It seems like these days you can’t go anywhere in the video game industry without bumping into a bunch downloadable map packs, additional story chapters, and cosmetics for your games. Most are tedious, shallow, and very half arsed in being developed or most likely cut from the actual game and sold off separately. It’s a sad state of affairs, but many old school style developers are fighting back.
The guys and girls from MachineGames have thought to do what previously great FPSs have done in the past, and bring out a fully fledged expansion for their hit game, Wolfenstein: The New Order. Is this good news? A sign of better things to come in today’s gaming? Lets see if Wolfenstein: The Old Blood tugs at the Nazi heart strings (literally).
The Old Blood is set before the major events of The New Order, where B.J. Blazkowicz (voiced by Brian Bloom) is assigned to find an important document that will help the Allies locate Deathshead’s compound. In order to find this document, Blazkowicz must infiltrate the infamous Castle Wolfenstein, (wonderful nostalgia) but things become sour from the get go. After being caught and then escaping with his new found friend, a rusty steel pipe, Blazkowicz will have to overcome many agonizing events that include rescuing fellow agents from within the depths of the legendary castle, to fighting armies of zombie Nazis in a small town.
The Old Blood‘s presentation is massively different from The New Order, and a great return to the classic Supernatural style tone. The New Order introduced a James Bond style spy thriller that relied on the horrors of Science, but The Old Blood takes a step back and brings in good, traditional FPS Wolfenstein action with the paranormal and the horrors of the unknown.
It’s all a simple story overall, but with the same, high-quality writing we saw in The New Order. Great character development, good humor, diverse locations, and a few twists in the mix will have you clawing at your brain. Many may not like this approach, but with the tone of the old-school Wolfenstein, MachineGames can work with the supernatural and scientific in their games and do it extremely well.
The one thing I did notice when loading this onto the Xbox One was that it took up 37GBs. Now that’s a lot for a standalone expansion, but this mini-title’s a pretty lengthy outing considering its price tag. A decent playthrough will last around 6-8 hours, and with extras to unlock and secrets to be found, the game does beg to be replayed after completion. I did wish that a little more time was spent in the infamous Castle Wolfenstein, and that there could’ve been more to explore. Just be warned: have the space on your hard-drive ready.
Well for an FPS you expect a lot of hugging and being nice to people, right? Nah, just lots of shooting Nazis – which is always fun. The Old Blood packs a punch with a host of devastating weapons and skills to unlock, making you the ultimate killing machine for the SS to fear. As the game isn’t quite as long as The New Order, a few changes have taken place, and interesting ones at that. In The Old Blood, skills and attributes level up naturally as you progress through the game.
Like The New Order, The Old Blood allows players to complete perks to unlock new attributes. Perks encourage players to complete various challenges and reap the rewards. Collecting helmets for armor, stealth kills, achieving a number of kills with a specific weapon, or getting kills via explosives are just some of the perks’ objectives. Once a perk’s task is complete, the player will unlock an attribute or upgrade such as higher HP, higher armor coverage, more ammunition for particular weapons, or the ability to gain health after a silent take-down. It’s a natural and organic means of building your character throughout the game, and one that has many results depending on your actions. Whether you rely the most on stealth or brute force, you can level up to your own play style.
Players will also face situations that might require the silent approach. The idea here’s that players will be able to choose whether or not they want to stealthily take out the roaming enemies, causing minimal destruction and lesser chance of a heavy firefight – or they can just blow stuff up and act like it’s a war. Depending on what you feel is right, you can engage in Splinter Cell style covert stealth, or live out to the fullest FPS glory that Wolfenstein: The Old Blood has to offer.
My issue with The New Order’s that the stealth feels clumsy and dimwitted at times. The Old Blood does make an improvement on how enemies react to your presence and their patrolling movements are more organic, and the structures for these encounters seem built so that it’s harder to complete these sections stealthily, but various ways can be found to overcome them. You can’t just grab a silent pistol and shoot everyone from a mile away while they walk into a corner.
I did find that enemies (this rarely happened) wouldn’t react to seeing a dead comrade in front of them. Since you can’t move bodies, I guess it’s something the developers thought would be ok as a design choice. I understand in that respect, but it’s still a little silly. However, sometimes when any enemy did find a body, it triggered an alarm. Perhaps this was a fluke that needs fixing.
As for the shooting: It’s great! With a massive array of weapons at your disposal – many of which are new – that will wet your appetites and bloodlust when you’re playing. Players will love the immense action and gunplay here and weapons pack a punch and firefights are an engaging matter that often require tactical thinking, quick reflexes, and the biggest guns to survive. Dual wielding, sliding, and covering help in these tactical situations while new weapons, such as the Shock Hammer and Kampfpistol will easily dismember your Nazi foes.
The FPS elements are strong and glorified to standards that are entertaining, brutal, and intensely brilliant – even though once or twice my grenades didn’t kill an enemy as they standing right on top of it. These bugs can be annoying, but they’re very minimal.
There are a number of challenges which can be unlocked to play outside the main campaign in an arena type mode, which is nice. The game doesn’t disappoint if you’re looking for a fight. A host of new enemies and boss fights will appear to test your skills along with the paranormal side of thing like the classic Wolfenstein enemies.
Wolfenstein: The Old Blood corrects a few mistakes made in The New Order, and goes more to its roots for an epic and entertaining expansion. The fact that this could be near enough a full game alone, but at a low price, is a big plus for me and many others I’m sure.
These days, for the same price as this expansion, you get just one Call of Duty map pack, half of the Batman season pass, or a low level cop-out season pass that feels like it was cut from the full release game. The Old Blood’s a great, nostalgic return to classic feeling Wolfenstien for fans, and a means to show that it can still pack a punch when it comes to good old traditional FPS glory.