This was a very impressive game for me on release. I always loved the Wolfenstein franchise and back in 2013 when the teaser for this came out I was extremely excited. A Wolfenstein title being developed by MachineGames, a studio consisting of ex-Starbreeze developers who worked on the incredible The Chronicles of Riddick Escape from Butcher Bay and The Darkness? Featuring a now gravelly voiced BJ Blazkowicz delivering hyper-macho one-liners and Max Payne-esque monologues? Dual-wielding shotguns and shooting Nazis while industrial metal plays in the background? Sign me up. All the trailers played up the absurdity and I was expecting an over the top action romp that was extremely fun to play/watch but had very little to say.

Instead I got an action game with some moments of humour here and there but an extremely downbeat atmosphere and somber take on fascism, with BJ Blazkowicz bordering on being a deconstruction of the 90s testosterone-fuelled video game action hero. All this in a game about shooting giant Nazi robots while dual wielding sniper rifles for no other reason than just because you can. What I appreciated the most without getting into spoilers is that this is one of those rare games with a proper beginning, middle and end. It's a perfect stand-alone game and the franchise could've ended right here and it would've been a fitting conclusion.

The bad things I have to say about it is that sometimes the storyline overshadows the gameplay - the middle act has way too many gimmicks, walking cutscenes and stealth-only areas where you have no guns and these are all dull, especially on replays. There's also a handful of pretty bad difficulty spikes which don't feel properly playtested. Cutscene to gameplay transitions are strange too, with quite a few sudden cuts that don't look right. Audio mixing is an all around mess and it's a shame the excellent soundtrack is barely audible in some areas because of it.

Back when this game came out, barely 4 years ago as of this writing, it was the most pure and fast-paced big budget shooter you could find, but the game industry moves fast and some of the warts in the combat and level design now show more clearly, especially after Doom 2016: enemy variety is lacking and there isn't much strategy for the big ones beyond "hide behind cover and shoot until it dies." The robots from the trailers are barely used and you'll spend most of your time fighting Nazi infantry. Level variety is great but there's way too many points of no return, especially after the first three levels where the slightly-open areas become a ton more linear - this is game that takes much more after Half-Life (especially 2) than its 90s semi-open brethren.

Despite all this, the presentation of this game is unrivalled and no game in the FPS genre has topped it. It's the perfect mix of being over the top and dumb but also heartbreaking which is very hard to do and something the unneeded 2017 sequel failed at. It made such an impression on me that I ended up buying this on PS4/Xbox One and I must've sunk a total of 300+ hours on this game with over 30 playthroughs. Even with all its flaws this is one of those games that's great because of all the elements it merges together - it's something very special that won't be recaptured by the genre or industry any time soon.

This was a very impressive game for me on release. I always loved the Wolfenstein franchise and back in 2013 when the teaser for this came out I was extremely excited. A Wolfenstein title being developed by MachineGames, a studio consisting of ex-Starbreeze developers who worked on the incredible The Chronicles of Riddick Escape from Butcher Bay and The Darkness? Featuring a now gravelly voiced BJ Blazkowicz delivering hyper-macho one-liners and Max Payne-esque monologues? Dual-wielding shotguns and shooting Nazis while industrial metal plays in the background? Sign me up. All the trailers played up the absurdity and I was expecting an over the top action romp that was extremely fun to play/watch but had very little to say. Instead I got an action game with some moments of humour here and there but an extremely downbeat atmosphere and somber take on fascism, with BJ Blazkowicz bordering on being a deconstruction of the 90s testosterone-fuelled video game action hero. All this in a game about shooting giant Nazi robots while dual wielding sniper rifles for no other reason than just because you can. What I appreciated the most without getting into spoilers is that this is one of those rare games with a proper beginning, middle and end. It's a perfect stand-alone game and the franchise could've ended right here and it would've been a fitting conclusion. The bad things I have to say about it is that sometimes the storyline overshadows the gameplay - the middle act has way too many gimmicks, walking cutscenes and stealth-only areas where you have no guns and these are all dull, especially on replays. There's also a handful of pretty bad difficulty spikes which don't feel properly playtested. Cutscene to gameplay transitions are strange too, with quite a few sudden cuts that don't look right. Audio mixing is an all around mess and it's a shame the excellent soundtrack is barely audible in some areas because of it. Back when this game came out, barely 4 years ago as of this writing, it was the most pure and fast-paced big budget shooter you could find, but the game industry moves fast and some of the warts in the combat and level design now show more clearly, especially after Doom 2016: enemy variety is lacking and there isn't much strategy for the big ones beyond "hide behind cover and shoot until it dies." The robots from the trailers are barely used and you'll spend most of your time fighting Nazi infantry. Level variety is great but there's way too many points of no return, especially after the first three levels where the slightly-open areas become a ton more linear - this is game that takes much more after Half-Life (especially 2) than its 90s semi-open brethren. Despite all this, the presentation of this game is unrivalled and no game in the FPS genre has topped it. It's the perfect mix of being over the top and dumb but also heartbreaking which is very hard to do and something the unneeded 2017 sequel failed at. It made such an impression on me that I ended up buying this on PS4/Xbox One and I must've sunk a total of 300+ hours on this game with over 30 playthroughs. Even with all its flaws this is one of those games that's great because of all the elements it merges together - it's something very special that won't be recaptured by the genre or industry any time soon.