Wolfenstein

Release Date

9 September 2009

Transcript

Wolfenstein. Christ, we’ve been getting big-headed lately haven’t we? Not Wolfenstein 2 or Wolfenstein: Revenge of the Man with a Chocolate Box Concealed In His Hairdo, just Wolfenstein. It’s like what they did with Star Trek, Friday the 13th, and Final Destination. What, did some kind of apocalypse happen while I wasn’t looking and now everything has to reset? You know what future historians will say about us, right? “There were two very different games within the same 20-year period, both called Wolfenstein, and the second one was not strictly speaking a remake of the first. From this we can conclude that the people of the early 21st century were taking the piss!”

It feels weird to call it generic, since this is the franchise that practically invented the genre, but Wolfenstein – the new one, that is – subscribes to so many of the cliches of current generation action games that it’s like The Spy Who Loved Me of FPSes; it’s so obnoxiously safe and committee-designed that any attempt to critique it in my normal manner would be equally as dull. That’s why I’ve decided to review it in limerick form!

In the tumultuous time before D-Day,

There once was a man named BJ,

With chocolate box hair

And a face like a bear

And a jacket he picked up on eBay.

He was out one day murdering Germans,

As they tried to enact London’s Burning,

He beat up some dudes,

And broke missile tubes,

So their boat got blown up, that’ll learn ‘em!

But while there he made the discovery

That the Nazis had powers like no other-y,

He bought back a bangle

With some mystical angle,

To which the Allies responded, “Oh, buggery!”

At the secret service of Queen Lizzie

BJ’s bosses find themselves in a tizzy.

So they stand up and shout,

“BJ, sort this all out!

“We’d do it ourselves, but we’re busy.”

So he’s sent to a big German town

Where some serious shit’s going down.

There’s an active resistance

In need of assistance

And everything’s gone grayish-brown.

It soon becomes clear that the city

Has been invaded by occult committees:

Mystical preachers

And slavering creatures

And gymnasts with stonking great titties.

You may wonder if this is a sequel

To some past Wolfenstein, or a prequel

Depicting our hero

In a previous era

When he wasn’t looked upon as an equal.

It’s actually meant to succeed

Return to Castle Wolfenstein’s lead

Which is pretty damn slow

‘Cause that was eight years ago

And the memories have gone stale indeed.

The new Wolfenstein seeks to enthrall

With an ongoing high-octane brawl,

But it’s a game about war

That we’ve all seen before

And just like the title adds fuck all.

Any pretense of freshness is gone

At the very outset of Stage One.

You escape your pursuers

Via underground sewers,

So we start as we mean to go on.

Your gun is of course your best friend,

On which you must always depend.

When you get into fights,

You can look down the sights

And bullets come out of the end.

Weapon choice doesn’t start too exciting:

Two machine guns, a rifle for sniping.

But later on, BFGs

Coming with guarantees

To shoot various flavours of lightning.

There are soldiers all over the place

Who can’t take two shots to the face,

But before you pour scorn,

They always respawn

At a pretty disquieting pace.

You don’t need to worry about health;

If you’re retarded and lousy at stealth,

Just get behind cover

If you’re in a bother

And it will all come back by itself.

It won’t help you avoid the bum-rape

Later on when you get into scrapes

With powerful blasters

And big armoured bastards

With weak points the size of a grape.

To help out, you have on your side

Magic spells that some crystals provide.

On the appropriate cue

The world turns greenish-blue

So it looks like your monitor’s died.

You can take down the big lads in minutes,

Start a fight with ten men and still win it,

Make your weapons divine,

Or just use bullet time

(Which wasn’t that great when Max Payne did it).

But the powers are hard to sustain;

Your magic is too swiftly drained.

In the middle of a fight

You’ll end up in the shite

And will suffer a whole world of pain.

And in between all of the shooting

You also must think about looting,

Because if you want to upgrade

Someone has to be paid,

And the shopkeepers don’t like freebooting.

Why do all games need upgrading elements?

Even in ones where it isn’t quite relevant?

It means all your big-hitters

Start off in the shitter

And your aim is unfirm and inelegant.

So when you’ve extinguished the danger,

You backtrack through all the chambers

Searching every last nook

For cash and chequebooks

(Which you won’t find much fun, I would wager).

It transpires that the in-game reality

Has pretensions to non-linearity.

The game says, “On your bike!

Go wherever you like,

As long as it’s in this principality."

But the freedom’s a mere gilded cage

That adds nothing to inspire or engage.

It just means beating feet

Through the same boring streets

Just to get to the next fucking stage.

There’s very little to do except hunt

For secrets and money upfront,

But the reward’s pretty lame,

All the streets look the same,

And the bads keep respawning, the cunts.

But it’s not totally asinine, sure,

There are optional missions to score,

But I went out of my way

And found to my dismay

That in total there’s only like four!

I guess the ultimate question is “Why

Should I even bother to try?”

Every last NPC

Fills me with apathy.

Am I expected to care when they die?

I know what you’re gonna say, “Yahtzee,

“You slick Internet paparazzi,

“Surely it’s always fun

“To stick the butt of a gun

“Up the arse of a goosestepping Nazi!”

Well, if you like starting punch-ups in bars,

Or your head has been lodged up your arse,

Wolfenstein may give

At least some joie de vivre,

But the wise don’t bother. Two stars.

Addendum

His unique reviewing technique

Is to speak with unbridled critique,

But if there's one thing he hates

It's postponed released dates,

So Arkham Asylum is next week.

Wolfenstein

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