Wolfenstein: The New Order

If Wolfenstein: The New Order were a person, he’d be the kind of guy who’d use his cell phone to order a pizza instead of an app, he’d insist in making all payments in cash (or cheque if possible), and he’d prefer his music on vinyl instead of MP3.

In short, he’d be freakin’ old school. And you know what? That’s perfectly fine.

Eschewing modern day FPS trends, there is no bar for your health; you have numbers. You can buff up above and beyond the stipulated 100 health (and armour) points like Quake 3 and, yes, you can play the original Wolfenstein in the game. Yes, a game within a game, something I wish more games would do.

Killing your foes with an assortment of weapons never gets old. The combat is gory and visceral, but damn, it’s satisfying.

While people might crib about the graphics (read: PC gamers), it looks just fine. Powered by the same engine used in Rage and the yet-to-be-released The Evil Within, there’s nothing terribly wrong with it. In fact, it’s a far cry from the motley assortment of games that use the Unreal engine in the sense that texture pop-in, while present, is few and far between. Well, at least on the PS4.

So it looks good, is home to a bunch of well known health and armour systems, but so what? The important question is, does it play well?

Killing your foes with an assortment of weapons never gets old. The combat is gory and visceral, but damn, it’s satisfying. Heck, even the weapon handling is fantastic. You can dual-wield an assortment of guns, including sniper rifles (no, that’s not a typo), and while the controls for dual-wielding are just fine, some nitpickers might find it cumbersome or annoying, though it’s a neat addition that lets you double your mayhem.

It’s not the fastest start, but once it gets going, there’s very little standing between you and a ton of fun.

Truth be told, The New Order could have been labelled as a game developed by Id and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Yes, the gunplay is that good.

However, The New Order is far from the masterpiece it should be. For one, it takes you quite a while before you do any actual shooting. You’ll trudge through some turret sequences, skulk around a few trenches, and then maybe get a gun and proceed on a glorious 15-20 hour of raging against the Reich. It’s not the fastest start, but once it gets going, there’s very little standing between you and a ton of fun.

Slow starts aside, the attempt at humanising the player character, protagonist BJ Blazkowicz, is… interesting. On one hand, it’s admirable that the fine people at Machinegames tried to make the series stalwart more than a Nazi killing machine, but on the other, it feels odd given that character development takes little priority for players over blowing stuff up. Like it or hate it, the attempt is laudable nonetheless.

Aside from minor niggles and the oh-so-embarrassing price, there’s very little reason not to bother with The New Order.

Aside from minor niggles in terms of plot and pacing, a not so successful attempt of bringing depth to the protagonist, and the oh-so-embarrassing price (Rs 2,999 on PC, Rs 4,299 on PS4, Rs 3,999 on PS3 and Xbox 360), there’s very little reason not to bother with The New Order. You could get it cheaper digitally, but a 50 GB download size rules it out for most.

All in all, The New Order is a fun ride if you can stomach the cost of admission and quirks that go along with it. It’s refreshingly old school, much like the choice of vinyl over MP3.