OFFICIAL Wolfenstein: The Old Blood (Review)

[RCoon]

Introduction

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is an expandalone, based a few years before the previous title New Order. As such, it's a prequel, made by the same devs, MachineGames, in the same engine, id Tech 5. Published by Bethesda, The Old Blood takes you back to Castle Wolfenstein in the first part, under deep catacombs, along rivers, and just about every area capable of showing off id Tech 5's broad graphical prowess. The game is split in two parts, offering quite a fair amount of gameplay hours for the price, and expands on an already diverse arsenal of weapons. The game focuses a lot on its new duel wielding melee weapons, the trusty rusty water pipe, which is use to climb surfaces and make stabby-stabby motions into various nazi meatbags (in true Wolfenstein fashion, no less). The game features the odd boss battle, though none quite as diverse as the previous Return to Castle Wolfenstein title. In that regard, most of the enemies and weapons are similar, with just a few additions. The primary area of change is the addition to story content, which is one of the many reasons the game's price is so low. Which is admirable really.

To read the full review, go to: http://www.nextpowerup.com/articles/wolfenstein-the-old-blood-review/
To read the performance analysis, go to: http://www.nextpowerup.com/articles/wolfenstein-the-old-blood-performance-analysis/

 

[Ferrum Master]

CUDA acceleration? Yeah... John Carmack's ID Tech 5 Trojan is still lingering...

Tech 5's broad graphical prowess

You meant the lack of it? Crysis 1 is still better looking... and the thing is 7 years old

 

[RCoon]

CUDA acceleration? Yeah... John Carmack's ID Tech 5 Trojan is still lingering...



You meant the lack of it? Crysis 1 is still better looking... and the thing is 7 years old

id Tech 5 is great for environments, in that it can create some extremely different, but still awesome feeling ones.

It sucks ass at characters though. Like, hard.

 

[Ferrum Master]

id Tech 5 is great for environments

I guess you have to praise the artists, CAD engineers for that, not the engine creators... if they were doing their stuff on Frostbyte/Cryengine/Unigine it would have looked much much better. Look at Bioshock... even UE3(heavily modded tough) manages to do some great atmospheric stuff.

And you know... that 60FPS cap... for a shooter... well cmoon... I cannot grasp what was the reasoning behind that decision, at the very start of the project, as it was known from the start.

 

[RCoon]

I guess you have to praise the artists, CAD engineers for that, not the engine creators... if they were doing their stuff on Frostbyte/Cryengine/Unigine it would have looked much much better. Look at Bioshock... even UE3(heavily modded tough) manages to do some great atmospheric stuff.

And you know... that 60FPS cap... for a shooter... well cmoon... I cannot grasp what was the reasoning behind that decision, at the very start of the project, as it was known from the start.

It's worth noting you can remove that 60FPS cap, but only if you download and screw with the SDK for a while. Personally I didn't.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

I'm enjoying the game, but it's definitely not as good as The New Order. The New Order has a MUCH better structure of route options and stealth or combat choices, both being equally challenging. My first play through of TOB I assumed certain areas would be hard to stealth through, only to find on this 2nd play through they are in fact too easy once you know where to go. And your stealth route options are very linear.

I also disagree completely with your assessment of the perk system being perfect. It's much worse than that of TNO, and one of it's biggest flaws. I loved in TNO how you could choose armor or health perks, and had to pick locks or hack electrical panels to get to the little statues that represented them. Here you just collect X amount of health or armor to overcharge past 100%, which automatically unlocks the perk. There's also only 16 vs 24 perks, they've completely watered it down.

I also liked how in TNO some secret areas could only be gotten to if you saved enough ammo in the laserkraftwerk to cut through a hatch leading to it. And if you recall, in TNO, your choice of perks determined what skills and routes you could use, so it had more replay value. TNO is better in just about every way. The end boss fight mixes it up a bit, forcing a need to use both combat and stealth, but for the most part, TOB is plain.

There's really only one frantic segment where you have to think fast or die just after coming out of the castle and transitioning to another area, but even there, you can overcharge with lots of health and armor just before getting to it, and there's plenty of ammo, health and armor there to make due.

As for the graphical imperfections, I don't know why so many put it all on id Tech 5, when in fact it's mostly Carmack's somewhat "id"iotic Megature concept that is responsible for it.

 

[bubbleawsome]

I thought TPU was hosted in Germany?
A few forums I go to are and we can't talk about the game there. 'Cause nazis I guess

 

[Ferrum Master]

I thought TPU was hosted in Germany?
A few forums I go to are and we can't talk about the game there. 'Cause nazis I guess

Ahh they still linger on past? Stupid idiots, the more you hide it, the more it is getting painful. I don't care about the WW2. I treat it like a fact, just Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan did go on rampage... Concentrate on your damn future, pay the damn taxes and educate yourselves and don't create such conflicts any more based on religion, oppression, greed and blind idiocy.

Well we in game have killed a lot of Japanese, Germans, Russians, Americans, Koreans, Chinese etc... so that is okay... yeah lol... so if some of those game developers would touch some historically known TOUCHY nations, it would be massacre... btw it is nacizm itself again, a closed loop...

Who cares, this is art... a movie, song... don't poke your nose of politics inside... it is like there was a discussion why GTA5 does not have a female character. DAFUQ FEMINAZISM. It just because the scenario was like that and the artist had a story about that and wanted to tell it like that... Don't like it - don't buy it.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

^LOL, he's only talking about a few forums, I doubt it's as bad as you're thinking.

Germany has one of the most stable economies in the world right now. They could be doing a lot worse.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Germany has one of the most stable economies in the world right now. They could be doing a lot worse.

Actually... historically wise - when they were doing bad really ? They are Germans

 

[bubbleawsome]

I just thought swastikas and nazis could not be hosted on german-based servers.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Actually... historically wise - when they were doing bad really ? They are Germans

You seriously have to ask that? Like you don't know it took the help of other countries just to rebuild Germany after Hitler lead them on a global rampage. They didn't fare too well after WWI either.

Ironically though, Hitler actually COULD have kept them on the rebound economically had he not been a lunatic bent on global domination.

 

[RCoon]

I just thought swastikas and nazis could not be hosted on german-based servers.

Of course they can, they just remove the swastikas and replace them with something similar, such as the eagle, or the SS badge, though in this case we have the Wolfenstein symbol instead.

 

[HammerON]

Fun game. Short, but still fun

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Fun game. Short, but still fun

Keep in mind it's a stand alone expansion, not a dedicated "game" per se. The 8 or so hours it gives you, when you unlock all the perks and search for collectibles, is equal to or better than some full priced games.

And they're only asking $20. Most reviewers are calling it one of the best values regarding play time for money spent.