4/5 ★ – pinksteady's review of Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.

I’m not a big first-person shooter fan on consoles, as I grew up on the genre on PC and never really saw a controller as a suitable substitute to keyboard and mouse from the Quake rocket-jumping days. However, the 2016 reboot of DOOM changed my mind - this was a first person shooter rebuilt for the modern, console era, and the accuracy that used to be required was replaced with mechanics that allowed for more fun and more carnage, even when using a controller. Having played and loved that version of DOOM, I gave the 2014 Wolfenstein reboot a go. It wasn’t in the same league, but it had its own style and unique characteristics and mechanics, with an interesting storyline and some novel set pieces. It was fine; I enjoyed it but it didn’t exactly imprint any lasting gaming memories on me. So fast forward and I had a £20 PSN voucher to spend from Christmas, and Wolfenstein 2 was £19.99. Job done - bought and played. Ultimately, Wolfenstein 2 is pretty much the same game as its predecessor. For me, the novelty of the Nazi storyline wore thin, and I wasn’t enthused enough by what remained. A lot of the unique mechanics like dual-wielding and stealth didn’t really feel that influential on the gaming experience, and so for me this game was a bit of a chore to get through. The plot doubled-down on the Nazi theme. It also doubled-down on the protagonist’s rambling, whispering monologues that frequently had me wondering if this was actually meant to be satire. But I don’t think it was. The levels were quite boring, there wasn’t much colour (the entire colour palette of the game is “grey”, and there just wasn’t much interesting to look at. The one scene that offered a throwback to Back To The Future’s Hill Valley-esque townscape was a brief glimpse of a missed opportunity to freshen up this sequel. I’m being harsh of course because it’s easy to be - there were of moments of fun to be had, if you played it the right way. And that’s my other bug-bear. The game lets you play loud or play stealth, and encourages you to try both. But stealth is basically impossible in many situations, so despite unlocking stealth-related perks, sometimes it was just frustrating to try and beat a level in stealth. I have never reloaded so many times in a game - the enemies were so inconsistent in their ability to detect you (sometimes an enemy hardly visible would call the alarm, other times they’d get a good look at you but you’d be fine) that planning an approach was impossible as every time you did it they’d behave differently (and not in an ‘intelligent’ way). Basically, playing stealth shouldn’t have been an option. This game should either have been a straight-up carnage-fest, or it should have been written differently to genuinely allow the stealth approach that it encouraged to actually be playable and enjoyable. I liked the home base, situated inside an active u-boat. That was pretty cool. A few of the characters were interesting but spread quite thin so none of the characters really had time to develop. There’s also a pretty major scene that involves Hitler that was quite nuts, in a good way. Other annoyances include dodgy end-of-level loading (game often crashed) and prompts to buy DLC every time the game loads. Oh and also the hardest level in the entire game by a country mile ending up being a dream and put you right back at where you started after. Come on. So, if you liked the 2014 Wolfenstein, and don’t have particularly high standards for your console first-person shooters, you’ll probably get along fine with Wolfenstein 2. But for me, Wolfenstein 2’s attempts to differentiate, by offering multiple play styles, complicated narratives and politically-loaded themes, just increase the complexity of what should have beeb a straightforward, no-holding back slaughterfest.