Is anyone else strangely excited for the new Wolfenstein game?

[Architecture]

Singularity is $7.50 right now on Amazon, I might scoop it up.

[Sno]

You know, even if the game ends up not being so great, these trailers have been super fun.

I do think the game looks really great though.

[Boris Stoke]

I really want this game, but it comes out just a week or so before Watch Dogs and Mario Kart 8.  I can't handle this much all at once!

[Architecture]

You know, even if the game ends up not being so great, these trailers have been super fun.

I do think the game looks really great though.

Man, this looks amazing, but I kind of wish I hadn't watched it. They seem confident that they've got a good game, and I like to see that--but the last line ruins what would probably otherwise be a phenomenal surprise.

[melmer]

AI may be a little rough. This video made me lol

http://www.allgamesbeta.com/2014/05/wolfenstein-new-order-ai-dumber-than.html

[melmer]

I got this through the post today. I got to the menu screen, selected extras (anything to avoid selecting NEW GAME amirite) flicked through five tabs of locked content (you unlock stuff I'm assuming with collectables throughout the game). I then checked out my STATS page, lots of 0's. I then turned it off.

I'll try again tomorrow

It was actually downloading a massive day one patch and I didn't want to start it until it had updated. Call my crazy but I think the download was 45GB, like it was overwriting the entire install :/ sucks for peeps with crummy intertubes

[melmer]

Just googled it, apparently the patch was 5GB. Pfft 45gb, 5gb close enough

[Dewar]

Depending on which you count as separate games, 8 prior to this one:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfenstein_(series)#Chronology

I had no idea that there were two games before Wolfenstein 3D.

[Chris]

Beginning of this game is boring-ass tutorialized canned action sequence garbage. Anyone played long enough to know when/if it breaks out of that?

[Frenetic Pony]

Beginning of this game is boring-ass tutorialized canned action sequence garbage. Anyone played long enough to know when/if it breaks out of that?

 

Crap. It's got to get better right? Places I generally sort of trust for reviews seem to like it.

[N1njaSquirrel]

Depending on which you count as separate games, 8 prior to this one:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfenstein_(series)#Chronology

 

What worries me more is the last line of the original Castle Wolfenstein wikipedia article.

 

 A hack, named Castle Smurfenstein replaces the Nazis with smurfs, created as part of a plan to destroy mankind. 

 

whut.

[melmer]

That was a good start! (Said in a sarcastic manner)

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10154185997500389&id=789500388

The game opens up pretty quickly, after about 30mins you're running ang gunning in the trenches

[Sno]

Holy shit, this is a forty gig download?

[melmer]

I thought it was. I didn't know if the Playstation was still installing the disc of something.

 

I thought i had made a mistake at 45GB as it had finished downloading within an hour and i didn't think my internet was that fast

[Justin Leego]

Yes indeed, it's 50gb on Steam. For comparison, Rage was 25GB, but that was three years ago, and the first published id Tech 5 game.

System Requirements
OS: 64-bit Windows 7/Windows 8
Processor: Intel Core i7 or equivalent AMD
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: GeForce 460, ATI Radeon HD 6850
Hard Drive: 50 GB available space

edit: that's the other thing - i7 as minimum spec CPU. Man.
edïten: guess that should be their recommended rather than min spec, there is hope in grid-based form
http://www.gamestar.de/hardware/praxis/technik-check/3056002/wolfenstein_the_new_order_im_technik_check_p4.html

[Sno]

Man, that... That first level... That's not so good. I went in kind of expecting that you guys were blowing it out of proportion, but a turret sequence and sparsely populated corridor trenches are maybe not the way to make a great first impression. It was so dull, i started getting really worried about the game. After the time-skip is where the game seems like it settles into being what it's going to be, and i'm really enjoying most of what's been happening there. Big multi-pathed combat spaces with lots of dynamic action.

 

The game has some pretensions about being a stealth game, and while it would have been easy for it to have become utterly superfluous, it's reinforced by officers who start summoning extra allies when they're alerted to your presence. It's often in your best interest to strive for stealth kills against them before exploding into violence with everybody else. I like that dynamic, i think it works.

 

The achievement-based perk system is also kind of a weird, interesting thing to tie into a single-player FPS.

 

I don't think i'm buying into the pathos they're trying to infuse into B.J. Blazkowicz, but the game is generally pretty well written.

 

Also, the video that was making the rounds trying to illustrate that the AI in the game is terrible is pretty misleading. The AI is fine, the issue is the behavior of those specific enemies in that one stretch of the game. It's clearly designed as a stealth sequence, but it feels like the game doesn't want to commit to it. Since you can't go guns blazing there, it seems like Machine Games opted to make the enemies laughably ineffectual so as not to roadblock people who wanted to fight through regardless. It comes across as a little confused. (That video also goes to some lengths to make the combat look as bad as possible, but in the game those enemies are immediately dispatched with a simple counter move, there isn't a garish QTE to mash through every time.)

It's still problematic, just a different kind of problematic.

Uneven, i would say is my first impression of Wolfenstein: New Order, from spending a few hours with it. I don't know if the people who made this game were even involved with it, but the Starbreeze game it most reminds me of is, somewhat unflatteringly, Syndicate. Hey though, i thought Syndicate was pretty underrated.

[SecretAsianMan]

What is the tone of the game?  I have zero first hand experience in the game and everything I know about it is taken from either a Giantbomb Quick Look or accounts from other people (like the Thumbs).  I understand that there's a significant amount of care taken to give the world an interesting backstory with stuff like Nazi versions of the Beatles and alternate history news clippings, plus the characters seems to be pretty serious.  Then there's things like dual wielding every weapon and robot dogs and nightmares about Wolfenstein 3D.  Is the game serious?  Is it silly?  Does it try to be serious but come off as silly?  Any of those are ok but I want to know what I'd be getting into if I ever did get the game.

[Sno]

It has a wry self-effacing sense of humor at times, but it's mostly super sternly serious in tone. It's definitely pretty pulpy though, and kind of quietly self-aware about it. I'm actually really liking what they're trying to do with the narrative. The leads behind this game are no strangers to making narratively flimsy source material work surprisingly well, looking back at The Darkness and the two Riddick games. I've heard some later parts come across as a little gross and tone deaf though, we'll have to see how i feel about those.

[melmer]

My obsessive compulsive tendencies are ruining this game for me a little bit. Fixated on the perks, which influences how I approach every enemy encounter "I must shoot every enemy whilst peaking out from behind cover". Luckily I'm already about 60-70% of the way through the perks and I've only just finished the third chapter (of 16) so I should hopefully max the lot out by the time I get about a third of the way through the game, allowing me to play the game the way I want....

Although the game is super stealth heavy so far, and I just feel like a failure if I get spotted. The game is far more enjoyable when I'm duel wielding and lobbing grenades, but it's tainted slightly as I feel like I've failed when the commanders start shouting ALARM.

(But when they do it makes me think of this and I laugh to myself. ALARM! Skip to 1:41)

Also I'm obsessing over the collectables, they show up on the mini map so there's no excuse to miss any.... But I did miss one in chapter 3, so I'm going to have to reply the level :/

Apparently the mounted turrets are "laser" turrets, and laser turrets can shoot through ventilation grates, grrr. Remember that for the end of chapter three peps

[melmer]

I think I would be enjoying the game more if there where no collectables or perks, Like half life 2 or original bioshock.

For example. Chapter 3, the goal of the mission is to kill all nazis at a check point do you can get a car safety through. But that doesn't even enter my head when I'm playing, my only motivations are MAX OUT PERKS and meticuluosly search every room for precious loot. stupid loot

Other than that the games great

[Sno]

Concerning those sorts of things, one thing it does do, that i think every game built around checkpoint saves should do, is that if you unlock a perk or find a collectable, it is retained even if you subsequently die and are put back at a checkpoint prior to you accomplishing that task. It infuriates me to no end if a game has a rigid checkpoint system, and after spending maybe twenty mintues carefully exploring through an area and finding all the secrets, i die in some stupid way and have to do all that busy work again. New Order does not make you do that.

Also, i guess the choice you make at the start of the diverges into two slightly different campaigns with altered stories and, i am told, different paths through some levels.

 

Anyways, I sort of ended up just marathoning through the game and actually liking it a ton, the game gets better as it goes along. (Did the medium difficulty, Steam says it took 14 hours.) The story goes to some incredibly odd places though, and feels really clunky in a few other spots, i'm not immediately sure what i think of how it developed.

[Bremaine]

I'm very interested in getting this game. Sadly I have not played any of the original games aside from a brief time with one of the games from the series that I can't recall. I hear it's pretty cool, so I might eventually pick it up. 

[Sno]

This is a great piece.

[twmac]

So, I have played through to just after a prison level and there is a dissonance between the two styles of play and the story line.

 

I am playing on the difficulty between normal and uber, and the main problem I am having is that there are clear points where I must resort to stealth to get through them and then quickly revert back to all out carnage if I want to not get brutally murdered.

 

This would be fine as they are clearly sign posted (if you are told there are commanders in the area then you better start using stealth) but it just then feels like both types of play are neutered as a result of not wanting to over power one or the other.

 

When it does go ovaries-to-the-wall mental with the violence (the auto-shotguns will happily sever limbs) you then get hit by some cutscene that makes it very hard to understand where the pathos is supposed to fit in. It is a bit like watching First Blood 2 or the new Rambo film - they would be fun but the straight faced moments between the violence makes no sense.

 

My last main complaint is that I have no idea why the fuck they make me have to pick up bullets and health. Secrets and weapons, fine, I should be forced to look for those but when every encounter (on harder difficulties at least) is then punctuated by having to slowly move around nosing around for prompts instead of being able to rampage to the next gun fight just breaks the pace.

 

In contrast, look at Saints Row IV that understood that the one thing that sucked the most was having to regen your health and instead had every enemy drop health so that there was no need to retreat if you were  good at the game. Wolfenstein manages to change some old-school design and still make itself feel out dated.

[melmer]

I've realised the health system works the same way as butcher bay. if you remember.  the 100 health is actually split into 5 segments of twenty, so for example if you health goes down to 85 it will recharge back to 100. but drop to 75 and it will only recharge to 80.

 

I played most of it on hard but had to lower the difficulty in an underground train station, you should be coming up to it soon. You have to take on 3 ubersoldats and i was getting annihilated, i do wonder if you can jump on the train and skip the fight, maybe that is what you are supposed to do as it was a serious difficulty spike even on medium.