0.5/5 ★ – Lord_Hazenberg's review of Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.

I’ll give this dumpster fire one half star because the graphics are much prettier than its predecessors. There will be story spoilers ahead if you care. With that out of the way, let the rant commence. MachineGames squandered all of the good will they had from the great reboot that was New Order. They marketed this game as the first game ever that lets you kill Nazis, even though the original Castle Wolfenstein released in 1981. There are over 4 hours of cutscenes in this 10 hour game. You will spend nearly half of your time in a fucking first person shooter just sitting there and watching. The story picks up shortly after The New Order. The badass BJ Blazkowicz has been replaced by a mopey, depressed cripple who incessantly whines about wanting to die. Fergus/Wyatt are reduced to useless comic relief. All of the new characters are the most unlikable bunch of douchebags I’ve ever seen assembled. One even goes on a rant about how male testicles aren’t masculine at all but fragile (subtle much). The main villain wants to be Cristoph Waltz from Inglorious Bastards so badly and utterly fails. The only good guy factions left are literal communists & black panthers (agenda much). Hitler shoots Ronald Reagan in the face (again agenda much). BJ had a stereotypical racist & abusive dad who forced him to kill his own dog after flirting with a black girl in a flashback sequence (I’m not kidding). What cheap emotional trick is better to use on your audience than killing a dog. BJ’s heavily pregnant with twins wife is on the frontlines of battle, because who cares about their children’s lives when girl power is at stake (something The Last of Us 2 would follow suit in). With a retarded & gratuitous blood covered nude scene of her as well (someone at MachineGames has a pregnancy fetish). You also defeat the main villain by QTE/cutscene in a game released in 2017. The gameplay is brain dead personified. A broken stealth mechanic that doesn’t work, yet infinitely spawns enemies if you fail. You are forced to play at permanent half health for the first half of the game making some early levels way too hard. Your choice of the body upgrade in the second half doesn’t matter at all. Zero boss fights as well which is a cardinal sin for an old school FPS. The level & art design are some of the most atrocious things my eyes have ever witnessed. Every single environment is brown or grey, no exceptions. Bland military base or destroyed town are your only locales throughout the entire game. You’re also stuck inside a cramped submarine for the opening hours. What a genius idea for a fast paced shooter, linear cramped corridors with no room to maneuver. Speaking of linear, the differing paths & abilities depending on your choices from New Order are gone. In their place are body suit upgrades. Except they place all of the paths where you use these within a level mere inches from each other, so you’re still going down the same paths no matter what. In conclusion, do not buy this game. Don’t do it if you’re a fan of New Order & Old Blood like I am, or a newcomer looking to get into the series. If you’re looking for a rebooted old school FPS then buy DOOM 2016 & DOOM Eternal instead. They’re games that are actually fun to play instead of watching a god awful, agenda driven story get shoved down your throat for 10 hours.