If this is how the game begins, then knowing how Wolfenstein handles escalation, in a few hours that bag will be burst like so many Nazi skulls.Īnd make no mistake. Strange, off-kilter, and seemingly incongruous its bag of treats may be, but there’s a giddy, gratifying, and deeply affecting value here that you just won’t find in any other action game. A quite, calm moment of warm, human bliss, as Blazkowicz relaxes for the first time since we became reaquainted, his head resting on Anya’s very pregnant belly, his eyes closing, and sleep seeming near.ĭon’t question for a moment whether Wolfenstein can bring the goods for a second time.
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But for now, there's a moment of surprisingly tender respite. There’s more to come, as we reach the deck, and discover that for all the corpses left in my wake - either solid, or those in puddle form - there are many more to make. Behind him stands Anya, BJ’s beloved, packing a smoking gun and a furious expression. Reaching the final elevator up to the deck, I’m suddenly attacked (in a smoothly blended cutscene) by the last stormtrooper standing. Wolfenstein’s winsome loop of delivering bloody, cartoonish rewards for thoughtful play remains as jubilantly infectious as ever.īut, this being modern Wolfenstein, the curious, affecting mix of goofy splatter and touching pathos returns with aplomb toward the end of my demo. I hide away behind my microwave of choice, fire it back up, and then draw the jerks in with a teasing gunshot, cackling as each one charges arrogantly through to his instant, splashy doom. And many times, I’ll be able to take advantage of cover and patrol routes to gloriously offensive effect. Sometimes, the power box will be hidden away, far from the trap, requiring exploration, detective work, and no small exploitation of canny firing angles - bullets work as well as switches - to manipulate.
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Sometimes I’ll have to trigger these to move forward. And ye gods, am I going to profit from doing so.
WOLFENSTEIN 2 ANYA FREE
From this stage on, I’m free to activate and deactivate these traps at will, as long as I can find their control switches. Suddenly choke-points aren’t really choke-points, so much as they are ‘instantly super-heat marauding fascists so that they explode into a meaty, asshole bisque’-points. Mid-way through my journey to the deck, I discover that one of my crew has set up microwave booby-traps throughout the vessel’s corridors and doorways.
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Wolfenstein 2 exhibits the series’ turbo-charged smarts via means beyond its levels’ pure architecture. Not that it’s all brute force beat-downs. It’s just that now he either drags Nazis down toward him before shooting them up through the chin, or simply (and more satisfyingly) smashes their heads to pulp against his wheels. Rolling Blazkowicz is just as lethal a melee opponent as he ever was. Yeah, sorry, I should have mentioned those above. Thus, quick environmental appraisal and thoughtful improvisation swiftly become the engine that powers a hundred swift, flanking kills and pop-up melee takedowns. Brilliantly constructed to take sympathetic advantage of Blazko’s newly modified movement style, it’s a warren of tightly packed corridors to hurtle down, guns blazing, and intricate, cluttered, multi-leveled maze rooms, where space is tight, but line of sight is easy to break. Blazkowicz might not look as imposing in his current situation, but his deceptive, cat-and-mouse game is now stronger than ever.Īnd dear lord, does this early submarine level give him plenty of opportunity to make the most of that. Meanwhile, the tighter new turning circle makes for a great deal of rewarding, ‘Surprise, you’re dead’ moments, as our hero screeches around right-angled corners to blindside Nazis hiding behind cover, entirely unaware of where he’s got to.
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While strafing is obviously hampered, that’s made up for by a nippy, less predictable pace - sprinting now delivers short bursts of accelerated momentum, as BJ briefly downs tools to give the wheels a hard pump. And on that note of nimbleness, his new steed doesn’t harm his mobility as must as you’d expect. While his firing angle might be lower, making reaction-headshots more of a stretch than usual, it does also gift a handy dash of ‘Oddjob syndrome’, making Blazkowicz a smaller, more nimble target. It just changes the pace slightly and, if anything, gives old Blazko a few interesting new tricks. You might expect this to bring about a reduction in Wolfenstein’s trademark ferocity, but it really doesn’t.