Wolfenstein 6 First Impressions (Full review on Friday/Saturday)

[CroutonsofDeath{RD}]

I'm a huge ID fan and a huge Raven fan, so naturally I was pretty psyched about Wolfenstein 6. No, I'm not going to just call it "Wolfenstein" because that makes it sound like a remake. It's the sixth entry in the series (Not counting the expansion packs to "Spear of Destiny"), so it's Wolfenstein 6. I just got back about an hour ago with my copy of the game (PC of course. ID software games just aren't made for consoles, so putting it on PS3/360 baffles me.) and obviously I'm not too far in, so this isn't a review, but I can tell you my thoughts on it so far.

So far, it's fairly good. I doubt this game is going to cause massive waves, but the art direction and animation is good and makes up for some fairly bland graphics (But then again, the engine is 5 years old), the sound is decent, and the shooting is fun. It's not overtly sophisticated, but then again it's a Wolfenstein game. I'm really liking the style, it feels more like the campy style of the old Wolfenstein games rather than the slightly more realistic tone of Return to castle Wolfenstein. Some parts stuff you with so much campy weird-science that you get the impression you're watching one of those old and obscure "Mad nazi scientist run amok" movies. This leads to a lot of fun weapons, and it feels fresh in a weird way since this is one of the first WW2 shooters to NOT take a "realistic" route in a long time, there's lots of crazy mutants, experiments, and weird, weird stuff happening, and it's actually quite cool. The shooting is your traditional fare, but it's done with enough brutality and flair that it is genuinely fun. I haven't tried multiplayer yet, but I have a feeling it's not going to be very good, RtCW had some of the best online multiplayer ever and it was expanded in the free game Enemy Territory, but knowing Raven's aversion to change, I doubt the MP will be much more than a few deathmatch variety's like in Quake 4. The story is somewhat lame, but then again, it's an ID software game. Asking for a good story from an ID software game is much like asking a cat not to meow. The story does have some good camp dialogue and like I said the style and ideas are insane but cool, which does make it bearable.

So all in all, my first impressions are GOOD. It isn't earth shattering, but so far it's really fun, which is all I ask. Plus it's nice to dispatch interdimensional Nazi's wielding electric swords with a gun that makes things turn into a steaming pile of blood, bones, and ash. Like I said, it's nice to have a SCI-FI WW2 game for once.

I'm planning to do a review once I've wrapped the game up, which should be around this weekend.

 

[UnstableJester]

Awesome! Looking forward to the full review!

 

[LTCHIPS]

Um, I got Wolfenstien today, and just to correct you on something.

Wolfenstien uses idtech 4, which is VERY NEW. Rage will use the same graphics engine, and that will come out sometime this year or next year.

I'm a hardcore ID software fan, and I've been waiting for this game for 5 years. Now its on my hard drive, and I can't wait to see how everything went for this one. Raven games like Soldier of Fortune II ARE AWESOME.

I'm glad that you are enjoying this game man, I enjoy Enemy Territory and RTCW for a long time now so I think its time for an update!

 

[PD187]

Um, I got Wolfenstien today, and just to correct you on something.

Wolfenstien uses idtech 4, which is VERY NEW. Rage will use the same graphics engine, and that will come out sometime this year or next year.

I don't have Wolfenstein yet but I have to correct your correction. id Tech 4 is the engine that was first used in Doom 3. Doom 3, Quake 4 and Wolfenstein use the same engine (id Tech 4). Rage will use id's new engine (id Tech 5) as will Doom 4.

Reference (isn't wikipedia awesome?)

(edit)
Oh my. John Carmack is going to try to release the source code for id Tech 4 after Rage ships...
(/edit)

 

[CroutonsofDeath{RD}]

Um, I got Wolfenstien today, and just to correct you on something.

Wolfenstien uses idtech 4, which is VERY NEW. Rage will use the same graphics engine, and that will come out sometime this year or next year.

I'm a hardcore ID software fan, and I've been waiting for this game for 5 years. Now its on my hard drive, and I can't wait to see how everything went for this one. Raven games like Soldier of Fortune II ARE AWESOME.

I'm glad that you are enjoying this game man, I enjoy Enemy Territory and RTCW for a long time now so I think its time for an update!

ID Tech 4 is the Doom 3 engine. ID Tech 5 is the engine to be used in Rage. Trust me, there will be NO other games to use Id Tech 5 until Rage is out. ID Software keeps it a rule that they don't license their engines until their games are out. Read "Masters of Doom." An example was the fact that they didn't allow Ion Storm to touch the Quake II code until Quake II was released, so the earliest builds of Daikatana used the first Quake engine.

There is one peeve I would like to point out: Checkpoints. UGH. This is probably a side effect of the horrid popularity of multiplatform games, but come on, modern gaming systems have HARD DRIVES. People, ALLOW SAVE POINTS. Plus the checkpoints are invisible, which is annoying.

I also didn't really notice this until further in, but there are elements to me that seem a little Call of Duty-ish, but it's still fun. I also think that a lot of the gold I've found is a little too obvious, seeing as Wolfenstein games in the past have tried their best to hide them out of the way, which incited more exploring. To be fair though, the dual world thing and slightly open ended areas do give way to some exploring for gold.

And yes, SoF 2 was great I still hope Raven does a REAL SoF 3 though, Payback sucked. I actually might do the full review a little earlier, but it depends on when I complete the game. When I review games, I keep it a rule that I don't do a complete review until I've at least beaten the campaign.


Edit: Wow. I'm getting more into this game than I thought I would. I just realized 6 hours have gone by. My biggest complaints are:

Checkpoints
Regenerating health
and the lack of an anti-aliasing option and a glitchy draw distance.

The graphics are VERY bad, but for the most part, I don't care if it's fun to play but you CANNOT turn on Anti-aliasing, there is no option for it (???) and the aliasing is HORRIBLE. Sometimes, when turning, if something is more than 3 feet away it will become matte grey and then pop in rather unceremoniously, and one time the action was so frantic and it kept doing that glitch, that I ended up running around in circles not sure which wall was which.

Otherwise, the game is really quite fun. Like I said, I doubt it's going to shatter the game world and become GotY, but it reminds me of why I love the old style shooters so much. It's simple, it's ugly, but it's fast, it's bloody, it's cathartic, and it's Fun as hell. Also, as I said before, the game feels somewhat fresh, the setting and the brutality actually make it FUN to shoot nazis again! Which is WHY we need games like Wolfenstein! Back in 1992, it showed us that shooting nazis could be fun, and now it's back to make it fun again after so many notoriously repetitious historical shooters! There are more flaws, and more pros, but obviously I will cover those in the final review. Keep an eye out.

 

[LTCHIPS]

ID Tech 4 is the Doom 3 engine. ID Tech 5 is the engine to be used in Rage. Trust me, there will be NO other games to use Id Tech 5 until Rage is out. ID Software keeps it a rule that they don't license their engines until their games are out. Read "Masters of Doom." An example was the fact that they didn't allow Ion Storm to touch the Quake II code until Quake II was released, so the earliest builds of Daikatana used the first Quake engine.

There is one peeve I would like to point out: Checkpoints. UGH. This is probably a side effect of the horrid popularity of multiplatform games, but come on, modern gaming systems have HARD DRIVES. People, ALLOW SAVE POINTS. Plus the checkpoints are invisible, which is annoying.

I also didn't really notice this until further in, but there are elements to me that seem a little Call of Duty-ish, but it's still fun. I also think that a lot of the gold I've found is a little too obvious, seeing as Wolfenstein games in the past have tried their best to hide them out of the way, which incited more exploring. To be fair though, the dual world thing and slightly open ended areas do give way to some exploring for gold.

And yes, SoF 2 was great I still hope Raven does a REAL SoF 3 though, Payback sucked. I actually might do the full review a little earlier, but it depends on when I complete the game. When I review games, I keep it a rule that I don't do a complete review until I've at least beaten the campaign.


Edit: Wow. I'm getting more into this game than I thought I would. I just realized 6 hours have gone by. My biggest complaints are:

Checkpoints
Regenerating health
and the lack of an anti-aliasing option and a glitchy draw distance.

The graphics are VERY bad, but for the most part, I don't care if it's fun to play but you CANNOT turn on Anti-aliasing, there is no option for it (???) and the aliasing is HORRIBLE. Sometimes, when turning, if something is more than 3 feet away it will become matte grey and then pop in rather unceremoniously, and one time the action was so frantic and it kept doing that glitch, that I ended up running around in circles not sure which wall was which.

Otherwise, the game is really quite fun. Like I said, I doubt it's going to shatter the game world and become GotY, but it reminds me of why I love the old style shooters so much. It's simple, it's ugly, but it's fast, it's bloody, it's cathartic, and it's Fun as hell. Also, as I said before, the game feels somewhat fresh, the setting and the brutality actually make it FUN to shoot nazis again! Which is WHY we need games like Wolfenstein! Back in 1992, it showed us that shooting nazis could be fun, and now it's back to make it fun again after so many notoriously repetitious historical shooters! There are more flaws, and more pros, but obviously I will cover those in the final review. Keep an eye out.

Hmmm, probably shouldn't have quoted all of that XD. I've gotten to about 70% of the game, and things are... werid. I've been a hardcore Wolfenstien fan from the start, and this game was indeed a lot different than RTCW. I'm not done with the game yet, but today or tommarrow I should be done with the game. I'll try out multiplayer, but sadly, I don't think it will be as great as RTCW's multiplayer. They got rid of two classes from RTCW and now there's only Soldier, Medic, and Engineer. And, no more 64 player games (which where packed, but are the most intense online moments ever), just lame 12 player only games. The upgrade system's cool, but will that make the game unbalanced? RTCW was well balanced, especially Enemy Territory.

The Medallion powers sadly, make the game a little too easy. I could just kick in bullet time, and run up to an entire battalion of Nazis and waste them all with one clip of MP40 rounds. The Empower thing does help a lot, cause it makes bullets go through sheilds. But really, where the Veil powers necessary? Cause in RTCW, you had no powers, all you had where your skills, and your kickass weaponry. And that made that game VERY FUN and hard at the same time. And really the AI? Pretty pathetic compared to RTCW's which where very smart, and could take you down with a single clip of MP40. But I'll say this, this game has EPIC moments, especially the Castle mission (Castle Wolfenstien?).

I think so far, this game was worth the wait, but I'm not done with it yet, so I'll make a final review as well, since I'm a hardcore Wolfenstien fan, as well a hardcore ID software fan.

Oh and graphics... hmmmm, well the engine IS WAY BETTER CODED THAN CRYSIS by a long shot. But the game doesn't look anywhere as good as Crysis. Game runs great on all highest settings on 1280x1024 on my 9800GT, which I knew it would do well. I wouldn't say the game doesn't look ugly, but it could have looked a little bit better. Of course that might be because I'm still in DX9c....

Look for me as LTCHIPS online in this game, I'll try it out online as soon as I beat it.

By the way, thanks for the explanation on the graphics engine, that gets rid of a lot of confusement. Now if only the Doom 3 EXTREMLY HEVILY MODIFIED graphics engine would rest in peace. I'm looking at you COD4.


ARGH, CHECKPOINTS. I HATE CHECKPOINTS! DAMN YOU MULTIPLATFORM PORTS!

 

[CroutonsofDeath{RD}]

Yeah, the medallion powers can make things easy, but that's why I only use them for the puzzles. I'm actually liking the game better than RtCW, I mean, I love RtCW but it didn't hold the same appeal, that sci-fi hoopa-joob has an extremely high appeal to me. And WOW, someone else who agrees that the CrySis engine is a steaming pile with a pretty wrapper! I actually remember in my programming class, we had an assignment where he gave us a really glitchy engine that would run slow, and our assignment was to optimize the code to make it run faster. Apparently the guys at CryTek were skipping class when they taught this lesson. The engine gets so much blind praise, yet it DOESN'T EVEN SCALE DOWN. That's why the system requirements were so high! It's not just because the game looks good and is intensive graphically, it's because the coders were too lazy to do any form of optimization whatsoever. CrySis is a good game, but I want to take the engine out and teach it a few things about optimization and streamlining. It's sad when a newb programmer who only knows java and some very basic visual C can spot all the problems with a big name game developers engine.

I've played multiplayer once. It's OK, but it's lame compared to RtCW's MP or Enemy Territory. Look for me too, I'm just "Croutons" Didn't have room for CroutonsOfDeath.

 

[LTCHIPS]

Yeah, the medallion powers can make things easy, but that's why I only use them for the puzzles. I'm actually liking the game better than RtCW, I mean, I love RtCW but it didn't hold the same appeal, that sci-fi hoopa-joob has an extremely high appeal to me. And WOW, someone else who agrees that the CrySis engine is a steaming pile with a pretty wrapper! I actually remember in my programming class, we had an assignment where he gave us a really glitchy engine that would run slow, and our assignment was to optimize the code to make it run faster. Apparently the guys at CryTek were skipping class when they taught this lesson. The engine gets so much blind praise, yet it DOESN'T EVEN SCALE DOWN. That's why the system requirements were so high! It's not just because the game looks good and is intensive graphically, it's because the coders were too lazy to do any form of optimization whatsoever. CrySis is a good game, but I want to take the engine out and teach it a few things about optimization and streamlining. It's sad when a newb programmer who only knows java and some very basic visual C can spot all the problems with a big name game developers engine.

I gotta admit, Crytek cannot put out a game with a decent engine. Cryengine 2 may be pretty, but it is just SO HORRIBLY CODED. You'd be a lucky man to get Crysis to run on high at 50 to 60 FPS average.

If Crytek had to delay the game to fix the damn coding, I think I'd be waiting for it till 2010 or even 2011 when Duke Nukem Forever might finally come out (XD just kidding).

I can't remember how bad Cryengine 1 was with Far Cry 1 (which is a VERY HARD game) when that first came out.

 

[acefisher1]

If someone wants to buy it for me I'd be happy to do a full review : )

I have to say, i'm surprised to hear that you guys like it at all. From what I had seen, it looked horrible.

 

[CroutonsofDeath{RD}]

If someone wants to buy it for me I'd be happy to do a full review : )

I have to say, i'm surprised to hear that you guys like it at all. From what I had seen, it looked horrible.

Hmm, I know a lot of people were skeptical from the previews, but I didn't care. I thought it looked decent, plus I'm such a huge fan of anything ID-Software/Raven Software related, so I fit into a sort of niche appeal. I know there are people who don't like the game, and the reviews have ranged from saying it's awful to it's meh, and even a few reviews that say it's awesome, but it all boils down to the public and personal opinion. Me? I love it! I can side with the critics and say it's nothing revolutionary and it's not going to change diddily squat, but I'm perfectly content with one thing... IT IS FUN. Really, really FUN. It's got flaws, but when a game is FUN I tend to ignore even the most glaring flaws. See my "Prototype" review. It had so many flaws I could probably fill half a page on what's wrong with it, but I had so much FUN with it that I ignored them and went on to declare I had more fun with it than any other game released this year. Wolfenstein 6 so far is a return to those kinds of first person shooters where you leave your brain behind and just shoot things until they resemble the misfortunate zombies that got LawnMowered in "BrainDead." It's simple, it's stupid, it's derivative, it's fun. I know lotsa people are going to hate it, but for an old school Wolfenstein fan (Even prior to Wolf 3D I has the Apple ][ games ) this game is great. There are even some nods to Wolf 3D that made me giggle like a school girl, especially one time that I blasted a nazi and he screamed "MEIN LEIBEN!!!!" in horrible agony, just like the SS soldiers from Wolf 3D. I swear, there is nothing funnier than hear a nazi scream "MEIN LEIBEN!" as they get disintegrated from the leg up

 

[Destroy]

Actually, Rage™ uses the BRAND NEW id Tech 5 engine

 

[CroutonsofDeath{RD}]

Actually, Rage? uses the BRAND NEW id Tech 5 engine

We know that. One of the posters in this thread thought that when I said that Wolfenstein 6 uses a 5 year old engine, he thought that it was the new engine used in Rage, but we had to correct him that the engine in Rage will not be used until it comes out.

 

[Stinky Wizzleteats]

iddqd?

 

[CroutonsofDeath{RD}]

iddqd?

DEGREELESSNESS MODE ON.

idspispopd? You get extra points if you can tell me what it stands for

 

[LTCHIPS]

Well, I beat Wolfenstien, and the final boss is pretty epic. He is indeed a lot better than Henrich (what kind of boss was he?) And if you've been a long time Wolfenstien fan from the start, the final boss is going to surprise you. Here's a hint, its not Deathshead.

I tried the multiplayer, and I recommend lowering the Max Antistrophic to 0, but everything else can be on high, except for Anti Alasing. The multiplayer I'm sorry to say is dissapointing, but it is pretty addicting once you get the hang of it. Its nowhere near RTCW multiplayer (WHERE'S MY DAMN BEACH MAP?!). But, too many people keep complaning about how bad the multiplayer is. But, once there's a pro mod out, things should be better.

I would like to point out that headshots do not kill instantly. This was the same as Wolfenstien Enemy Territory, and RTCW. Also, the game needs performance improvements for multiplayer. Lots of people online where complaning about the FPS lag, and I did have some of it too, but the FPS was consistent, even on my 9800GT. But, multiplayer is somewhat of a let down.

I liked Wolfenstien, but sadly I don't think other fans of the series are going to think that this game is better than RTCW by a long shot.

If you guys wanna know who i am in multiplayer I am of course, LTCHIPS. So, I gotta play some more multiplayer before I can really figure out a final verdict for this game.