Return to Castle Wolfenstein

This game has picked up loads of awards for it's graphics recently, and it's not hard to see why. Even on a medium-spec PC, it looks pretty amazing, with excellent lighting effects, decent character animation and impressive level design (my favourite being the secret Nazi airbase). But where id have pulled out all the stops for the visuals, it seems that they gave the writing team a day off for this game. I gave up caring about the plot after first running into the zombies (which were v.cool), as it wandered between Indiana Jones-esque fantasy, with eerie pagan rituals and undead hi-jinx, and more realistic Hidden & Dangerous style missions, such as capturing the experimental plane and picking your way through the rubble of a bombed out factory. In fact, I wish they'd have put more thought into the overall plot, as the fantasy elements of the game are rather weak and let the side down a little. Sure, the first time you bump into the Uber-Soldat's, you can't help jump in shock, and the excellent 'Lopers' add a real horror feeling to one of the missions, but they aren't used enough, and the level designers seem content to pop them in as mid-level bosses after their initial appearance. Then we go back to running around mansions, shooting plain old Nazi's. Why? Why not more freaky creatures? Why not a more involving plot? Castle Wolfenstein itself is little more than a bit part in this game. It's a shame to see such a well known license squandered on what is little more than an exercise in programming. The end of the game seems to tail off, with more and more empty levels dotted with the occasional enemy. And as for the final boss? Well, it's like id are stuck feet-first in 1994. I'm hoping some decent mission packs surface for RTCW, as the one-player game provides little sustenance for the likes of me. To be fair, I'm just disappointed that they didn't have Cyber-Hitler make a return! Oh, and the multiplayer game is fantastic. Simple as that. Taking part in a 32-a-side war with airstrikes, artillery barrages and flamethrowers. This IS war. Get it right next time id, and stop employing 6th formers to write your plots...

It's still a class game I absolutely love it The best shooting game I played

All these years later, Return to Castle Wolfenstein offers a very fun single-player experience.

The level design is generally intuitive, and grows stronger as the game progresses. The areas you occupy in-game are made more immersive through immaculate attention to detail and period-appropriate decoration.

Certain aspects of the game's visual presentation have aged particularly well, for instance characters' faces and the weapons.

There's good feedback in firefights - you'll usually be able to tell whether you've hit your enemy. However, hitboxes aren't very accurate. Spend enough time using a sniper and you'll realise that many of the shots you clearly miss in fact hit the intended target. It's better to wrongly register misses than not recognise hits, I suppose!

The stealth can be frustrating. It's almost as if AI detection works using RNG instead of a coherent pattern. Sometimes you'll be spotted half a mile away through a dark mist; sometimes the soldier you're sneaking up on will have no peripheral vision whatsoever.

It took me a while to adjust to the absence of an aim-down-sight ability for most weapons in the game, but as your arsenal expands you'll find something that works for your play-style.

A slightly frustrating component of the game is its tendency to use a start-of-level save instead of your latest quicksave for its automatic reload.

There are probably fixes for all of the issues I've raised in this review, but nothing in Return to Castle Wolfenstein agitated me to the point of caring to seek out mods or patches. Take the game as you find it and you'll still be having fun most of the time.

While Return to Castle Wolfenstein may have some good level design, good weapons, good graphics, good sounds and very balanced gameplay, there is nothing in it that one would'nt have seen before in other games. They've tried to squeeze in a proper story for the game but at the end, the story becomes pretty useless and is entirely predictable. But as far as fun alone is concerned, it just falls slightly short of being a classic. There is unfortunately not much long term appeal and there would'nt be much of a multiplayer following for it either. Worth giving a try if can pick it up cheap. While it does have several shortcomings, it is still more fun to play than most games today.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a well-executed update to id's Wolfenstein 3d from 1991. While the storyline is original (though it obviously rips from Raiders of the Lost Ark), there are a few technical issues that my anal-retentive brain just can't leave alone. Fortunately, I won't go into them here.

Once again placing the player into the well-worn boots of BJ Blazkowicz, the game starts you off just as the original did; you were captured and tossed into the dungeon of Castle Wolfenstein, and you just killed your guard. The start even looks about the same; You're looking at the door to your cell, the body of your guard in front of you. However, the original started you with his gun and 8 rounds. Here, you start with your knife (which looks like a Fairbairn-Sykes model), but you don't have to go very far for your first pistol (it's in the doorframe).

As the game travels through the Balkans, occupied Norway, and, of course, Germany itself, you almost feel like those are your hands holding that "borrowed" MP40. In one mission where you must escort a "liberated" Panzer through a town, you feel as though you're walking through a bombed-out city; piles of rubble line the roads, buildings look unsteady, and many of the NPC's you encounter have bandages applied.

My main gripe is that the members of the Wehrmacht you encounter speak in accented English. Sometimes, they'll say something in German (like when they're muttering to themselves, or when it'd be very easy to figure out what they mean), but when it's a miniature cutscene (the second and third people encountered on the Norway mission come readily to mind), the conversation is mostly in English.