I had heard almost nothing about this game but it looked like something I might enjoy, so I was 50/50, but I ended up buying it for the reasonable price of £32 on the PlayStation 4.
So, the first mission takes place in WWII, the mission requires you and a large squad of resistance fighters to assault a Nazi compound in search of an evil Nazi scientist by the name of 'Deathshead'. We're introduced to the main characters, B.J. Blazkowicz (you), Fergus Reid and Private Wyatt. I remember playing through this mission thinking 'if the rest of the game is like this I will love it'. The mission requires you to fight Nazi's in the trenches whilst giant mechanical beasts roam around the compound. It was great, and when the mission came to an end I was looking forward to playing the rest of the game.
The rest of the game is set in the year 1960, you were in a coma for 14 years, and now the Nazi's rule the world. The game does a great job in making the Nazi's actually act like Nazi's: evil, harsh and insane. Every character in the game was developed well and felt like they should be there. The character models look great and the voice acting is excellent.
However, there are some notable features that weren't so good, the first being the controls. In order to switch your weapon you had to hold R1 and select a weapon from the weapon wheel using the analog stick, this was extremely awkward, I had a lot of trouble quickly changing weapon and found that I needed to be very accurate with the stick in order to select the weapon I wanted, it might be just me but I felt it was very awkward. Another thing was the graphics, they're not bad at all, but they're not great either, the lighting is good, weapons and characters faces especially look fantastic, but there are moments where the graphics aren't so good. Most notably the city backgrounds look like 2D pictures compared to close up buildings and the characters fingers and other less important details are blocky.
One thing that I found incredibly annoying and unnecessary was the fact that I needed to press square over a dead enemy's body in order to scavenge bullets and armour, I was constantly inching backwards and forwards tapping square over dead enemies in order to resupply, why? Why couldn't I just automatically pick up bullets as I walked over them?
There are a couple of various glitches in this game, the main one being floating objects, bullets constantly hover in the air, not moving. On the third mission I shot a Nazi commander with the pistol which threw him 5 feet into the air where he remained for the rest of the mission.
But the main factor that annoyed me in this game was the fact that there are two 'different' timelines. Fergus' timeline and Wyatt's. Whoever you save in the first mission determines who's timeline you get. I chose Fergus the first time round (I think everyone did), expecting that if I'd chosen Wyatt instead I would get completely different missions with Wyatt instead of Fergus, I didn't get that. Whoever you choose to save doesn't matter at all, sure one character replaces the other but the only thing that's different is very small changes to the dialogue and cut-scenes and the ability to hot-wire (if you choose Fergus) or pick locks (If you choose Wyatt). That's literally it, the missions are exactly the same.
The game is short, which is bad seeing as it doesn't have multi-player, it's only fairly difficult the first time round (I completed the game on 'I am death incarnate' the 4/5 hardest difficulty in around 10 hours). I completed Wyatt's timeline on the same difficulty in an even shorter time and I'm now on the final mission of 'Uber' difficulty on Fergus' timeline. The game didn't really leave me wanting to play it again.
Don't get me wrong, there are many good things about this game, the most notable being the characters, the characters look good, have good voice actors and act like they should. They all felt necessary and were all very well developed, my personal favourites being Fergus, Set and Caroline.
The story was very good, I enjoyed the cut-scenes, I understood what was going on, there was no 'why am I doing this?' moments which I often experience in other games. Whilst the game is very linear, it's also very enjoyable for the story. Its story is definitely one of its strongest features. You do connect to the characters, I felt sad when Klaus died, I felt bad when I chose Fergus over Wyatt.
This game reminds me of the Metro games a little, the style of the story is very similar (linear but with very small optional side missions).
Overall I'd say whilst the game does have problems and areas to be improved on, the story and characters make up for it. I enjoyed this game and I'd encourage any FPS fan to try it out.
So, the first mission takes place in WWII, the mission requires you and a large squad of resistance fighters to assault a Nazi compound in search of an evil Nazi scientist by the name of 'Deathshead'. We're introduced to the main characters, B.J. Blazkowicz (you), Fergus Reid and Private Wyatt. I remember playing through this mission thinking 'if the rest of the game is like this I will love it'. The mission requires you to fight Nazi's in the trenches whilst giant mechanical beasts roam around the compound. It was great, and when the mission came to an end I was looking forward to playing the rest of the game.
The rest of the game is set in the year 1960, you were in a coma for 14 years, and now the Nazi's rule the world. The game does a great job in making the Nazi's actually act like Nazi's: evil, harsh and insane. Every character in the game was developed well and felt like they should be there. The character models look great and the voice acting is excellent.
However, there are some notable features that weren't so good, the first being the controls. In order to switch your weapon you had to hold R1 and select a weapon from the weapon wheel using the analog stick, this was extremely awkward, I had a lot of trouble quickly changing weapon and found that I needed to be very accurate with the stick in order to select the weapon I wanted, it might be just me but I felt it was very awkward. Another thing was the graphics, they're not bad at all, but they're not great either, the lighting is good, weapons and characters faces especially look fantastic, but there are moments where the graphics aren't so good. Most notably the city backgrounds look like 2D pictures compared to close up buildings and the characters fingers and other less important details are blocky.
One thing that I found incredibly annoying and unnecessary was the fact that I needed to press square over a dead enemy's body in order to scavenge bullets and armour, I was constantly inching backwards and forwards tapping square over dead enemies in order to resupply, why? Why couldn't I just automatically pick up bullets as I walked over them?
There are a couple of various glitches in this game, the main one being floating objects, bullets constantly hover in the air, not moving. On the third mission I shot a Nazi commander with the pistol which threw him 5 feet into the air where he remained for the rest of the mission.
But the main factor that annoyed me in this game was the fact that there are two 'different' timelines. Fergus' timeline and Wyatt's. Whoever you save in the first mission determines who's timeline you get. I chose Fergus the first time round (I think everyone did), expecting that if I'd chosen Wyatt instead I would get completely different missions with Wyatt instead of Fergus, I didn't get that. Whoever you choose to save doesn't matter at all, sure one character replaces the other but the only thing that's different is very small changes to the dialogue and cut-scenes and the ability to hot-wire (if you choose Fergus) or pick locks (If you choose Wyatt). That's literally it, the missions are exactly the same.
The game is short, which is bad seeing as it doesn't have multi-player, it's only fairly difficult the first time round (I completed the game on 'I am death incarnate' the 4/5 hardest difficulty in around 10 hours). I completed Wyatt's timeline on the same difficulty in an even shorter time and I'm now on the final mission of 'Uber' difficulty on Fergus' timeline. The game didn't really leave me wanting to play it again.
Don't get me wrong, there are many good things about this game, the most notable being the characters, the characters look good, have good voice actors and act like they should. They all felt necessary and were all very well developed, my personal favourites being Fergus, Set and Caroline.
The story was very good, I enjoyed the cut-scenes, I understood what was going on, there was no 'why am I doing this?' moments which I often experience in other games. Whilst the game is very linear, it's also very enjoyable for the story. Its story is definitely one of its strongest features. You do connect to the characters, I felt sad when Klaus died, I felt bad when I chose Fergus over Wyatt.
This game reminds me of the Metro games a little, the style of the story is very similar (linear but with very small optional side missions).
Overall I'd say whilst the game does have problems and areas to be improved on, the story and characters make up for it. I enjoyed this game and I'd encourage any FPS fan to try it out.