The game has you playing BJ Blazkowicz who stumbles across a mysterious artifact that the Nazis were excavating for. You are later asked to travel to Eisenstadt to assist the local rebelling militia in stopping the Nazis from using a similar device that can possibly help them take over the world.

 

 

Eisenstadt is the main hub of the game, in this huge town you will meet with the underground and obtain new missions. Each mission will then lead you out of town to complete and then come back with whatever you were questing for and get another quest. Whilst the hub is a great idea it is a little sparse. With only a couple of safehouses to locate and with that only a small amount of missions the size of the map seems wasted. There are constantly spawning Nazi agents patrolling the map that you need to take out every once in a while and that is about it. The games main levels are quite well varied with train depots, caverns, airfields and research facilities. Each one is teeming with Nazis and thankfully you have quite a hefty arsenal at your disposal.

 

Each level will tend to offer you either a new weapon or a special ability linked to the artefact that you hold. You start with a basic machine gun and rifle but will soon be running around with a rocket launcher, a plasma gun that disintegrates instantly and a cool tesla gun that fries and throws enemies all over the place. The Veil artefact is the games McGuffin and whilst it does feel a little out of place it is great to use. There are four slots to fill with crystals, each crystal giving you a different power that you can trigger with the d-pad. The basic Veil power allows you to see hidden passages dotted through the game. The others allow you to slow time so you can dodge some of the heavier artillery, bring up a shield to protect you from bullets and an EMpower that boosts your attacks and enables bullets to pierce shielding. The Veil powers are exhaustible and will charge very slowly through non use. There are Veil pools dotted around that look like gas leaks when using normal sight that give you a quick boost, plus the Nazis have helpfully bottled up some of the gas which you can use when found. 

 

On top of the basic weapons and power set you can also upgrade each item with money found in the levels. Most safehouses have suppliers who can cater to your needs, be it adding a sniper scope and silencer to your rifle, increasing the power of your tesla gun, increasing ammo capacities or even changing the Veil powers like almost stopping time and deflecting bullets back to the enemy. In fact once you have made a few choice upgrades you are essentially walking death, running through corridors hearing enemies scream as you electrocute them and there is nothing they can do about it, it is very satisfying.

 

This does sadly leave us at a sticking point, with all of the power at hand and a relatively short game, with 7 hours to complete (and I was playing at a relaxed pace) there is very little challenge in the single player. There is an online mode which has a few cool modes on top of the classic team deathmatch. The mission mode requires each team to carry out certain objectives, Team A will need engineers to blow up some doors and then sabotage a tank whilst Team B try and stop it. This then swaps around for a fair balance. Each team can be built from 3 classes, engineer, medic and soldier, these classes are what you expect initially but again the upgrade system makes an appearance and with cash earned from kills and completed objections you can purchase more powerful weapons like a flamethrower and also upgrade your Veil powers to offer things like faster self healing.

 

 

There are plenty of people playing online at the moment but do be wary that there are some bug issues. I have been thrown from a few games for no apparent reason, respawned without dying and suffered some awful lag on most games. The problem appears to be widespread as you can view other connections and most of the time only one person will have 5 green bars whilst the rest of us changed from 0-2 every couple of seconds. If you can find a good server the online element is really fun and worth your time with loads of levelling up, customization and attainable achievements.

 

Wolfenstein did not seem to be as big a release than what I would of liked, maybe Activision has lost faith in this once great game, thankfully it remains a playable and fun game that is just a little too short. Worth a rental first and if the online is ever fixed its worth purchasing.