Is anyone else strangely excited for the new Wolfenstein game?

[JonCole]

Wait, is there a theory that Blazkowitz skinned the nazi, tanned his skin and then artisinally designed and created a fine leather jacket complete with zippers, pockets and a fur lining?

 

Now that's some bespoke content.

[kaputt]

Yep, it's just a leather jacket that belonged to the old man, just watched the scene again. Even the old man says that Blazckowicz is a handsome guy, because he's reminding of himself wearing that jacket when he was young.

[twmac]

Yeah, that is a massive leap in your imagination there. Especially the comment the old guy makes about Blaskowicz not being as handsome as him [in the jacket].

[toblix]

Just finished this, and:

• I really loved this game.
• I could spend an infinite amount of time in these levels. The level of detail in every nook and cranny is just mind-blowing.
• I enjoyed the combat probably about 95% of the time. I loved the parts where I could sneak around and stealth-kill guys like a ninja, and on the occasions where I fucked up stealth and went berserk, being able to lean and peek over stuff made the combat fun. Revealing collectibles on the map was a nice reward for stealth-killing commanders, I thought. All in all; leaning, stealth, dual-wielding and weapon modes really worked well throughout this rather long game. The 5% of the combat I didn't enjoy were the more hectic battles with lots of enemies with heavy armor. Switching between weapons and weapon modes was not easy, and I died a lot of times because I lost track of what was going on weapon-wise.
• I loved the consistently high amount of custom assets throughout. Very little repetition of stuff, and lots of little things happening as I played.
• I'm a bit torn on whether I thought the whole Nazi thing was fine. There's something that fascinates me, in a creepy way, whenever nazis are used as fictional bad guys in video games. The way they went all-out with the Nazi aesthetic, the architecture, the swastikas and German text and voices and concentration camps and the Volkshalle – the way it's all rooted in actual things that have happened makes it more, I don't know ... effective? Visceral? However, part of me thinks that you shouldn't fucking make cool robots and pulpy video games and creepy fictional Joseph Mengeles based on this fucking horrible thing that actually happened a few decades ago and living people can still remember. I don't find Indiana Jones offensive, though, so.
• The adventure gamey stuff back at the base was awesome.
• Oh and I wonder if it's really necessary for games like these to have the steep difficulty curve right towards the end, where you have to fight more and more and tougher and tougher enemies right as you near the ending. Obviously I get how it maps to the narrative and the increasing excitement they want you to feel as you near the end. However, since the exact difficulty curve is impossible to set just right, for a lot of players, such as me, I suddenly start having to retry a bunch of combat scenarios. For me, this affects my enjoyment of the game negatively. For most of the game I've been savoring the combat and puzzles and exploring all the environments, and suddenly I'm filled with dread and just want to get things over with, praying each combat set piece or boss stage really is the last one. There's a boss fight at about 85% of the game which turns out to have sort of a puzzle solution – that would make for a much better ending than the one where you just empty all your guns at a thing, hoping a cut-scene will trigger before you're killed.

[JonCole]

• Oh and I wonder if it's really necessary for games like these to have the steep difficulty curve right towards the end, where you have to fight more and more and tougher and tougher enemies right as you near the ending. Obviously I get how it maps to the narrative and the increasing excitement they want you to feel as you near the end. However, since the exact difficulty curve is impossible to set just right, for a lot of players, such as me, I suddenly start having to retry a bunch of combat scenarios. For me, this affects my enjoyment of the game negatively. For most of the game I've been savoring the combat and puzzles and exploring all the environments, and suddenly I'm filled with dread and just want to get things over with, praying each combat set piece or boss stage really is the last one. There's a boss fight at about 85% of the game which turns out to have sort of a puzzle solution – that would make for a much better ending than the one where you just empty all your guns at a thing, hoping a cut-scene will trigger before you're killed.

 

Yeah, I thought that the progression of that battle at 85% versus the progression of the final battle was quite superior. I guess the only good part of the final battle being as it was is that I was 100% sure it was the last battle, so unlike in other games I burned all my special ammo because why not? I don't like when the final battle is a surprise and then you're like, "glad I saved all my armor-piercing ammo for the last bo... oh, crap that was the last boss :("

 

Also, #kraftwerkart -

 

[Ben X]

I might get this down the road, when I've cleared my backlog (so, about two years from now). I recently got Wolfenstein 3D in a deal, so I'm wondering if Return To Castle Wolfenstein was a good (and different) enough game to make it worth playing that in between the two...

[toblix]

Speaking of big butts, that is the location where I encountered the first battle I failed and had to retry. I guess another thing I didn't love about the combat was that it was very hard to tell if a weapon was effective or not. I still don't know if the big guns you can lug around are better/worse than the rocket launcher attachment or the laser gun or whatever.

[JonCole]

Speaking of big butts, that is the location where I encountered the first battle I failed and had to retry. I guess another thing I didn't love about the combat was that it was very hard to tell if a weapon was effective or not. I still don't know if the big guns you can lug around are better/worse than the rocket launcher attachment or the laser gun or whatever.

 

Yeah, that was a tough encounter. My impression about the big guns is that they're mostly just effective vs the normal guys and not any of the specials, half because they make you slow and vulnerable to enemy fire and half because they aren't great at range and you really don't want to get up close and personal with a shotgun or rocket guy.

[Architecture]

So I picked up The Old Blood for $5 during GMG's summer sale. I might enjoy this more than the full game. Has anyone else played the expansion yet?

[bakelite]

I'm about five hours in. Combat feels a bit more polished and I really like how you can lean in every direction, but I just don't find the setting as interesting as dystopian '60s Berlin.