What as a german really liked about the new Wolfenstein games, and of course I played them uncensored against all regionlocks, was that they got actually german voice actors to do the german dialogues. As a german you can hear that from the very first line, that those must be people who speak german fluently. The grammar is on point, there is no "Denglish" in there, no broken half-englisch half-german mix, all the texts, posters and dialogues are just plain normal, real German. That is something I really loved and that made the atmosphere for me so much more immersive.
I found this such a fascinating take George. I didn't agree with your thoughts on the difficulty or stealth structure, but I learned a lot from your thoughts on the way the Nazis are presented in this game vs the last, especially the parental overtones. Thanks for your work- continues to be a benchmark.
It's only Chapter 3 of the 8 chapters in Old Blood. Most of the time you spend in the docks, prison, ruins and ruins of the village. Of course Chapter 3 is one of longer chapters, but still.Is the whole millitery base called Wolfenstein, or is just the castle in chapter 3?
Olyphantastic I thought the prison and part of the docks too were counted as part of Castle Wolfenstein, pretty much most of part 1 was in Castle Wolfenstein I think, I could be wrong though
I always wondered if The Old Blood was originally meant to be two DLCs. With the first one taking place in Castle Wolfenstein and the second one, the follow up, taking place in Wulfburg. The first half focuses on Rudi & the second half focuses on Helga.
Horton's character calls up some of sorts of Socialist activism present in the American South through the 30s, a bit of a historical footnote. You know, Woody Guthrie and the like.
Liberation theology is a thing in South America, despite their marxist leaning of their leaders, hence Fidel Castro and his family seems to be indifferent towards Catholics in his country
@@mattc2306 to be fair the "We're not gonna take it" at the end totally matches the rest of the music throughout the game. The final cutscene goes so well into the ending song
@@mattc2306 Its kind of ironic in that the new colossus was more character driven, and yet it had a screamo ending, and yet New Order was (in my opinion) less character driven, yet ended that emotionally
While I fully agree with the assessment that you should write about what you know, but with the communist priest and his clique you're actually the one who has the knowledge deficit. One of the strongest opposition fronts of the rooseveltian New Deal was in fact the South, where there was a significant populist movement that mixed elements of late agrarian fascism, populism and socialism, heralded by people like Huey Long and Upton Sinclair. The priest is a clear backwards parody of Charles Coughlin. It's not particularly well known part of american history, and it's made even harder to recognize it because of the clear association that the Deep South has in american pop culture as very right-leaning and libertarian.
I learned the story of Charles Coughlin through Hearts Of Iron 4, where he is the leader of the US fascist faction. So don't say you can't learn from video games ;) He is an interesting character.
That's wrong, though. Huey Long was not communist in the slightest. While he was a dictator, of sorts, he was possibly the only benevolent dictator in history, using appropriated funds for school books for children, roads, and water purification. The South in the 1930's was obscenely poor compared to the rest of the country, and the New Deal did little to alleviate their suffering. Huey Long was often seen as an alternative to FDR, since FDR was doing nothing to help the Southerners. Upton Sinclair was a socialist, though, but he never had a chance after the 1920's. And in the 1950's and 60's, there would've been no hope for socialists or communists in America, especially not in the South.
But Tekla though, besides that Fergus is a better character, Wyat, while being used to show the lost of innocence and desilusions of heroism comes a lot as whinny even if that's not the intention. Fergus is a hardened veteran, battle ready and his guilt of letting wyat be choosen is more sincere, also his banter with Grace is glorious.
Based out of me, there's 2 main reasons to not to choose Fergus. His accent is way too much and annoys the person, and the second one, I was genuinely interested, what can the writers do with the character who seems pretty generic and boring. And I gotta say, they did well.
Fair, I still think Wyat use of drugs as an escapism for the guilt of not being a good enough soldier, being choosen instead of Fergus and disapointing his parents, even contributing for his mother suicide, while a interesting concept really seems to be here for the cool visuals that it can provide, there's no deep dialogue between him and B.J. Even in the Fergus timeline the dialogue with the old characters feel much more sterile than in the new order, they focused so much on Grace that the rest of the cast doesn't stand out.
I'd say the New Orleans faction is pretty clearly modelled after two groups: the first one being members of early labor unionism who went on to start the second folk music revival and the beat movement. The second group they're inspired by is the amalgamate peace movement of the mid-60's. But they are characterised as anarchists (or at least anarcho-syndicalists) and marxists more than peaceful flower-power hippies. To me that mixture feels pretty realistic in an America that never got to experience the optimism of "The Booming 50's", or the crap that came after like the Cold War, Eisenhower's foreboding farewell address, the assassination of JFK, and the Vietnam War. Which means the working class of the labor movement would have a lot in common with the civil rights movement. Something that is implied with their ties to the "Black Revolutionary Front". Also, Horton actually says he just picked the robes off the street. He's not a preacher, he's clearly just messing around. having fun before the world he fought for long before the war is burning down (quite literally) all around him. So, I disagree with it being hard to tell what group they're supposed to be modelled after, but I agree that neither Horton nor Grace gets enough characterisation. The New Colossus had a great story, but I felt the pacing (maybe partly due to the gameplay) had some major issues. They could have given his character some more room and focused on class issues, adding even more depth to the story. But if they leave that for the third one, I'll forgive them for it ^^
Also I'm relly not sure if you approve or not of how "the atrocities of the nazis are forgotten" in The New Colossus. Isn't that the point? An identity forgotten? "Like water? Like it never was?" The New Order was about revenge, loyalty and the duty of a soldier trying to redeem himself for the 15 years he missed. In the first game he's eager to fight, he's partly desensitized and consumed with the idea of "setting everything right". This is a game where he literally can't do it anymore. He can't stand the fighting anymore. His own (justified) violence only brings back memories of his violent father. He's so haunted by the thought of becoming his father, that it literally gets him killed. After the confrontation with his father his fear and disgust turns to a re-kindled desire to fight - not for himself but for his children. His body is mirroring his psyche throughout the whole game. He's a broken man after the events of the last game, but he puts on a mask (or rather a suit) and "soldiers on". However, it's not until he's free of the suit, Caroline's "wings", and the lie he's been feeding himself ever since he enlisted that he's reborn as a supersoldier again. But this time he doesn't fight for his country, he fights for his unborn children. And he's almost happy again - he's ready. And to me, that along with the acting and the vulnerable dialogue makes this the best written character arc in video games and I really hope we get to see it concluded in a future installment because both MachineGames and the characters deserve it. I was surprised by the choice of music fot the end credits, but it is fitting. The actual rise of the resistance doesn't happen in the game, it happens after Engel is assassinated on national television and the people finally get force fed an overdue wake up call.
You might say that this game is "Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame", The New Colossus is to The New Order what the Statue of Liberty is to The Colossus of Rhodes. ^^
To answer some of the confusion about the weird depressed southern anarchists. Socialism and Anarchism where for a time (especially in Louisiana) a suprisingly strong and fairly unique presence in southern politics and society (more in the 30's and 40's than the 60's). Although southern leftists continue their struggle to this day! The best detail they have is the importance placed on one's ability to drukenly argue about revolution over the actual content of the argument for making friends. The worst detail is that hammer and sickle has never really been popular though and is much more a European thing (obviously).
21:13 - You do realize that for American Communists, Anarchists, Left-Libertarians and the like World War 2 was a very strange moment. In many ways they realized the storm ahead and acted upon this (the Abraham Lincoln brigade in the Spanish Civil War, for one). They were, for the majority of the early 20th century, an unwanted fringe demographic ruthlessly singled out and persecuted (not nearly as bad as in other countries, but just look at the first red scare in the 1920's for one big example, or series of examples, rather). Then the war kicks off in earnest and all off a sudden the formerly-ambivalent US government opinion towards Hitler and vaguely approving opinion of Mussolini turns to abject hate and opposition and those rejects from the AL brigade and those union activists and socialists etc are now suddenly good American fighting the forces of Fascism along with their allies. They join the military....they fight, they die, and then the war ends and they come home....and then the Cold War kicks off along with McCarthyism and many of those Lefties end up blacklisted and hauled off to testify about their actions before the war and yeah....THAT is what Horton's group represents. Seems like the Devs DID get something esoteric right about American society and history - something even you didn't pick up on.
To my knowledge there was also a bit of an isolationist anti-imperialist current among those groups aligned with the SU that opposed intervention against Germany due to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Woody Guthrie regretted it, I recall.
The first red scare was in the 1900s, not the 20s, in response to rising Anarchist trends, especially among new immigrants. It's why voter registration became a thing.
Cry more, Vordivask. EDIT: To Jetset, I've never heard about that. From all of the information I have read, they label the first scare as starting in 1919 and then continuing on-ward. Perhaps it means institutionalized?
yah there are only few little glitches with America fighting Nazis such as IBM, CocaCola, Ford, George Bush and the rest of which are many. Conveniently allies only opened the 2nd front after the breaking point in the war when USSR started to push nazis back and allies realized that europe is going to be part of the union unless they joined the fight asap. To me it looks like allies were fighting not nazis but blocking socialist USSR from advancement. this is further backed up by the fact of immediate start of cold war following ww2 initiated by the so called allies. also the fun period during McCarthy right about post war time where many American suffered from political repressions left jobless, jailed and so on. The land of the free - funny.
Great breakdown, you said literally everything I've been thinking about, especially when it comes to the difficulty and the second half of the story taking a hard left turn into absurd Grindhouse comedy. I still really, REALLY enjoyed the characters, but the second half of the game had none of the weight of TNO, or the first half of TNC. Hopefully they find a better balance between TNO's tone and TNC's tone in the finale.
This Wolfenstein is another example of a great game series tarnished by virtue signaling leftists. Though daring to criticize this game's politics gets you called Nazi, even if you loved the past entries of this once great franchise. Bethesda and MachineGames are both guilty of putting out this dumpster fire of a sequel. Wolfenstein The New Order alone was superior to Wolfenstein The New Catastrophe. Resident Evil 7 & The Evil Within 2 are the only great AAA single player focused games this year. This Wolfenstein even has a $24.99 season pass. For a game this short. Bethesda is truly as bad as EA, Ubisoft, WB, etc...
Or , maybe, you know, the writers believe what they believe and so wrote what they wrote. Not to mention the game isn't really great, as George pointed out. Its ok, what makes it good is the story and narrative, same as the first one.
Genome Soldat Evil Within 2 is a great game? Okay, so the fact that every single animation in the game seems oddly uncanny doesn’t exist and the fact that the game has inconsistent mood doesn’t exist. Evil Within 2 in my eyes is a mediocre game at best. Secondly, don’t be blinded by the atmosphere around the game when looking at a game critically. Wolfenstein: The New Colossus is not a great game, but I wouldn’t consider it a disaster either. I will agree that the story is a bit tone-deaf and the game should be more outrageous (like Doom), but in the end, you have a competent game with a toxic background. Also, how do I know you’re not a Nazi? Soldat is German for soldier. /sarcasm/
"Resident Evil 7 & The Evil Within 2 are the only great AAA single player focused games this year." Really? What about Zelda BotW, Mario Odyssey, Neir Automata, Persona 5, Sonic Mania, Nioh, Horizon Zero Dawn, Hellblade, Pray, the list can go on. I mean this is one of the best years for gaming ever, and that's without bringing up indie games or games with too low of a budget to call it AAA.
The New Order has ended with last bossfight. It is over, BJ story is over in that game. The New Colossus is bit of a forced sequel and it knows it. That is in my opinion reason why they went more absurd and power fantasy than previously. TNC pretty much undermines ending of TNO by it's mere existence. It can't be taken seriously and such it doesn't try. And I am fine with that.
It's a bit weird when you keep referring to surnames with the -icz suffix as being Jewish. These surnames have been a part of slavic culture for about a thousand years (the -icz suffix is exactly the same as -son in surnames like Johnson, it refers to an ancestor). Names ending in -icz or -ski or -cki were considered traditionally Polish (though you can find them in other slavic languages as well), but were adopted by people of Jewish origins (and by peasants who rarely held family names) at the dawn of the industrial age. To be clear, I'm not saying that what you said was offensive. And I get the point that you wanted to get across (though I feel that B.J. being Jewish was retconned). However saying that Blazkowicz is a Jewish sounding name makes as much sense, as saying that Anderson or Johnson sound Jewish. I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of Jewish people using those names. But their origins are different, and the overwhelming majority of people using those particular names aren't Jewish. Sorry for the nitpick, but I felt that you are the kind of guy who might appreciate being corrected. With one thing out of the way, we should now inquire who the hell came up with the "BJ" thing ;)
Those names are associated with Jews because of Jewish immigrants. Same reason why "Tyrone" and "Johnson" were associated with African Americans. There are also German names with the similar treatment (-berg and -stein).
Yes, I'm aware of this. I'm just pointing out, that this association is only visible from a very narrow perspective and is in stark contrast with the bigger picture. Like I said, I'm not saying that this was offensive, just that there was probably a better way to get that point across.
I agree with you, though Slaves were on roughly the same tier of race (I feel terrible even writing this) as Jews, so it really doesn't make that huge a difference if you shoot up Nazis as a Jew or as a polish man
This game is EASILY one of the most underrated games of the last few years. The mountains of hate this game receives is astounding when there is so much talent, and love and care put into it. A fun story, even more fun gameplay, and metal as hell music make Wolfenstein 2 a great game.
I would really like to note that King's advice on writing began with the exploration of "write what you know" but concludes with advice that is essentially write what you would LIKE to know
Agreed, glad someone else was able to call out the court level. The only thing I'd add is that the story dropped the ball on answering anything. Like, basically anything. Almost any question, concern, or sub-plot brought up, was forgotten, half-assed, or is somewhere so hidden and obscured despite being IN THE MAIN PLOT that I still haven't found it yet. The end of the game literally just comes with a fade-in sequence and they tell you tip-toe over and kill the bad guy. That's it. Oh and in between the credits, there's the ring thing building up that got crudely slapped in like that. Just about everything else is unaccounted for. Story really dropped the ball here, and it was really good while it was going. But yeah, tack that on alongside things like "wait, so there isn't much KKK killing? And the nazis... are just angry parents?"
jgunner280 don't forget this game is about half as long as the prequel. At least when it comes to the primary mechanics (as in not collectables or journals.)
I liked the game overall. The story and overall atmosphere of the world is great. But so often i asked myself "why did they start you off with 50 hp? Why do 200hp feel like 50 when you don't have armor? Why are enemies shoot left, then right, then above you, then hit you every time? Why don't give the player gimmicks like the gadgeto-legs earlier? Why stop there?" I never asked myself so many whys in a game.
I think the real reason there was no controversy about the concentration camp level is that they avoided almost every iconic piece of imagery associated with the camps. The uniforms, the tattoos, the walls and fences, the demographics of the prisoners, the labour, the infirmaries and crematoriums, every single aspect is put through a silly neo-retro sci-fi bullshit filter until it becomes incapable of triggering any kind of knee-jerk outrage.
Wow George is making me feel like some kind of FPS god because I died probably 3 or 4 times on normal difficulty with Kb+m. The courtroom shootout is probably my favorite part in the game due to the kickass song playing in the background and the amazing tone shift they pulled off. It felt like Doom all of a sudden. Ripping and tearing my way through dozens of Nazis the ultimate wish fulfillment only to take it all away and put BJ at his lowest low nearly at the point of crying in his mother's lap and then executed knowing that all his friends are dead moments later.
Kolbe Howard On the harder difficulties you need to constantly cheese the game to progress. Show yourself for a second and you're dead. Guess I would've had more fun with it on easy/normal.
Kolbe Howard Doom managed to pull it off really well. But yeah, you're right. Just strange that they load you with all these ridiculous weapons then expect you to creep around and peek corners.
theDiReW0lf Doom's the exception because the enemies aren't firing hitscan weapons. Doom and Max Payne are the only shooters I play at higher difficulties because you can still avoid damage. But yes it is silly that you are expected to hump cover in the same game that you can dual wield tri-barrel shotguns.
It is funny how you can say "Germans should write German jokes" and "Black people should write black jokes" in the same sentence, implying that people with similar skin tone share the same culture. Cause I am pretty sure that third generation immigrant from Paris and a guy from Los Angeles would have waaaaay different everything despite them sharing skin color. Which for a guy from Europe shows how Americans view the subject and it is quite different from ours.
In the United States, there's a reason for this distinction though. Most white people here can trace their family back generations, and thus maintain that cultural heritage. Many black people were forced to come here and lost that cultural identity, meaning their heritage has a lot more to do with being black in America and all that entails(*cough*racism*cough*) than any historical ethnicity. That doesn't mean that there aren't problems that arise from studying a white person's history and a black person's skin color, but it's not totally unfounded either.
That point about censorship is inaccurate. Bethesda decided to alter far more than they had to either because they're overly cautious or have the wrong idea. German law bans Nazi propaganda materials (hitler photographs, Nazi salutes, Nazi symbols), but makes exceptions for educational, art, or similar purposes. With Germany banning Wolf'3D in the 90s -primarily for the violence, but for the Nazi context in a lower priority - publishers have removed these propaganda materials from WW2 games over here for all of these years, even as full-on Wolfenstein 2 gore now routinely goes through our ratings boards. So what did Bethesda do for the German version of Wolfenstein 2? They don't call Nazis Nazis, they don't have Jews, Set doesn't use Yiddish and there's no Shoa in the game. BJ's mother doesn't die in an extermination camp in the German version, but in "captivity". Like the Shoa was just a bunch of generic prison terms. It's fucked up. And I hate that of all versions, the German version robs Wolfenstein 2 of its Jewish heroes. It's really queasy, it inevitably feels like Bethesda wants to please revisionist historians over here. They probably don't, but man, that they would ever take such a willy-nilly approach to localization (never Bethesda's strongest suit) is a disgrace. If you need an example of a game that doesn't have swastikas over here, but lets you kill Nazis and doesn't erase the Jewish people from existence: Call of Duty WW2. It released without any controversy whatsoever.
SuperElixier I think it's an attempt to be respectful and not make ww2 into a wacky joke, which this game is at heart. Believe it or not, Nazis weren't comic book villains and making them as such is only serving to trivialise their attrocities. That cartoony depiction gave rise to the meme Pepe type of Nazis you see on the web.
I think the stealth is more used as a ticking time-bomb of tension before the explosion of violence. Gameplay cadence is more about the transition of stealth to combat and back to silence when it's over than it is about sticking to sneaky headshots or guns-blazing through the whole thing. Being unable to hide bodies or your axes sometimes not working contributes towards this feel.
21:30 I think they're supposed to be the Metropolitan Community Church. I haven't played the game, so I don't know the details of these characters, but they sound like these guys. They were a distinctly gay-friendly Christian community, officially founded in California in 1968 but going back much further than that. They were (and still are) left leaning and communal, organizing protests and rallies while dealing with their own hate attacks. Check them out. There's a Radio Misterioso podcast with Mike Marinacci that goes into them (and other Californian cults and fringe religious groups).
one of the biggest problems in this game (and new order) is the utter lack of feedback somebody slightly off screen shooting you ? you wont notice because the damage indicator is barely visible, the guns dont make any sounds, your health bar is a tiny number on the edge of the screen and you're dead before the game warns you about the fact that you're about to die
Aw shit, that MrBtongue reference. Really, though, the question "What do they eat?" is a good question to ask in lots of games that are trying to build believable settings. Glad MrBtongue brought it up in one of his videos. It's made me ask it many times in RPG's since. I highly recommend anyone check out his videos. They're a great source of "really makes ya think" material.
I remember that scene of the court on Switch, it was pretty difficulty, then I discovered that I could save any time, so I created my own checkpoints and I was able to pass it.
Set it to Easy. Play it for the campy story, interesting characters, and the ability to dual wield basically anything and mow down Nazis. I agree completely that Normal is WAY too difficult. Especially at the start of the game where your max HP is a paltry 50. An enemy gets the drop on you in Normal and you're basically done right there. Nazi bullets tear through BJ like he's made of wet paper. Which is... thematically appropriate.. I guess, considering his physical condition but... it ain't fun. The stealth mechanics are also raw garbage. You get spotted by ONE guy and every Nazi within a ten block radius knows right where you are and the commander that's summoning waves of reinforcements runs to the ass end of the room. Good luck finding him, though, because the level design is kind of awful and the waypoint system pops up and disappears so fast that you'll never even SEE the waypoint marker it brings up unless you spam the button. The game seems at odds with itself. It lets you slide and dual wield everything so you'd think it wants you to run and gun and just shoot from the hip and blast away, and yet your character feels like he'll fall over in a stiff breeze if you wade into a firefight. Yet you can't use stealth, either. It's unforgiving and managing a stealth kill on one enemy will often alarm another to your presence.
The normal difficulty isn't hard at all. And the first level is filled with explosives and traps in the environment so that you don't have to really hit enemies or alert them before they are gone.
I finished it on the hardest difficulty initially available. The game sucks ass. Level design, stealth, difficulty balancing, story, characters, cutscenes... It's all utter shit.
congrats on breaking 6k on patreon George! I'm so freaking happy you are getting this much success. You are hands down my favorite youtuber and it's great you are doing well. Keep up the stellar work!
it's actually quite good, but i think the consensus is it wasn't absurdly above the previous one, or the hype it had around it, basically same ol same ol with tools that if used correctly could land a big hit in either the next game or a new IP the might work on
The release seem to be fine. But people complained about the steam overlay, and it seem there was a reason they disable it, because after they patched it, they game broke. I went back a week after completing the game to do some side missions, and I had to go through several work arounds to get the game start, and when it started I had crashes and graphic issues. The release was fine, but tehy had mess with it.
This game needed a month or two of polish For some people the game straight up crashes at launch! Even if they meet the minimum requirements Bethesda's answer?: either update the drivers (this one actually made the problems worse) and lower the graphic settings! Even tho many people cant even go to the menu! good job bethesda!
all wolfenstein nazis always were cartoons, like, always, this is nothing new, it was never a series trying to depict reality if something the last two games are the ones who get closer to have verosimilitude, but it still is a cartoon game with pregnant woman cover in blood killing 30+ nazis and a guy in a wheelchair making the mother of all bloodbaths and single hand killing thousands of nazis and nazi always are the bad guys, be they wearing polos, confederate or american flags, no matter how they look like, thing is, the game isn't showing reality at all
So how about how the first actor Hitler shot was Ronald Reagan? Also a couple details I'd point out that you seemed to have missed: the food source in the State Building was visible if you look around during the level and district, they have a garden in there; there are KKK members as enemies in most of the side quests; and as for Horton's group look up the history of the American Communist Party (they were VERY vocally opposed to the US entering the war) and Louisiana Senator/Governor Huey Long (a man who in reality died a few years before the war, but who Horton is most definitely based on).
May Sparkle also "Jimmy Carver" is Jimmy Carter, for some reason I don't understand. They even accidentally call him Carter in a couple notes. I don't know why a peanut farmer would be a talk show host in this alt history.
I think it will be able to sustain because we're starting to see the comeback of games like Doom and Wolfenstein which return to a character that can carry 20 guns at a time, have intense combat, tell a good story, and break out of the COD/Battlefield roadmap of "serious" military shooters that has captured the genre for the last 10 years or so.
This game was disappointing. They promoted the whole run and gun thing that looks awesome but in reality the level design is not made for that since you're always getting stuck on something and your character is more fragile than the people getting offended by this game. A great story alone can't make a shooter with boring combat scenarios a great game. Edit: And this reminds me why you shouldn't give a shit about Metacritic. The people that reviewed this game played the same game that i did ?
Sure, that's fair but i'm talking about dubious design decisions that collide with the enjoyment of the game. You can like it but you can't deny that doesn't make any sense when we have those great moments of badassery in trailers, overcharged health, big ass guns and a high movement speed when you can't tank shit or properly dodge the bullets. The game looks great, sounds great and the gameplay itself ain't bad but everything around it that should support it is very flawed.
Yeah I felt the entire first half of the game was mediocre because they didn't make it that fun to blast through enemies. The enemy variety and environment was lacking and disappointing, the final area of the game didn't even feel like a boss, I thought it was the introduction of a new enemy type. The weapon variety is sub par and most aren't that fun to use. I felt the weird comedic tone they twisted into the dialogue didn't clash well with the mediocre serious writing they also put in. The story felt like an expansion on the previous games without actually going anywhere.
I honestly had to rewind that big where, within (practically) a second, Gorge went from 181 health and 100 armor to literally dead. Seemed like it happened out of literally nowhere, and if that's on Easy, I think Machinegames needs to... do some balancing.
Aagaggh 12 minutes in and you reminded me of the games ending. I did not like that ending, I'd rather not think about it. I want my mechahitler bossfight
You'll get that in the third game; the devs did always think as the series as a trilogy, and once you fight MechaHitler, that's the high-point that you can't top.
I really agree with your thoughts on the story, SPOILERS ahead. The first half of the game was, as you said, The Empire Strikes Back. All of our characters are at their lowest point. The feeling of hopelessness and the humanity, and BJ's struggles against the Nazis, that was present in the first game, was at play during this first half, and amplified due to Caroline's death. BJ now not only is facing the burden of him dying and not being able to be a father to his unborn children, but he now has the burden of carrying the resistance and carrying on being a father to them, despite him knowing he won't be around much longer. The game's narrative just builds up and up to what, as you said, is perhaps one of the greatest climaxes in gaming ever. My mouth was open in amazement the whole time, it was INCREDIBLE, and felt like the point that the first game and the first half of the second was building up towards for BJ's character. But after BJ gets _ahem_ better... it seems that all of the stuff that made the first half of the game (and the first game) is just lost. There isn't that feeling of hopelessness and humanity anymore. Maybe part of it had to do with, "how the fuck do you continue to develop a character in an interesting and meaningful way after their resurrection" (looking at you, Jon Snow; there should've been far more of an emphasis on him being a literal Jesus figure, which the show just doesn't seem to do outside of a few comments) seems to be a hard thing to tackle, hell, even Jesus himself hasn't figured out that part. The characters and the cinematics are still excellent, and the Venus section with a surprise guest in the form of Hitler making an appearance was another excellent highpoint. But, with the way the story goes downhill from the first half, and the way that America as a whole seems to be really underutilized and chopped up to be used in the Enigma code missions instead, I can't help but feel like the game was _unfinished_. It certainly doesn't stand on its own like the first game did - and did so with flying colours, thanks to how the story from beginning-to-end was excellently consistent thematically (whereas in TNC that only was the case in the first half). Like, I feel like things were just plain missing in the story, for example, I was expecting Anya to give birth, or maybe Anya to be captured and/or killed to bring back that feeling of hopelessness and humanity present in the first half/the first game. But the only major deaths outside of the beginning happen during the excellent climax, and that's it, so I feel like that's also another reason why the game lost some of its momentum there. But anyway, I still very much enjoyed the game, but I don't think I'll bother with the enigma missions, or the DLC (unless the DLC is good). Here's to hoping that Wolfenstein 3 ends the series at a high note, and is excellent story-wise from beginning to end, rather than just the first half.
When Super Bunnyhop posts a new video of a game you haven't played but you want to watch the video so badly :( I have to some homework for this video now lol.
For me, I’ve spent the last couple of days playing and beating the three Wolf games in reverse on their hardest difficulties (Below the permadeath mein leben mode). As for how I feel, well, its mixed honestly. Personally I think from a mere gunplay perspective that TNC is much more refined and is very enjoyable in that regard. Stealth sections are much more difficult, but can be tactically viable and completed on the harder difficulties. As for TNO, I think that the game is much more fun being played as a stealth shooter, when I first played it, I wanted to run and gun and that was the death of me. Much of that game had to be played as a cover based shooter when you weren’t given the stealth option. If I had to decide which game balances out both gameplay aspects the best, it would have to be TOB. That was the first game I played in the trilogy and I must say its stealth sections/gunplay arenas are both balanced to a key. It does unfortunately feel not as polished as the either two but the gameplay flow and pacing is almost perfect. Overall, this is becoming one of my favorite game series, but if I had to decide which type of game I want from the third and possibly final game, it would be something more akin to Doom 2016. Truth be told, playing the first two games on Uber felt remarkably easy. The stealth is so supremely easy with the silenced pistol that scoring headshots comes as a second nature and it just kind if feels boring. Comparing this to the heightened and fast paced battles of TNC which had me on my feet and feeling triumphant when powering through it all. Honestly, at this point I just want more Wolfenstein. And I’m sure the upcoming DLC will work upon and improve both gameplay elements to eventually satisfy both players. Personally I would like for an experience that provides tough stealth and gunplay, but both are interesting and neither feel required over the other.
It took me over 30 tries on that panopticon type big room. I kept it on Do or Die because each death game me just a little more information about what I could do. It took a lot of running and knowing where weapons and armor are. Exhilirating to finally get it right. Hilarious and harrowing to see what happens after.
I haven't played the previous ones, but the writing here is schizophrenic. It switches so wildly between wacky nazi comedy and straight-faced drama it's utterly insane. And it's just so cutscene heavy, I have no idea what they were thinking. A Nazi-killing FPS is not the place to try and write drama or hamfisted political commentary.
They should have written out the whole "My Dad was a racist" subplot in my opinion, it added absolutely nothing and felt like forced political commentary.
@@VGamingJunkieVT The Dad subplot doesn't even make sense. BJ reminisces about his dad a couple times during the New Order, and it NEVER implies that he had such a terrible relationship with his father. Also, what kind of racist-to-the-core man would knowingly marry a Jewish woman, no matter how much business utility her dad may have offered? It's complete nonsense. What I wish they HAD done with BJ's father in this game was based it completely off that one scene where he and BJ go into the basement armed to confront the "monsters." That was the only point in the game where BJ's dad came across as a real person, not a 2D racist stereotype.
@@scottski02 It honestly comes across as the game writers suggesting there's a problem with white roots. From the Klansman to Grace's statements to BJ's Father siding with the Nazis enthusiastically, heck the marketing team obnoxiously tries to tie it in with Trump, it paints a not so friendly picture towards whiteness. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but this kind of crap honestly didn't belong in this game. Bioshock Infinite at least showed how the resistance could become as bad as their oppressors if they start justifying horrible actions as "the ends justify the means" but TNC comes across as pretty one-sided. The real reason he married a Jewish woman was to show that he's antisemitic just to make him the stereotype complete.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought the Nazis weren't very Nazi in TNC. Thanks for re-affirming my opinions George - this is what I pay you for!
Wait, they gave him the name "Blaskowitz" to make him sound Jewish? Hahahaha, that name sounds so Slavic it is a wonder you never hear Blaskowitz shout "kurwa!".
I know I'm late but HOLY FUCK what a game. I just finished. This is really one of those "Games as art" things without being pretentious about it. Literal SJW's, feminism, racism and more jammed into a game about shooting Nazi's in the face without being annoying. GOTY
I have this game on ps4 and started on normal. I quickly bumped it down a notch, attempted stealth, and realized that I was still getting killed so easily. dropped down to baby mode and the game was still hard up until around the halfway point for me. after that I'd gotten used to the game and gave up on stealth altogether, and got some decent upgrades did it become easier to play. I still didn't bump the difficulty up though cause fuck it; just not worth the hassle. they had many levels and sections in the levels that felt like I was playing a doom level , but without the ability to play like it was doom. stealth was actually a viable option in the first game and I found myself actually going stealthy even though I usually don't in games simply because the challenge of it was fun and rewarding. not so with the second one. stealth just doesn't work here. several times I would take out an officer in silence only to have a second officer a 120 meters away magically know it happened and set off the alarm. honestly, they should have just made Wolfenstein version of doom. it seemed like it was mostly there, but the parts that weren't there made the game suffer. overall I did enjoy the game, just could've been a bit better with some more polish.
obligatory #git gud comment. Also why not just take out a few guys (preferably a commander) silently and then proceed guns blazing? It's what I did, and it mostly worked pretty well.
MightySavagE yeah works when there's only one commander. later levels usually have two and after stealth killing the first one, the second one turns into the cops from gta v and magically know I did something bad and he sets off the alarm. idk stealth in this game just didn't seem viable most of the time. at least for me. also I'm honestly not that bad at games and shooters are one of my favorite genres. this one just seemed harder than a lot other ones I've played.
Couldn't agree more. While I did end up enjoyed New Colossus eventually, playing on a console was basically a 15-hour exercise in frustration. This was a game where each element (level design, AI, gunplay, etc) seemed to work great on its own merits, but nothing worked well in conjunction anything else (stealth is ineffective because intricate level layouts and high enemy damage means you're gonna get spotted halfway through and gunned down in a second by someone magically appearing behind you, all-out gunplay doesn't work because poking your head out for a second turns you into swiss cheese but the aggressive AI makes slow paced tactical gameplay impossible). Additionally, like you mentioned, they did NOTHING to compensate for playing on a controller. If your crosshair is off by a millimeter the game gives you no leeway. Combine that with the general lack of precision with controller aiming, the increased enemy count, AI aggressiveness, and enemy damage output and you have a game that just sucks the fun out of itself in a matter of minutes on consoles. However, when I played it on my friend's PC, the game was suddenly a blast and I was tearing through "Call Me Terror-Billy" difficulty like it was wet tissue paper. I'm fine with designing a game primarily for PC, but I feel like SOMETHING could've been done to make the game playable on consoles. There's a problem when normal difficulty in this game is leaps and bounds more difficult than Uber difficulty in the last one.
So last week I was looking through a Half Price Books' game section, and found Wolf 2 TNC for $5.99. So I finally got the game, and I've just played through it. So now here I am, almost 4 years later, ready to watch George's thoughts on the game. I can not tell you how many times his Simpsons/Futurama inspired title card showed up in my recommended videos list, how many times I 'almost' clicked on it. But I held off, because I didn't want spoilers. Was it all worth it?
@@JohnDoe-uf3lj Did you bother doing those Commander missions after you beat the game? The gunplay was fun enough that I went through them all. But after that, I was done, I've never turned it back on.
@@facerip2222 I did a few to grab the upgrade kits and the other two abilities, but I haven’t done them all. I know there are three paid missions on the season pass, but I don’t wanna pay full price for it.
@@JohnDoe-uf3lj Yeah those DLC missions, I looked up some user reviews to see if they were any good, most of the reviews I found said don't bother wasting your money, so I never bought them. Oh well.
I'd like this game a hell of a lot more if you could take more than one f'ing bullet. If you let me duel wield a shotgun and assault rifle, I want to run and gun. Not creep around and knife people.
About the nit picking: I can see in the future them fleshing out more sequels, (as fans ask for more), however I can also see them going back and "remastering" their games to make them better. To fix things they hadn't gotten to, as you've figured out. But, that's up to Bethesda for them to do that, I would like to see them purifying it.
The number of steam and reddit posts about how the game was sjw and anti white was astoundingly stupid. I'm glad some peps played the game and actually thought about it's meaning
You didn't change my opinion on Wolf 2 any (I already mostly agreed with you but was unable to express my thoughts with the precision you manage), but you did remind me how much I love TNO. Gameplay problems aside, the game is so great at storytelling that its really hard for me to personally deny it a 9 or 10 out of 10.
Is it possible that in attempt to draw parallels between Nazis and current events they ended up making making Nazis look silly and not extraordinarily evil?
The game was probably finished with development(or almost finished) before a lot of the current events you're referencing. I think it's just the marketing that took advantage of the similarities.
There was enough of Trump's campaign and presidency during development that it most likely had an effect. The Strong Black Woman certainly sounds like the voice-actress is just as angry as her character, and rallying the player just as much as she is rallying BJ.
I think it's more like: "In an attempt to play on the political issues around the alt-right but not make less extreme rightists so uncomfortable that half the country would never buy the game..."
Armed Wombat Honestly, if they wanted to go for a political statement against the alt right, might as well going all the way in. Its always nice to see the alt right getting triggered over killing Nazis in a Wolfenstein game, it shows their true nature.
You know, just when the weight of the confusing nature of humanity was pressing down on me most harrowingly, this video popped up, reminding me that there is art and beauty in all of the confusion. Sometimes I'm sure there's a greater nature giving us what we need.
I wasn't actually aware that important people from the teams behind The Darkness and Riddick (both among some of the best games of my adolescence) worked on this franchise, but I had the sneaking suspicion since they have a very identifiable quality to their worldbuilding and atmosphere that is kinda unique to them. Man, now I'm sad The Darkness never got a PC port, would love to play that game with a framerate that doesn't drop to single digits when you use your black hole ability.
Exactly, i'm surprised no other reviews mention it.I (almost) never do negative reviews - mostly because if I don’t enjoy something I stop doing it for the sake of not wasting time. First few hours of Wolfenstein 2 is good, the game looks fantastic (ID Tech 6 lighting model has almost a CGI quality to it) and strong characters make for very engaging opening. But the flaws quickly shows up as three core pillars of Wolfenstein 2 are design in a way that works against the player: Traversal is never smooth and often feels clunky ("you can jump on this, but on this" approach) - that is connected to a bad level design, often resulting in getting stuck or trying to guess where to go next. This is not an open world game - it should be clear where to next to keep the momentum going. Talking about the momentum... combat never feels empowering, between non regenerative health (good idea) and very lethal enemies (good idea) and the fact that “glory kills” (being painfully slow as well) don’t replenish your ammo or health (very bad idea) you are having a cat-and-mouse game or trying to hide to find health packs instead of trying to tear down the enemies and have fun. It’s mechanically so bad that it stops the game from being fun if you play on hard/very hard as most your run’n’gun will result in game over screen. This is such a simple flaw that i’m surprised they missed it - you could literally fix this game with single change (as in Doom): When you use “glory kill” takedown you are replenishing your health/or ammo and are invulnerable in that time. That single change would make the enjoyment of the game far better, If you’re playing on standard difficulty or maybe you like slower more hide’n’seek appraoch you may find that the game is fine. I do not. Add a buggy pc port and you have new Wolf.
Adam S I think the level design was great, it's linear but maze like, just like it always was, it's packed with little details that you would miss if the exit was just straight in front of you and I never got stuck for more than a couple of minutes anywhere. I do agree that the glory kills should make you invincible, they got me killed more than I can count by some dude peeking from behind a corner all of a sudden, however I find that the enemies drop enough armor that the glory kills themselves should not replenish anything + later on you can gain a little health boost with each kill you get. Also I had no problem with the difficulty, if normal is too hard just switch it down a notch I don't see the problem
@@chrislee5268 Well, there are games like Goldeneye 64 that were made purely for console, but you can usually tell which ones are and aren't. The ones that release on PC alongside consoles are generally made with the PC in mind since you can't very well use a console (Without some hacking) to program a game.
I would say that the marketing for this game was "shameless and provocative". It certainly caught a lot of attention but I think that the kind of attention it attracted hurt the game.
Okay. I haven't played the game, but about that "seems like the Americans were too quick to accept the Nazis" thing.... ....a lot of people were either apathetic or didn't know what the Nazis were doing at first. I'd recommend a video by Lindsay Ellis about Mel Brooks and how his movie The Producers was received. I'm not an expert on the topic, but....yeah.
Unless I'm missing something the response to the movie were more or less what one would expect, heck some people critcized how the main characters were jewish conmen. People seemed divided with the humor, and some responses were more or less "too soon bro". Also the Nazis' crusade against the jews was pretty well known throughout the world during the war. Maybe not the whole extent of it, but it was known. Should speak for itself when tens of thousands of jews emigrated from Germany specifically.
Also, a lot of americans back then flat out supported the nazis. Despite what you guys believe, they did not join the war because they hated facists. If that where the case, they would have joined the war many years prior.
this and the comments are reassuring me im not just a whimp for playing it mostly on the lowest two difficulties. i constantly found myself either wishing i had rainbow 6 style cover mechanics and other stealth options, or that it just took a note from doom. but it just stays in an awkward in between area. oh and love having to check out guides just because i cant find the one barely visible tunnel in the huge darkly lit sewer system Im supposed to go through.
The unfortunate thing about the marketing behind this game, is that because it is so politically charged (which they openly admitted to was their intent), it means that they're permanently tinging people's memories about this game with contemporary politics (for 2017). This will not help the game age well at all, and serves only to drum up interest in the very short-term. It's like games that tackled specific presidential campaigns, it just doesn't age well at all aside from historical analysis. Btw something I see people fail to realize time and time again is that simply talking about this game with other people, means that their marketing did exactly what it set out to do, which was to get people talking and generating interest. If you actually want to send a message to the people behind this game, you'll vote with your wallet and never bring it up to anyone. Marketing is designed *EXCLUSIVELY* to get people talking about and spreading info about the product, to create interest. If you don't talk about it they've failed at their job.
Oh definitely, I saw tons and tons of people on twitter and elsewhere making fun of people who took the marketing as a political statement. Stuff like "Wolfenstein has always been about killing nazis, therefore the marketing isn't political." Really it's just a happy coincidence for the marketing team that Wolfenstein has always relied on killing nazis, Pete Hines publicly stated as such. The marketing was fully intentionally exploiting the current political landscape to kickstart broader. exposure to the game. I can't really blame them for it either, what other marketing strategy could possibly have given the game this much attention? None I can think of.
FenderGopher I think they could have played up the Resistance thing a lot more. Fighting alongside your fellow man, putting aside pettier differences and bringing down a common enemy and an oppressor TOGETHER? That sounds fun to me.
None of this will affect how the actual game ages as the marketing stuff and it´s themes aren´t really in the game. George talks about that for like 2 minutes.
Doesn't seem like the game itself brought much new to the table, or was all that memorable on its own to me. Five years down the line what will people remember this game for? Probably a lot of people will only remember it as the "Make America Nazi Free Again #NoMoreNazis" game, and not for what the game itself did. Doesn't help that Wolfenstein is a pretty shallow universe to begin with, with the main draw being you get to kill nazis in fun ways. When anyone thinks of classic games they think of their favorite gameplay element, their favorite story moment or something similar. The marketing here literally detracts focus from the game itself, and permanently associates it with the current political landscape.
I think what Gorg is experiencing with the squandered American setting is the feeling that us Europeans experience when we see American portrayal of European conflicts like the east and west fronts in the world wars.
I feel like your trying to avoid the topic that the "New Colosus" story is just so cringe. I would also argue to a small extent that guns got a downgrade. Like for instance you used to have grenade launchers and shotguns as attachments.
I'd just like to point out something awesome yet non-political, if that's somehow allowed here: Fergus / Wyatt did not get killed in the second game so that they don't have to make many cutscenes twice. They did not take the easy way out like many other games with "split timelines" do (looking at you, Telltale Games). When Fergus arm got cut off I was like "Aaand the timeline is fixed. Great. Fuck you." totally not expecting him to survive because I was so used to the easy way out. But nope. Fergus and Wyatt recieve equal love in completely different ways in both timelines. I loved that. And I guess the "propaganda" as some would call it could have been worse. I'm very tired of this constant war of left VS right in our modern world, yet this game was a lot of fun to me anyway.
WartortlePrince almost no one thinks Nazis aren’t bad. The idea that all American PoC, women and any historically marginalized need to unite against “nazis” meaning every right leaning individual is probably the propaganda lilsmoky92 was referring to. This kind of polarizing rhetoric is what pushes center right to alt right and center left toward violent communist. I haven’t played the game I’m just going by George’s description of the cathartic fantasy the game presents. I personally have never voted republican before but not every one who does is a nazi. I’ve heard enough of this shit from “my own” side that I’m done supporting the left wing. Y’all are just as bad as the evangelical conservatives ever were when it comes to demonizing people you’ve never met. Sad!
My previous comment was way too long and rambling so here's a shorter version: If you define "Nazis" as "right leaning individuals" then Wolfenstein is a game about killing right leaning individuals. If you define Nazis as "buttered toast" then Wolfenstein is a game about murdering buttered toast as well. But, if you're a normal person who knows what words mean, Wolfenstein is a game about killing Nazis and only Nazis. Nazis are shit and if right leaning individuals want to come together with everyone else to fight them they're more than welcome to do so.
WartortlePrince the only thing I would theoretically take issue with is conflating those two things. From what I can tell you have to really want to see that in order to interpret Wolfenstein that way.
I think George is at a point where he only makes review when he feels like he has something to say. He probably just didn't have much to say about cuphead that you can't get anywhere else. On that note, this review brings up a lot of points I haven't seen, since most people haven't delved into the history and writing process of this game the way George just did.
It's a MS/MS-involved game, so he wont touch it, it seems. He IS willing to talk about Sony exclusives, though. Interesting that. I know he has a ps4, but he also has a PC and can play most of the MS games on that, especially the ones on Steam. So I really have no idea why he is basically ignoring anything-MS this gen. Nintendo you can understand due to how they treat people on RU-vid. One wonders if he was sent a free X from MS, since they sent those out to A LOT of tubers, even the blind haters. Guess we will see in the coming videos - or not.
Not their fault that aiming with a controller analog sticks (which usually have 25% deadzones) sucks. If you're on a PC and want to game on your couch, I would really recommend gaming with a Steam Controller. If you know how to tweak the settings, aiming with it can come very close to mouse precision. The trick with getting most out of your SC is to never ever use the default profile that steam recommends as they will default you to XInput and set the track pad to mouse like joystick which doesn't work well because of the limitations of XInput itself. You want to switch trackpad to Mouse, select emulate trackball, high friction, medium acceleration and double sensitivity over the default. This setup will allow you to make really small and precise movements when you're not moving your finger that much while allowing you to cover alot of the screen when you make bigger swipes. Some games will allow you to use XInput and Mouse at the same time, in those situation I set TP as mouse and everything else as XInput. Some games will make you choose between XBox controller vs KB+Mouse, in that situation you'll have to set analog stick to WASD emulation and buttons to KB.
The whole recharacterizing of Nazis may have something to do with the fact that the marketing for this game was directly feeding off the "punch nazis" meme. When it was saying "let's kill some nazis" in the marketing, it wasn't just talking about the fictional ones, but the ones that the crazier of the left call nazis. Thus, they blur the lines and recharacterize their villains to engage with the player's impression of modern day US. In this way I feel it was somewhat exploitative.
Yeah, the people marching in Charlottesville with torches yelling "blood and soil" and "Jews will not replace us" while carrying swastika flags are totally not Nazis. Silly crazy leftists, seeing Nazis everywhere.
@@FwendlyMushwoom "I don't understand why leftists call me a Nazi. Just because me and my friends goosestep around the neighborhood with Nazi flags and chant anti-semetic slogans doesn't mean I'm a Nazi."
Referencing Trump with "Make America Nazi Free Again" seems like the marketing was deliberately trying to ccorrelate it with Modern Politics. Perhaps the game itself wasn't trying to make that statement but the marketing sure as shit was trying to do that, which tainted perspective on the game itself.
