After 12,510 Shots Fired, 1,019 Total Kills, out of which 627 were headshots, and 32 deaths, most of which were accrued during the final boss fight on the medium "Bring'em On" difficulty, I have just finished
Wolfenstein The Old Blood.
Awesome game in my opinion and to me my new favorite Wolfenstein after Return to Castle Wolfenstein. The New Order's 1960s Nazi utopia was a nice change of scenery from the same old WW2 setting but this is still the "real" Wolfenstein. I'd say it's a tiny little notch better than TNO even.
Not sure why it's got mixed reviews on Steam or why
PC Gamer only gave it a 70% rating (the editor rushed through in only 4.5 hours). For me it's a solid ~85% or so.
I won't spoil any of the story of the game which is rather thin anyway. Suffice to say BJ is investigating some occult Nazi research related to King Otto and visits various locations in and around Castle Wolfenstein during his adventures.
What's nice is that the story unfolds slowly. That way it becomes a part of the progression and it's always motivating to keep going and discover what's next.
The level design is great in this game. Every location is unique and makes sense within the context of the game. No show-off themepark levels.
There are multiple paths often times so you can take a stealthy approach and avoid enemies or go in guns blazing.
The only slightly irritating part with regard to the locations is that Paderborn somehow seems to have moved from central Western Germany to the alps but, OK, it's probably not reasonable to expect historical or geographical accuracy from this kind of game.
Exploration is rewarding thanks to the unlocks and there are quite a few secret areas in the game with interesting things to find like (creepy) audio recordings (think BioShock) that add a bit of background.
You can also sleep in beds again and play classic Wolfenstein (like in TNO).
The atmosphere is awesome. They have absolutely nailed that classic (Return to Castle) Wolfenstein feel. Great characters, too. The German voice over is flawless. This could be straight from a 1940s German flick. And BJ has a few funny as hell moments when he comments on certain things. They should have actually done more of that. It's painfully rare but all the more amusing when he blurts out one of his lines.
The gun play is very similar to TNO, although there are a few "new" weapons, at least by name. It's definitely lots of fun to put the whole arsenal to use. The game could have maybe used a little more variety like opportunities to snipe more often but it's all good fun.
Last but not least, the decent AI should get an extra mention. They've done a really good job here. Those Nazis will come hunt you down quite aggressively. Well done.
On the technical side, as I posted in the "playing now" thread, the game is quite demanding and the id tech engine has probably run its course, too.
On my GTX 980 (i7-4790K, 16GB RAM), I chose the "ultra" preset and then dialed down the AA to 2x for playable fps in the 40s to 60 range. The game dropped from 60 into the 40s when the scenery opened up and every time there was a fire in a scene, probably due to the blurry heat effect.
4x AA increases the used VRAM (at 1440p) from ~2.6GB to ~3.2GB and the RAM usage goes up from ~5.xGB to ~6.5GB while the frames drop from 60fps to ~40fps (and lower in more demanding scenes so it's not really playable very well). Quick note to SLI users: This game does not support SLI.
The graphics are generally great. The developers have paid a lot of attention to detail so many locations are very pleasing to look at. Animations and characters are state of the art.
Finally, for everyone who is considering this game, two more quick hints. Check
this thread at the Steam forums for fixing a silly omission by the devs.
Secondly, I would advise to download and install the
RAD video tools (for the BINK video files). I got a green screen bug on some cutscenes and even a crash to desktop (the only one in the entire 8 - 10 hour playthrough) before installing BINK. The green screen bug must have already been around in TNO but I never encountered it personally. But here I missed a couple cutscenes in the early chapters before I found this fix. Every cutscene after that was displayed properly. Save yourself the annoyance.