Return to Castle Wolfenstein, one of THE best games to be released on the PC in the last decade.
The game is a follow on from spears of destiny which follows on from Wolfenstien 3d. In the same sort of way a book from a different story follows a book in a different series. It is very much a stand alone game in this aspect. The addition of Wolfenstein only helps to strengthen an already awesome game.
The story goes like this, you are an American, there are lots of Nazis. You are captured and put into the prison of Castle Wolfenstein. As you escape you must face hordes of the enemy. Most of which have impressive AI for its time. An enemy kicked a grenade back at ME. For a game released in 2001 that impresses me. Towards the end of the beginning of the game it starts to go all Indian Jones on you, with the Nazi’s trying to do some occult research again (When do they learn?). So naturally, being an American you must stop them by killing everything that moves a single inch.
Graphical wise it doesn’t stand the test of time very well. Blockyness doesn’t really begin to describe the visuals, even on max resolution, quality and everything. Though you will be hard pressed to find a working pc nowadays that can not play it. It is one of those games where it doesn’t matter much if the lip syncing isn’t synced, the eyes don’t blink and bullet holes are just tiny maps put on the texture and they disappear after a short time. You can destroy most of the small objects, like radios, chairs, paintings, suits of armour and the like.
Weapons are your standard affair of pistol, mp40, Thompson, stein, Mauser rifle, para rifle, sniper rifle, panzer rpg, then you get stuff like a portable Tesla coil. Ammo is okay to manage and most of the time a simple head shot kills nearly everything. Sometimes you will be asked to be “sneaky”, not let a single alarm go off, which is some times a HUGE pain, especially as the game has not really be designed around being sneaking. Most of the enemy’s field of vision seems to scope past any normal humans by quite a bit.
On the music front, it has nothing really to boast about, its the same sort of music you get in most ww2 themed games, lots of trumpets and the occasional German song on a randomly placed radio.
Mmmm what else can I say about this game, the landscapes, these tend to be either castley (obviously) to villagey, to damey to cathedrally to foresty and so forth. Most of the time its is well thought out and it is quite hard to get lost and not know what you are meant to be doing.
What is good about it, that when I checked 5 mins ago, the servers for its multiplayer are still up and people are playing it! Though I suspect more people will be on the mod for RTCW called Enemy Territory (Best mod for a game ever in my opinion 
). Who can say no to a medic duel wielding pistols?
There is not a lot wrong with it, but there is so much right about it. It is enough hardcore action and enough story (even though the dialog is horrendously bad (in a good way)). It is well worth the money for it.
Currently on steam and available everywhere else you can find old awesome games!
