Slashdot Mirror
Wolfenstein: The New Order Launches
Back in 1992, Wolfenstein 3D helped kick off the fledgling FPS genre. Today, the saga continues with Wolfenstein: the New Order. It's set in an alternate-history world where the Nazis won WW2, with hero B.J. Blazkowicz setting out to join resistance fighters. Unusually for a modern FPS, the game has no multiplayer element — it's single-player only. Early reviews for the game are generally positive. Polygon's says, "First, stealth is a valid option for extended portions of the game, with silent melee takedowns and a brutally effective suppressed pistol. There's also a form of progression in Wolfenstein: The New Order's perk system. Performing certain actions in combat unlocks new abilities and upgrades over time, which can make a significant difference in the way you can tackle firefights. You can also find weapon upgrades that further escalate the raw, over-the-top violence on display. This combination of old ideas and new hooks seems mismatched, but I was taken aback by how well it all worked together."
Eurogamer had some criticism: "Less impressive are the plot and the characters, which often feel like they exist only to amplify the opportunities for violence and sensationalism. ... I wouldn't say it's offensive, but Wolfenstein: The New Order isn't a very tactful game, even though it's often trying to be. ... This is a game that does everything it needs to to earn an 18 certificate but rarely manages to achieve a sense of either gravity or maturity." The game is out for the PS3/4, Xbox 360/One, and Windows. It's build on the id Tech 5 engine, and that's causing some graphics issues on the PC, much like RAGE did when it launched in 2011. The game's massive size (~50GB) is causing problems for PS4 owners as well.
Eurogamer had some criticism: "Less impressive are the plot and the characters, which often feel like they exist only to amplify the opportunities for violence and sensationalism. ... I wouldn't say it's offensive, but Wolfenstein: The New Order isn't a very tactful game, even though it's often trying to be. ... This is a game that does everything it needs to to earn an 18 certificate but rarely manages to achieve a sense of either gravity or maturity." The game is out for the PS3/4, Xbox 360/One, and Windows. It's build on the id Tech 5 engine, and that's causing some graphics issues on the PC, much like RAGE did when it launched in 2011. The game's massive size (~50GB) is causing problems for PS4 owners as well.
Eurogamer's criticism seems legit, but begs the question, what constitutes a "mature" plot for a FPS? An 18 certificate doesn't imply a promise of maturity, does it?
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
Back in the day, I recall a number of pirate copies of games that compressed audio/video assets because bits were still costly and slow.
*shrug*
Not having a multiplayer element makes it MORE interesting to those that don't play online much (there is still a few of us)...
I managed to get Left For Dead 2 on Steam the day it was available for free.... the first new game I had played in a few years (I am rather beyond the typical game-buying demographic, most likely).
Due to a dated PC I tend to prefer playing single-player, but it has a few glaring problems when used that way. It is obvious that they intended it to be played by four people cooperating, and many situations involve coordination that bots can't or will not do. You almost need to resort to using cheat codes to get through many stages, as the bots are often more hindrance than help. And while there is a "last man on earth" variation to play, it doesn't present you with the usual assortment of enemies to fight.
check out a video demo the ID Tech 5 engine. The whole concept uses a metric-assload of high detail texture data. tiles it and streams it to the GPU. You get awesome texture detail. at the cost of space...
-S
""mein laven!" [sic]
When I was a kid, I thought they were saying "My name is...." and then trailing off in death.
I always thought that was neat, that it humanized them in some way, that they weren't "faceless nazis" but ordinary people, with kids, families, names... i had to kill them, but it was not as morally unambiguouous as simply I'm the good guy killing the bad guy.
Later on I found it was "mein leben"... or "my life" in german; and that was the end of that.
I haven't played the game yet but I find it funny that there is the criticism of the story and characters. I know these things are expected of modern games but, given the heritage of this game, I would never expect a good story but i would expect some fun shooter action. Wolfenstein comes from a time when, "Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important."
It's only an id tech game even. It's by MachineGames, who're basically a bunch of ex-Starbreeze developers. Now, Starbreeze did a few good games like The Darkness and both Riddick games, but they also made less than impressive stuff like Syndicate, so it's a bit of a mixed bag.
Even if Carmack were still at id (and he was for the vast majority of this game's development cycle, remember), he probably would've had little involvement. Not that I feel like it matters, though. Carmack is an amazing programmer and engine developer, but he's not very good at designing games from that tech (as can be seen by the fairly middling output id has had since shortly after its early days).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... from http://www.dorkly.com/post/632...
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Considering all the hours I got out of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory for YEARS... for completely FREE... That's no big deal to me.
But, honestly, I don't care about multiplayer Wolfenstein, my copy of The New Order comes in tomorrow and I hope they really focused on a great single player experience because not many FPS games do nowadays.
Scorta futuere amo!
Processing power is cheap and plentiful, disk bandwidth is not, especially on consoles. And, 50 GB is still quite a hit on your average user's SSD.