself, we bid you farewell!
Final Thoughts:
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