Attention all dtoiders, this is a public service announcement brought to you by WastelandTraveler. I have noticed over the past several months, that the destructoid steam group has been rather... limp these days. This issue needs to be resolved, so I have taken it upon myself to revive said group. The mission, is to make dtoid PC gamers more active with each other than before. To have multiple group moderators who can organize and maintain event announcements for FNF's and other beautiful shenanigans. And to overall give purpose to the dtoid steam group.



We have the numbers, we can make this better, stronger, faster. We just need a few, a brave few who already seem dedicated enough on the forums, to help push this forward. For I do not have the time to manage it all on my own, I need help. There is strength in numbers. Let us be a community!

Forum discussion for Steamtoid - http://www.destructoid.com/forum/showthread.php?p=445472#post445472
Steam Group - http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Destructoid
If you need to contact me, just add me on steam : dyslixec (nick: WastelandTraveler)

So, Ive been thinking.. we have been together for a long time, we love each other, we do everything together. I mean... we are happy yes? But there is some strange thing between us, what is it that causes us to fight, why do we never settle things rationally? But I love you don't you understand this? I think its time for us to move to the next step, to further our relationship and strengthen our bond. I know you feel the need to push my buttons all the time, but I feel like im the one carrying all the weight and guiding us on a more direct path. You simply just cant do it on your own, and neither can I.. we must work together!

And so the thumb and the forearm continue to work out their differences, still arguing and still struggling to find some form of dominance in their relationship, when the reality is without the forearm, the thumb will be nothing. Without the thumb, the forearm still has 4 other dirt bags to use and get a ride from.. what a filthy whore.

It's time to put a nail in this coffin once and for all. Here is the simple truth of the matter, the use of your forearm compared to the use of your thumb or wrist is not only more stable, but will also increase the accuracy of drawing, handwriting, aiming, painting, etc.. Most art teachers will tell you this, or if you have ever taken a handwriting course you will be told to not use your fingers, but to use your shoulder and forearm instead. The fingers are provided as a guide when it comes to writing or drawing, etc. They should not be the focal point of aiming, they are very restricted in movement and cannot cover certain angles nore do they have a broad range of movement like the forearm does.

Now apply this into a video game, aiming in a video game is no different than drawing with a mouse in photoshop, paint, or whatever program you use. You are using the mouse as your aiming tool, much like you would a pen, only a large pen ;P. You then use your forearm, elbow, and shoulder to cover the range of movement on your canvas(screen). If you are someone who uses just your wrist to move your mouse around, I highly recommend using your forearm, elbow and shoulder more often, over time you will see a drastic difference in your accuracy both in video games and in drawing / aiming with the mouse. Now this does not mean you should NEVER use your wrist, on the contrary, your wrist can help you put in details on a drawing, or allow you to focus your movement on a specific area. However in order to cover larger areas and move from one side of the canvas (screen) to the other with ease, using your forearm is far more efficient, and accurate. Applying this simple method in a video game will show you that moving about in a game world, having the reactionary time to do a 180, snap movement, or even improved accuracy, will greatly be improved with the use of the forearm more than it would be with the wrist, and especially the thumb.



"But I have no problem aiming with the thumbstick, maybe you should try to use it more". Well with console games, sensitivity of movement is restricted within a certain range, you can only move so fast, and you can only move so slow. Example: what would take someone two quick passes with the mouse on a low sensitivity will take someone holding down in one direction with the joystick 1-2 seconds longer to complete the action along with having a greater chance of "over shooting" the intended target and having to adjust aim (note that I said greater chance of missing, that doesn't mean you will always miss). The thumbs movements are not as free as you think, your forearm, elbow and shoulder working together is using a greater amount of muscles and joints when they are doing their work, which provides them with greater support and more efficient movement, your thumb is limited to very few muscles and joints, thus limiting its time and ability to perform certain actions.

Now comes "there is no distinct advantage between a controller and a keyboard and mouse". Well with this, it really boils down to the type of game you are playing. A console controller can work great with certain games, but can also be very restrictive with others. It works the same way with a keyboard and mouse, some games the keyboard and mouse are superior tools, other games it really can be a downfall.

Simulations, Real Time Strategy Games, and First Person Shooters generally have more freedoms with keyboard, mice, and joysticks than a controller can offer. Ranging from the freedom of movement, to complex control setups and binds. MMO's can also be tossed into this mix as well with using abilities, casting skills, and interface management. Now I know you will say "well what about End War, Halo Wars, C&C 3, etc" and I will say this to you... While developers have successfully brought RTS games to the console market and utilized the control scheme very well, it still lacks a wide range of hotkey macros that you could get with a keyboard, simply because the controller does not have enough buttons. While some may consider this personal preference, it really is more productive to master those control structures and use them regularly in an RTS (starcraft tournaments for example, key binds are being used almost every step of the way in an average match to manage bases, production queues, managing multiple squads, etc).



However there are some games where the controller serves as a more pleasant control scheme, with games such as side scrollers, some RPG's, racing games (tho some prefer wheels over anything else with this type of game), arcade-simulations, fighting games (fight sticks over controllers for some), etc. Using the thumbsticks in racing games, rpgs, and arcade simulations for movement & acceleration is by far much better than having one solid set movement speed that you get from pushing a button on a keyboard, but god bless that shift key! ;)

Now I know some of you will bring the whole argument of "I like to sit on my couch", "computers are too expensive", or "who left the toilet seat up".. none of this is relevant to the technical aspects of control schemes. But here is a quick note: You can sit on your couch and play consoles, or on your pc.. there are wireless keyboards and mice out there, and they have been around long before consoles adapted the wireless technology. And as for the computers are too expensive.. thats a bag of worms i'll save for another day with my "A guide on how be an inexpensive bad ass".

Who uses what is of no concern to me, some people are comfortable using controllers, others keyboard and mouse, there is nothing wrong with that. But there IS a difference between control schemes, some have its advantages over others depending on the game, and the games control structure. And using your forearm, elbow, shoulder opposed to your thumb or wrist is far more accurate and efficient. Does that really make one control scheme better than the other? Really it depends on what game you play and what you use to play that game. Keyboards & Mice, Controllers, Joysticks, Wheels, and wii motes are tools used for a specific purpose, you wont always want to use the same tool for ever task you take on, whether it be tools for video games, for drawing, for plumbing, or tools for sex. You will never use the same thing for everything, if you do.. you should really expand your horizons.

Stay tuned for the next episode of Video Game Tools: A guide on how be an inexpensive bad ass - Here I will explain to gamers how to get into the pc market without spending too much money, and which system / platform would be right for you if you are new to the gaming world

Well gentlemen... are you ready to play some old school gaems?! ONE THAT'S FREE TO DOWNLOAD?! AND AVAILABLE ON WINDOWS, MAC, AND LINUX?! You better be, because I got my very own Wolfenstein Enemy Territory 14 man public server running on a NYC server farm. And its time for YOU tonight, and tomorrow, and for the rest of time, to resurrect this old beast and start playing online with friends! Have you never played Wolfenstein Enemy Territory before? NO? Well, let me help you with that.

Wolfenstein Enemy Territory was a free multiplayer component developed by Splash Damage shortly after the successful release of Return to Castle Wolfenstein and its quickly growing multiplayer component. If any of you ever played RTCW MP you can imagine the same thing, but with more classes, and more objective focused multiplayer maps. This game was basically Team Fortress on steroids, and at the time actually enforced the use of the classes more so than TFC did. It also paved way for other games to put their attention towards objective focused multiplayer more so than before.

So how do I get into all this jazz? Well first things first you need to download it! And you can do that here...

Location to download files (for windows, mac, linux) - Be sure to download 2.60 & 2.60b patches for windows. For MAC its 2.60c & 2.60d: http://www.fileplanet.com/93620/0/section/Return-To-Castle-Wolfenstein:-Enemy-Territory



Well now that you've got your files, let me give you a run down on this game and how it plays. WolfET basically has the gameplay speed of Quake, and Battlefield. Strafe jumping is open game, along with trick jumping off of objects. The movement will take some time to get used to, but if you have experience of moving around in quake you will probably pick it up faster than others.

Ok, well lets get down to the class system. In Wolf ET there are 5 classes. The Soldier, Medic, Engineer, Field Ops, and Covert Ops. Each class has a specific role and advantage which is set up in a way that it actually enforces team work in game. Each class also can choose a weapon kit, while only a few classes have more than one weapon in their field kit at the start of the game, other classes will unlock more weapons as their XP increases during the objective play. Lets go over each class so you can understand how they work before you dive into the game.



Soldier Class - "I AM A SOLDAT!"
The soldier class is a rather basic class, he is the ground pounder, sir spam-a-lot and the over all general purpose class of the game. The soldier is one of the few classes that has multiple weapons that can be chosen for its weapon kit at the start. You can choose from either the MP40(Thompson), the Panzerfaust (bazooka or piat?), the Flame Thrower, the MG42 (30cal), or the Mortor. Most of the time I see players use the Panzerfaust / Mortor or MG42.. rarely soldiers use the flame thrower or the MP40/Thompson because they are useless compared to the other weapons available to them. With these weapons the soldier can clear out rooms, defend a base, or suppress the enemy with excessive damage while the other classes on your team try to break through objective points.

Medic - "ARGH REVIVE MEE!"
The medics are ..well... medics! Their weapon kit is quite simple with an SMG / Pistol & Grenade, but their specialty equipment is what makes them so fantastic. Medics have the ability to heal and revive players on the battlefield, which is something battlefield 2 adopted from this game. Medics in WolfET can drop med packs on the ground for players to heal and regain health. They also can run up to players and stab them with a needle to revive soldiers that have been shot down by the other team.. as long as they are still kicking on the ground, the medic can revive them. It is always important to have a decent 1/3 ratio of medics on the battlefield, they can become the life support of an assault or defense tactic in winning the map.

Engineer - "We Need a engineer!"
Engineers are an essential part of WolfET, you NEED them to complete the objectives. Their basic kit consists of the SMG or Rifle w/ Rifle Grenade. Their specialty kit consists of TNT, Landmines, and Pliers. The basic use of the TNT is to destroy objective points, once tossed on the ground you need to arm it with the pliers, and the only way to disarm it is with the pliers. The land mines serve their purpose for defending objectives, or side objectives. The pliers you use to capture objectives or side objectives. Side objectives server as forward spawn points, or the use of defense weapons (mounted machine guns). The Pliers can also be used to repair secondary objectives, or main objectives (such as a tank that you need to escort). Without an engineer on your team, your victory is lost.

Field Ops - "FIRING FOR EFFECT!"
Field Ops, oh field ops, my beautiful beautiful babies. This is my class of choice, these guys are the onslaught of the battlefield. Equipped with a basic SMG and Pistol, their specialty kit screams chaos. With a smoke grenade, ammunition boxes, and binoculars the engineer is one class you WANT to have on your battlefield. Smoke grenades? Pffff what can they do!.. Nothing much other than leave a marker for a plane to carpet bomb the battlefield!!! However, the only use these grenades have is outdoors.. indoors the pilots cannot see zee target! Outside of the wonderful air strike you have the Binoculars which provide artillery strikes, these hit randomly in an area in which you called it.. a simple zoom in and click will suffice for the artillery strike. On top of this you have your ammo boxes which can be dropped on the field for your team mates to get ammo, or for yourself if you are such a greedy whore.

Covert Ops - "ENEMY IN DA SKIES"
Or enemy in disguise as it really says :P. Covert ops are, you guessed right, the Spy's of Enemy Territory. They have a wonderful sten gun, sniper rifle, or assault rifle as their starting weapon, but also have the ability to disguise themselves as the opposing team! But not so fast there mr spy, the only way you can disguise is by taking the uniform of a dead soldier on the battlefield ;), you will have to work for your stealthy efforts! Covert Ops are also equipped with a smoke grenade that can be used to move through or blind the enemy. As this class you will also get a satchel charge pack that you can use to destroy certain objectives or just in general blow some enemies body parts across the map.

Important Feature: Every class has a 'specialty stamina bar' that applies to the use of their specialty items. For example.. using your air strike grenade as field ops drains your specialty bar completely dry so you cannot spam the effect, or switch to artillery immediately and call in more chaos. It also limits the ability to drop the ammo cans.. so you will naturally need to wait for your special stamina bar to recharge before you can use your other specialty items.. don't worry tho, it doesn't take that long to recharge ;). Each class has this same effect, medics, engineers, covert ops.. so pay attention to it!



Well now that you guys have some understanding of Wolfenstein Enemy Territory, its time for you to download, install, and get ready for a weekend of classic chaos! The server I have up is a 14 man server on a vanilla version of Wolf ET, no password is needed so here is the IP 66.55.149.13:27960. A simple way to connect to the server is just pulling down the console with the "~" and type /connect 66.55.149.13:27960 and it will connect you! If you go through the server list the name of the server is ENEMY IN DA SKIES! (or as some server programs will list it as ^1ENEMY ^2IN DA SKIES (for colored names).

Game Time!
Game time will be around 5/6pm EST tomorrow, and will go on all night long. You can reach me via steam my user name is 'dyslixec' but I will show up as bw-//WastelandTraveler. Or you can get in the Dtoid IRC and contact me through there. Either way we are going to have one hell of a time playing this bad boy on a server in our realm of control!

Time : 5/6 PM EST
Server : 66.55.149.13:27960
Reason : TO BLOW SHIT UP

If you want to get a sense of what Wolfenstein MP/ET is like, take a look at this video, its one of the best productions of Wolfenstein MP out there, and while WolfMP is slightly different from ET, you will still get a sense of how insane the combat can get if not more so with ET

After reading a comment in one of the front page news posts about destructoid, someone made said that instead of making dtoid exclusively closed, that they should offer a premium membership that includes a free tshirt, special forums, etc. Well.. I thought about this for a second and then I began to build off of it, because I honestly thought it was a cool Idea. I know myself and maybe several other older veterans would jump on this in a heart beat.. but what else could be brought to the table to get someone interested?

Well lets see what we could offer to a Golden Robot..
- free exclusive t-shirt
- special forum section
- a badge of some kind that lets them stand out
- possibly exclusive store items
- personal blog page with podcast hosting
- Ad free destructoid

What do you get if you dont want to be a Golden Robot?
The same thing you get currently with destructoid. You will still be able to post blogs, still be able to vote blogs, post on forums, chat, etc.. no restriction of what any user currently has right now! The Golden Robot is for those who want to help out destructoid and get some extra little things on the side :P

Now when I started thinking about stuff to give a Golden Robot, I eventually came to the conclusion of the last items. Where if you were a Golden Robot, you could have your own customized blog page with a custom banner built by a dtoid artist, along with the ability to change the background color & font color scheme of your page and maybe even implement some CSS later on in the future. But on top of that, you will have a podcast section and an about me page as well. The About Me page allows those, if they wish, to write a more extensive bio and 'intro' about themselves for others to see. And the podcast hosting is for those like the drunkcast, and failcast people who start their own little groups. I think something like this would be cool for them because then we would have more recognizable destructoid community created content.


http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/3010/dtoidcommunity.jpg

Now I know destructoid is nowhere near the size of IGN and Gamespy to be able to push this kind of system in.. but I'm bored, and this is what you guys get from me when I'm bored :P so enjoy!

I have been a long time member of Destructoid, not as long as others, but still long enough to see it evolve from a smaller form into a community giant. A lot of my good friends don't frequent the site anymore and broke away for their own reasons but this is still one gaming website that I cant compare to any other. What other website has year round No Apparent Reason Parties, Anniversary Parties, and ungodly PAX meet ups, which I have yet to attend (PAX BOSTON HERE I COME WOO!).

What is it that makes this site great to me? Well really its one major thing for me.. its community. I have never seen a video game blogging website turn into such a massive force like Destructoid has. From its simple forums, to its continuously evolving community blogs, to the Cblog Mafia, and the IRC Cartel, and to the madness that is Ventrilo. No other site banded gamers in such a way to where they were determined by any means necessary to meet up with each other and spend days of drinking and performing ridiculous shenanigans.

Even if some older members are no longer here, I'm still great friends with them and talk to them on a daily basis. The politics behind bullshit do not concern me, what I'm more concerned about is whether or not this community will evolve and expand beyond what it is currently. My hope is that it does, I hope more and more come to Destructoid, especially more people from NC so we can get some damn NC NARPS going. And see that's the very thing that makes this website so unique, the community has a larger voice than most other websites. Our voices are heard in this community, while sometimes some will feel ignored, we still get more of a voice than we would on any other website... Blog promotions for example, I wrote up a very extensive guide for new players to get into EVE Online, and it made the front page of EVE Online's website. I never thought in a million years that would happen, but it was all due to Destructoid putting my voice on the front page of its site. Where else can you get that? Where else can you get a community that bonds together in such a way that people become good friends, close enough to want to meet up with them on a yearly basis?

Destructoid is my home away from home, there are so many funny, kind, and troll worthy people on this website that it gives me peace of mind lol. And I'm constantly meeting new people as well, nothing is ever the same here. New faces come and go, but those that stick with this community usually become recognized and are put into the ranks of our 'Dtoid Army'. Those 'Destructoid Army Badges' talked about ages ago are really already implemented by the community itself, we have our jokers, our trolls, our artists, our boobies (sorry ladies), and our freedom to be heard and complain. We can post a blog about something we hate with Dtoid, or someone we are annoyed with, and it will either get praised or burned to the ground and buried in the desert like E.T. for the Atari. We can also over throw competitions and cheat the system and not be scolded or banned for it, as long as we make it public and don't try to [really] cheat the system :P (LOLHACKEDFLASHGAMES).

Lets not forget the man behind the curtain as well, Niero, a man that wears a giant ass robot helmet to every convention Destructoid attends. An owner who actually interacts with his community and loves to hang out, drink, and play games with them. A man who also comes onto stickam and puts pillows on his head while wearing his robot helmet <3. Community is purpose with Destructoid, so much that the staff is the community as well. There really is nothing else like it. So with this you know why I love Destructiod, and while it may have 'changed' in some ways, it still is a community that is ever growing and shaping to be an army big enough to over throw EA (ONOES CONSPIRACY GUYS?!?). <3 to all of you robots, go forth and conquer.

- also Niero, WHERE THE HELL IS OUR 'DIGG' BLOG VOTING SYSTEM?! :D

Instead we get this...


Overview
Where there is nazi's there is Wolfenstein, where there's Wolfenstein, there is paranormal events with strange weapons and American John Wayne bad assery. The time has finally come where Raven has developed another one of id Software's titles, this time being Wolfenstein. However what many will notice is that Wolfenstein has received a boost in its occult / paranormal dealings. Instead of making half machine half monster bad dudes, the Nazi's this round decided to just jump the fence and go right for the balls of the undead themselves. With the new Wolfenstein you will find your way through a town called Isenstadt, which is oddly enough controlled by those guys in black and gray called Nazi's.

But whats different this time? Well for starters this isn't the typical 'follow me and hold my hand' story telling experience we would get with games like Doom, Quake, or Wolfenstein. Well... it is still having your hand held but they give you the illusion of freedom. With the new Wolfenstein you go through the hub town of Isenstadt and collect missions from a selection of resistance fighters, and then branch out to larger more 'story telling' focused levels that guide you through the plot.



There is also a strange power up you get with this medallion you pick up called 'the veil'. When activated it switches your current world into a dark 'undead' alternate reality where things appear in a way as if you were looking through night vision goggles, but you also will encounter some strange wild life that, when shot, will zap and vaporize the crap out of anything in their path. Throughout the game you will gain specific veil powers that will assist you in fighting this modified Nazi regime. For example you have these guys called 'Scribes' and they are basically these bald guys with goggles and a black lab coat that run incredible fast and will also put up shields to protect themselves and soldiers. Well with specific veil powers you can slow down time, and also penetrate these said shields. And in the midst of combat it can be very intense and exciting when you have 3 or 4 of these guys to deal with plus 8 other pissed off Nazi's.

With these differences Wolfenstein has brought a new sort of experience to the series, basically taking features from all other games and cramming them together to make it one hell of a action packed experience.

Gameplay

Here is one thing that I will say I do like about the game.. its one hell of an epic adventure for a Wolfenstein game. While it does start off slow and boring for the first 20 minutes or so, after awhile the game becomes an adrenaline rush. However.. the only way to really achieve said awesomeness is through its hardest difficulty mode 'I am death incarnate'.

Now many of you will say "Woa, hey now that's pretty intense!" I'm here to tell you its not, its actually quite easy to play through on that mode, but they throw enough chaos in this mode that it becomes much more enjoyable than the others. And thank the gods its not like Call of Duty 4's veteran aka Michael Bay Mode where you have a Fourth of July shoved up your pooper around every corner. No, this is a perfect balance in the sense of action and challenges, while still pretty easy, it definitely lives up enough to be enjoyable.



Now in terms of the mechanics and all that jazz, the game plays out really smooth for PC, I had no problems with movement control or aiming, it felt like it was built around the PC and was a smooth experience over all. I will say the control scheme is a little different however, with the new veil powers, and it may take some getting used to if you are used to the control scheme of the past wolfenstein game but its definitely doable and quite enjoyable when you get the hang of it. Like myself I love fast reaction and combat when it comes to this type of game, and with these veil powers you will find your self switching between different powers, managing your veil power usage, and shooting up bad guys all at the same time and it can be quite an adrenaline rush when you have a horde of Nazi's on your hand.

With your weapons & veil powers also comes the ability to upgrade your weapons. Through the experience of fighting off the evil Nazi's you must also upgrade your weapons to improve accuracy, add silencers, reduce recoil, hold more ammo, improve veil power abilities and strength, etc. And trust me you will want to upgrade these, it will be very hard for you to beat this game without upgrading your weapons. But with upgrading comes restrictions.. they even state in the tips on the loading screen that you will not have enough money to buy all the upgrades, so choose wisely. You can however sell old upgrades for half the original cost if you want to switch some around. So you are not totally denied reconfiguration throughout the game. Overall its a neat addition to the game and allows the player to have his or her own 'fighting experience' catered to their style.



There were some issues with gameplay however when it came to the AI & scripted events. To save time I'll just say the AI is bugged in some ways where it will, like many other games, do stupid things or nothing at all, but that's really just about all Ive noticed with it. As far as the scripted events I did notice a few bugs with these where I had to reload at my last save point and do a section of a mission over because I out ran a friendly NPC and killed some dudes, and certain things did not trigger off. It was quite the buzz kill at the time but nothing that was serious enough to where it kept me from continuing on, isolated situations I guess you could say.

Overall the gameplay of Wolfenstein is quite satisfying and definitely isn't lacking in the fun department. While a lot of it is basic, the veil powers give you a nice little twist to the gameplay elements when you are in a chaotic situation, and the vast amounts of content that's in your face while your playing is enough to satisfy anyone. While the game is plagued with a few bugs based in AI and some scripted segments, it is definitely not enough to turn you away from continuing your adventure.

Graphics

I will say Raven certainly did push the id Tech 4 (aka doom 3) engine to its limits. The visuals in Wolfenstein SP, while some will say out dated, are quite spectacular on PC fully cranked up. The detail in the textures, and the detail in the environments completely void out the 'it looks like plastic' claim everyone associated with the engine for years. Not to mention the pseudo-HDR effects added to the engine also bring a great deal of appeal to its looks.

While you may expect an average world war 2 look to the buildings in the game, Wolfenstein definitely changes that thought around quickly. With its fantasy world, the Nazi regime was the 'god power' of the world and constructed monumental bases that would put NASA and Area 51 to shame. The visual detail in these worlds is nothing short of spectacular when you see them in the game and definitely will keep you from moving forward and force you to just look around in awe at the beautiful level design.





Apart from the structural and environmental design of Wolfenstein's world comes its characters. This is definitely one department Raven did not slack off in. Different from the previous version you meet many resistance fighters that are a part of the story and you evolve with them as the story unfolds. With new friendly faces comes some nasty evil ones. Of course you still have your German soldiers and your SS goons, but you also get some more nasty little critters thrown in the mix that are souped up with 'veil' powers like the Veil Assassin and the Veil Heavy Trooper. Each one of these different creatures have a beautiful design to them and some have very interesting ways in which they need to be destroyed. Oh and yes guys the hott n sexy SS females are back in the game, but this time they like to stab you, throw fire balls at you, or hit you with electrified whips ;).



Overall the visual design of Wolfenstein is quite pleasing considering its on an engine that's a little over 4 years old. The character design, and the structural layouts of the world are unique in their own way and stay true to the Wolfenstein Universe, old school fans will not be disappointed with the way the world unfolds before them.

Sound

One thing we all look forward too with a Wolfenstein game is the sounds, either with its epic orchestral soundtrack, or the wonderful German voices we always love to hear when in a panic. Wolfenstein delivers one of these greatly with its epic soundtrack, but falls short on some of the voice acting elements of the game.

With the soundtrack we once again receive and epic drum pounding theme that we hear when something bad ass is about to happen, or a slow dreary song when something unnerving is about to occur. Regardless the placement of the soundtrack was very well done for Wolfenstein and matches up just perfectly if not better than its previous game Return to Castle Wolfenstein.



The worst of the sound would have to be the voice acting, while in terms of quality its good, and not all of it is bad, some of it however just makes me cringe and kills the suspension of disbelief while playing the game. For those of you who have ever played STALKER, you remember this one guy that stood on a catwalk in this warehouse of one of the main towns.. and every time you walked by all you would hear is "GET OUT OF HERE STALKER!, GET OUT OF HERE STALKER! GET OUT OF HERE STALKER! GET OUT OF HERE STALKER.." and it was never ending? Well this unfortunately does happen with a few NPC's while playing through the game, even while in combat, which turned out to be a real buzz kill on the enjoyment. With the exception of that major annoyance, and several other small ones.. the voice acting over all isn't that bad, but definitely not fined tuned or placed well like the soundtrack of the game.

OH! One other downer I forgot to mention about the voice acting, DAMN YOU RAVEN FOR NOT HAVING PURE GERMAN IN THIS GAME! There was only one classic battle cry I heard in my entire play through of the game and that was 'mein leben'. Not once did I hear the infamous "HALT!" or "Achtung! Achtung! I'M YELLING OVER AN INTERCOM IN GERMAN" from Return To Castle Wolfenstein, instead it was all cliche German American sayings, like "STOP AMERICAN!" or "ARE YOU FRIGHTENED AMERICAN?" which unfortunately didn't turn out as awesome as I hoped it would.



Apart from the soundtrack, and its voice acting, Wolfenstein brings a great deal of ambient sounds and does a very good job with using sound effects at the right moment. There are times when you are walking around slowly, trying to sneak through places and you start hearing creepy sounds that just throw you off guard and mess with your head, sometimes eventually pushing you to just say F-- this and start shooting everyone instead of sneaking past them. Other times you just start looking in every direction, like when you have a Veil Assassin stalking you, I wont spoil beyond that but I will say it knocks you around a bit.

Overall the sound design for Wolfenstein was well done, with the exception of its voice acting ofcourse, which it wasn't enough for me to totally bash the sound department although I wish It had more of an authentic German touch to it like the previous Wolfenstein game. Regardless Raven did an excellent job of bringing the player into Wolfensteins universe and driving them forward with some great sound placement and one epic sound track.

Multiplayer, or, How to fire 60% of a development studio

Boy oh boy.. where do I get started with this one. Well.. theres really not much to say about this other than.. stick with RTCW Mp, and Wolf ET. Really that's all there is to say.. beyond that is just a waste of words and useless information that's going to displease any read more than this will. If I could sum up how bad this multiplayer experience was... it would be this: In terms of performance, this game plays worse than Doom 3 & Quake IV's multiplayer component. In terms of resembling WolfMP, it does not.



There is just no way to really justify this game having a resemblance to WolfMP or ET on any level. The classes were stripped of features, and given 'veil' power abilities which really do nothing, and the whole weapon upgrade system was tossed into the game as well. It was a cheap attempt to cross over CoD4 with Wolf MP while taking away most of Wolf MP's core components other than its gameplay modes. Just.. leave the MP alone.. I have to reinstall WolfET just to cleanse my brain of this wretched multiplayer quake 3 mod that was packaged with a wonderful singleplayer experience.

Summary

Wolfenstein will captivate those who have always loved the Wolfenstein series, you will get a fun adventure with some new unique ways in playing the game. The story, while very basic, is still an awesome cheesy paranormal story with the return of some old characters, as well as the addition of new ones. If you were a fan of RTCW, and the Wolfenstein universe as a whole, the single player will not disappoint. Just remember to play on the hardest difficulty ;).

I refuse to tie in Wolfenstein's multiplayer component with this game, they should have just taken Wolf ET and tossed it onto the id tech 4 engine and packaged it with this game, and the game would have sold like hot cakes, thats all we wanted. So in turn, the multiplayer does not belong in the summary lol.

Final Score(s)
Singleplayer : 8.5 / 10 - While its on old tech, and has some flaws and generic gameplay, it's still quite a blast and one hell of a fun addition to the Wolfenstein universe.

Multiplayer: 4.0/10 - While it might be fun for a generic run, that fun only lasts about 10 minutes. With most of WolfMP's core features gone from this new version, its no wonder a large chunk of a development studio got laid to waste on the games day of release.

added note: If you are a collector of the series, buy the game, if you want to play the SP and don't care for the collecting, rent it. If you are looking for multiplayer, pull an Atari ET and bury that shit in the desert.