Wirehead Studios

Brief announcement with press release from Joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com/2013/05/07/wolfenstein-the-new-order-announced/).

I'm not sure how I feel about this.

The concept of a game that takes place after Nazis won WWII has been done before (http://www.sparkunlimited.com/projects_fallofliberty.html).

I did like the 2009 Wolfenstein game, flawed as it was... but I'm not certain mixing Wolfenstein and historical revisionism is going to pan out.  Still... I'll reserve judgement until I see more than just a very early teaser trailer.  It just better have a Gatling gun that doesn't suck this time around. (http://forums.wireheadstudios.org/Themes/Wirehead/images/post/bj.gif)

I thought the 2009 one was fine, and I didn't mind Q4 either -- as long as they don't make it not fun to play like some other games out there.

I could see this working, but we will have to see.  I can't help but think that we'll have two wolf games in 4 years, and it's been 9 years since the last doom and 8 since the last quake (can't really include quake live, which I actually forgot about until just this moment).

My main gripe with Q4 is they departed so much from the look and feel of Q2 that it felt like a completely different enemy.  I realize they took the Doom 3 "re-imagining" approach, but Doom 3 was a huge technological step away from Doom, whereas Quake 2 was already 3D and had enough of a feel established to it that it didn't need re-imagining, it simply needed to be higher resolution geometrically and texture-wise.  I felt about Quake 4 the way a lot of Quake 1 fans thought about Quake 2.  Personally I think Id and Raven missed a great opportunity to do a proper sequel to Q1 using the Doom 3 engine.  But... such is history.

The only real aspect to 2009 Wolfenstein I disliked was the regenerating health and lack of the classic gatling gun... and the fact that a certain boss enemy had a very annoying voice when he taunted you.  Other than that the game play was very solid, and I liked it a lot better than RTCW.  Bayoneting Nazis in the neck was very satisfying.  (http://forums.wireheadstudios.org/Themes/Wirehead/images/post/bj.gif) (http://forums.wireheadstudios.org/Themes/Wirehead/images/post/bj.gif) (http://forums.wireheadstudios.org/Themes/Wirehead/images/post/bj.gif)

My main problem was the gameplay. Sure, you had no gimmicky health or tactical weapon slots, but that didn't matter. Quake 4 was never really that fun. When I replay it, its an improvement over modern shooters, but it never got as wild or fun as the original Quakes. Great levels and good core gameplay will be something that Raven or Id will probably never master in repeating.

Regarding the recent news for Wolfenstein, it does look quite promising, focusing entirely on single player. (Forget that Quake 4's multiplayer was just a mediocre arena rehash.)

Phoenix, you're absolutely right -- they missed a great opportunity to do a proper sequel to Q2.  Aside from that, I still enjoyed it, but just as a single player game to play.

J3E125, you're right as well, lol.  I would not have enjoyed Q4 if I didn't modify the movement speeds to be enjoyable, something which I also did in D3.  I personally hate stamina bars and turtle pace action -- not sure why that's the shift game companies started going to (maybe they have stopped it now, but I wouldn't know since I don't play many games and none that are recent).

I can not deny though, Quake 4 did have a lot of potential. If they kept refining the idTech4 engine and the gameplay, it would be an amazing successor. They should've kept the feel of the gameplay in style of the original Quakes, and attempt to enhance it. This would've made the single player and multiplayer exponentially better.

I just finished my second run through of Wolfenstein: The New Order on Death Incarnate, doing both timelines and gathering all of the collectibles. According to Steam, I only have about 40 hours logged for all of that. To say that it's a short experience would be an understatement.

Regardless, it was enjoyable enough, but never surpassed either of the previous two installments. Visually, it felt surprisingly bland despite the potential in setting. The enemies were never all that memorable either, even completely forgoing the supernatural elements that have always made an appearance in the past. The actual presentation is good, however. The story feels appropriately human, and there are points where the sound design and music really surprised me.

The shooting was pretty tight. Being able to go in akimbo with any weapon was neat, particularly given some of the alternate firing modes. Most levels have the option of stealth as well. The leveling system is based entirely on hitting minor achievements, but their effects never felt all that profound. It did bug me that I couldn't just run over dropped weapons and armor to pick them up. Clearing out a room of Nazis only to be forced to go around and individually interact with each piece of dropped armor or ammo was kind of annoying.

It would have been really nice to have been able to turn off the Field of Depth stuff. I hate that video game characters are all so near-sighted nowadays. :P

If you like the franchise (and who here doesn't?!), then I'd recommend giving it a shot when it's on sale. I really, really preferred 2009's Wolfenstein on almost every front though. Open, hub based level design... a distinctly pulp aesthetic... shifting between dimensions... etc.

I picked it up during the Christmas Steam sale so I'll be trying it out fairly soon.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that liked the 2009 Wolf.  The whole Veil mechanism felt really otherworldly.

It's interesting to note that another Tech4 based game had a similar mechanic... Prey! :)
Shifting in and out of the Spirit World wasn't as neat of a trick as all of the seamless portals, but I digress.