Just like its predecessor "Return to Castle Wolfenstein", made in 2001, this game perhaps doesn't meet the high expectations but it's certainly a playable game, with a couple of nice challenges and additions tot the game-play.
Things all looked fine for this latest Wolfenstein establishment with it's good looking trailers and game-play footage that promised a challenging game, with awesome new weapons and challenging enemies. But well no, it doesn't really meet its high expectations, which is mostly due to the game engine the game is using. It uses the same game engine as the 2003 game "Call of Duty". I loved "Call of Duty" but its a 6 year old game already, so seeing exactly the same game engine and style of game-play in a 2009 game seems just like an odd and outdated thing.
Of course the graphics are more advanced looking though. While "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" was a game that perhaps concentrated more on the horror aspects of the series, this game focuses more on the action and more science-fiction like aspects. It's a faster game with more action and the storyline takes you to all different kind of places, set in different dimensions as well.
For this game you'll find a couple of magic crystals throughout that will give you certain powers. You can see enemies that are in a different dimension and look through walls, or you can slow down time or shoot through shields or create a magic shield of your own. You'll most likely only get to use these powers though when you really need them. They otherwise just don't seem awesome or helpful enough to use constantly throughout the game. After all, the game above all things of course still remains a shooter, rather than a strategy game.
There are still a couple of monsters to fight but they seemed more like science-fiction characters to me that actually villains that creep up on you or zombies that try to suck the life out of you. It's just not a game with scare moments or a creepy atmosphere.
Luckily there also are some more advanced damaging futuristic weapons. With some you can blow away enormous enemies, while others will zap your opponents to small pieces. These weapons are always fun to use, though you'll probably end up not using them too much throughout, since ammo for it isn't around just anywhere and you just never know when you might really need your most powerful weapons.
New and a fine addition to this game is the fact that you can buy upgrades for all of your weapons. These upgrades variate from weapon accuracy, to ammunition capacity and the strength of the weapon's their impact. These upgrades can only be done at a fixed place though in town, which you have to travel to first. Since I didn't liked walking to town much I simply didn't bothered with any of the upgrades. It wasn't about over halve way through the game that I finally started buying some upgrades because it became more difficult to kill certain enemies with my current weapon's state. The upgrades do make a big difference though and it also adds more to the fun of the game.
Between playing the different levels and missions of the game you get to walk around freely in a town called Eisenstadt. This is supposed to give you a more kind of walking around freely feeling but it worked just mostly annoying for me since you often have to travel long distances, also since you'll often just get lost. It was also annoying that every time you re-entered the town you had to first blast to a group of enemies over and over gain, of which some of them would often take lots of time to clear out before you can finally start a nice mission again.
The story-line of the entire game is quite good and it makes you want to go on playing. The enemies in the game often hide behind things when you start to shoot them and they are often in big groups, which makes this an enjoyable and somewhat more challenging shooter. Some enemies that show up are quite hard to kill and take some skill and some of your special weapons and powers to kill off. The end bosses are also all overall challenging enough and it's guaranteed that you'll not walk through this game without ever dying. The more experienced and hardcore gamer will probably finish the game relatively soon though but still the game provides plenty of fun to play it for a couple of days or weeks straight.
A good enough and certainly playable addition to the Wolfenstein franchise, though "Wolfenstein 3D" still remains king!
7/10
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