REVIEW – The American solder, spy and action hero: B.J. Blaskowitz, returns once again in the prequel to Wolfenstein: The New Order. The standalone DLC Old Blood offers the same amount of crazy and bloody gunfights against all kind of overpowered Nazi soldiers, robotic dogs and other nastiness. The real question is whether it can keep up with the level of excellence of The New Order – including the story, which was surprisingly important in the previous game – or this “Old Blood” is – as the title suggests – got too “old” already?

 

Mixing Quentin Tarantino’s style with the well-known series of the Nazi killing World War II action game was an excellent idea as it was proven in Wolfenstein: The New Order. Making another full game with the same engine would have been a cheap idea, so MachineGames opted instead for the DLC solution.

If we take in consideration, that Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is “just” a DLC (with a cheaper price tag) and we can get a good amount of 6-8 hours from it (which is about the same, or perhaps even more than the playtime of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare) we can be extremely satisfied with the game. On the other hand there are some problems which somewhat degraded my enjoyment. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves…

Where Eagles Dare(d)

The story takes place during the late ‘40s and it once again places you in the blood-soaked boots of B.J. Blazkowicz, just before he saved the world from Deathshead’s alternate-history evil. The story this time around has a feeling of the famous action war movie: Where Eagles Dare since you have to infiltrate mountainside fortresses in SS uniform, escape Nazi prisons, before fighting waves of zombies.

Unfortunately nothing about the story feels really unforgettable. While The New Order was full of excellent cut scenes with twists and clever, Tarantino-like visuals what we have here is just a predictable story with generally less impressive characters. The story is still a bit better than in previous Wolfenstein games before The New Order, but it lacks everything what made The New Order such an outstanding title.

Same old bloodshed

Concerning the gameplay no good nor bad surprise here: The Old Blood delivers the same amount of non-stop and crazy FPS action. Nazis are plenty, their bloodthirstiness in the name of their Führer isn’t any different either.

While most of them are Human, many times they tend to act like zombies: instead of trying to defend themselves, they just run ahead, only to be gunned down. Okay, I don’t expect lifelike AI from a Wolfenstein game, but the sheer stupidity of the AI in this game was a bit too much. (Or am I getting old? Nah, I still have young blood in me. 😉 )

Besides the narrow corridors of Castle Wolfenstein and other familiar grounds we also have some special levels, but less than in The New Order and some of them also feels a bit over used, like the cable-car cabins between the high cliffs of the snowy German mountains. All in all: solid gameplay here, with lots bloody moments and crazy action, but few surprises.

Take no prisoners, kill everybody!

When gunning down your enemies, which I promise happens quite a bit, the levels are by and largely satisfying. The areas are multi-level, full of cover points, and peppered with secret passages. Each weapon, from the precise Bombenschluss to the room-clearing Kampfpistol, has a balanced use throughout the campaign.

Managing scarce ammo, knowing which weapon to use on which type of soldier, and constantly surveying the surroundings for cues make these fights more interesting and satisfying than the typical run-and-gun.

But while the weapons all feel good in their own right, none of them really do anything unique when it comes to genre. Shotguns, sniper rifles, and explosives act exactly as you’d expect from a shooter in 2015, and while that makes for some fun encounters, they don’t really deliver any surprises.

Still, it was nice to see prototype versions of what would become standard enemies 20 years later in The New Order, like a janky version of the mechanical dog that stalked us back in 2014’s game.

This RAGE engine is fuelled by “old blood” indeed

I kind of liked Rage in 2011 on the PlayStation 3 even if I wasn’t overwhelmed by it. One of the reason it lacked the full glory a game from John Carmack and id Software would deserve is the very engine conceived by John Carmack. id Tech 5 was already outdated and somewhat flawed at its birth and the four years which passed weren’t too kind to it.

The game isn’t ugly, far from it, but the in-game texture loading (which was a technical solution to accommodate older consoles for Rage) was simply getting on my nerves. The New Order somehow managed to avoid this, but in The Old Blood everywhere I looked, there was texture loading over texture loading and the even aristocratic halls of Wolfenstein or the majestic looking snowy mountains near the castle lost their effect on me. It’s a pity, because otherwise – if not for this lame texture loading – the game would look excellent. Developers, just get rid of this id Tech 5 for Christ’s sake!

B.J. you sneaky bastard

Besides those technical problems I wasn’t too fond of the sneaking sections either. Since I am big fan of Splinter Cell games I want my sneaky sections at least decent in every games and I can get seriously annoyed when it’s done wrong. In the Old Blood sneaking sections aren’t really bad, nor aren’t really enjoyable either. The problem with them is that we often need to sneak in narrow passages and we have very few options and occasions to hide ourselves.

It doesn’t help that the save points are not always well placed either. In the Old Blood’s eight chapters, there were a few tough stealth sections where I managed to remain hidden for over a long time, only to be spotted within sight of my goal and frustratingly forced to repeat the whole thing over again.

Besides sneaking I was sick of hitting the button to pick up millions of items almost all the time in the game. That was a severe problem in the The New Order already and instead of fixing it, Old Blood throws an even larger pile of items at you. Good job!

Full of old blood…

While the intense combat is still as satisfying as in its predecessor, the weapons feels great, and the levels are well made, there are other nagging problems which unfortunately brings down the score of the game. The story is lacking and mundane here, id Tech 5 is “old blood” indeed, and some of the problems which haven’t been eradicated are even worse than in The New Order.

Still, if you don’t mind those problems, such a low price for the six to eight hours of The Old Blood DLC is a steal.

-BadSector-

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Publisher Bethesda Softworks
Developer: MachineGames
Genre: 3D, Action, First-Person, Shooter,
Published: 2015 May 2

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