The story itself was moved along via engine cut-scenes, conversations between soldiers, and notepads holding little clues to the story lying around in the game that you can read. no more shouts of "Ach mein leiber!" to keep you company on your killing sprees. The dialogue that took place between some of the idle enemies really wasn't all that interesting in the first place, so why not put it in German to set the mood even more? I don't know. Voice overs were pretty well done, even if the Germans did speak in English. The sound added a bit with some eerie noises in some parts and the various sounds that go with bullets hitting different materials. The point of Wolfenstein for me has always been the creepiness of the ultimate mad scientist hideout, but when you get into attacking hangars and regular environments, the game somehow loses the appeal it once had. The mood in these levels is also set well with some very nice level design but textures became much more commonplace. After leaving the castle you'll get to a village (which was also outstanding by the way) and eventually some catacombs. Maybe this was because I wanted to stay in the creepy halls of Castle Wolfenstein for the whole game where the moody feel to the textures and lighting really set you to go adventuring. The levels themselves were also very well done, although a little hit and miss for me. Guess that just goes to show that the developers did a pretty good job. "That's so depressing," says Amy, "there they were just talking and having a life two seconds ago and now they're gone." She only stopped crying after I convinced her that they were, in fact, just polygonal make-ups and not real people. My roommate (who although she doesn't play games, does sit down and watch every now and again) was quite disturbed to see that a couple of guards that had been talking and strolling along about there own business were suddenly lying dead on the floor. Animations are fluid and fun to watch for the most part, especially some of the idle animations that bring the soldiers to life.
Lips move separate from the teeth behind them creating a nice lip-synching that isn't perfect but certainly adds to the effect. The textures used on the models and all throughout the game are top notch. The models are some of the best I've seen to date. First off the look of the game is really, really fantastic. There's a lot of tried and true level design and gameplay here without ever really taking a leap into new territory like No One Lives Forever did.īut one thing that can be said about this game is that its atmosphere is pretty darn good. There's nothing really new and exciting with the single player aspect of the game that makes it challenging or really all that interesting. And that's part of the problem I suppose.
Anybody that has ever played an FPS and gotten through it won't have an incredibly tough time with this game. After calming down a little bit and taking a shower, I finally got to sitting down long enough to play the game and found myself in a pretty solid single player game and an incredibly fun and horribly addicting multiplayer game. So when we finally went and got our hands on a copy of the game, I got the game handed to me and I tore the box open, peed on myself and rubbed the jewel case all over my body for a little while. When we got the chance to play a little of the single player action and a couple more of the multiplayer maps at an event for the game, it just reinforced our excitement.
After getting the chance to play the multiplayer beta along with everyone else on the Internet, we all quickly became horribly addicted and were salivating at a chance for some more action. There weren't very many games that we were looking forward to playing quite as much as Return to Castle Wolfenstein.