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40oz

Return to Castle Wolfenstein thoughts?

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I was reading the Masters of Doom during suspension and a quote struck me that I hadn't really looked into. I've yet to hear from any third parties about this, but the quote was

"Return to Castle Wolfenstein however, proved to be a both critical and commercial smash even though the title bore little resembelance to its predecessor (Aside from a few turkey dinners on the tables)"

I thought it was an excellent resembelance to the original game. I understand that that it could have included a few things, such as being able to see B.J.'s face on the HUD, attack dogs, and eating human remains if your health is desperately low (I thought that would have made a really intriguing cinematic) But the concept of fighting Nazi Super-Soldiers, and spirits like from Spear of Destiny was rightfully portrayed in the game. I was really impressed and thought even though the game had a little more story than gameplay, still did a really good job bringing Wolfenstein more in depth.

What do you guys think?

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I haven't played it.

JohnnyRancid said:

eating human remains if your health is desperately low


Wolfenstein 3D really lets you do this? Seriously? That is hilarious.

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Creaphis said:

I haven't played it.



Wolfenstein 3D really lets you do this? Seriously? That is hilarious.


Oh yeah, dude. Well, in the PC version anyway. If your health was 11% or under, you could walk over little pools of blood and you'd hear a slurping sound and get a 1% health boost.

As for RtCW, I didn't think it had much resemblance to its source material, but I still thought it was an excellent game.

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I thought it was a reasonable and (generally) enjoyable modern interpretation of the old material. Quite a few areas felt very faithful to me.

Unfortunately, the more realistic feeling environment of the game did make me wish that it had more semi-realistic content. I personally would have preferred a game that was a bit more like those old war movies such as "Where Eagles Dare" and, not too surprisingly, it was those sections of the game, with a minimal emphasis on the supernatural, that I found most enjoyable. However, I understand that wasn't really the main thrust of the game and the zombies, mutants and Nazi experiments of the original were certainly there in bucket loads by the end. And I have to say, the first zombie-filled catacomb was a pretty creepy place.

I could have done without the ridiculous cartwheeling attack-Nazi-ninja-bitches in skin-tight Third Reich jumpsuits though. But I guess some spotty adolescent somewhere fwapped-off to them, thereby justifying their existence to someone. :/ IIRC, one of the first mods that I saw for the game online was for nude skins for the ninja-Nazis. Typical.

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I dunno, I loved RtCW. I mean, it was quite different from the original game, but I always just chalked it up to the fact that the original game was just so amazingly primitive that it was pretty much a given. But I mean, to me, they captured the most important elements - Nazis, supernatural creatures, experimental monstrosities, etc.

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Pretty much what Enjay and Geek said. I loved the game. But it could have been more faithful. Though that would have required it to go in a much more arcade oriented direction. Which wasn't that popular for the time of it's creation.

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I thought it was a great game mostly because it still kept the pace of playing Quake III from what it was built on. The World War II setting plus a fantasy nazi force was cheesy but still fun. The MP/WOLFET was a awesome extension to the setting. Wonder how the new Wolfenstein will compare.
Was there ever a fix for the letterboxing problem (where the screen was cropped, despite resolution)?

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Put me down as agreeing with the above 4 posts. While it wasn't an exact recreation of Wolf3D it DID manage to come up with some great moments at a few points throughout and delivered the goods as far as zombies, supernatural and zombies were concerned.

And like others I also found the nazi-ninja-bitches to be a pain in the backside to say the least. Somehow they seemed a lot easier to deal with in later parts of the game, the first time you ran into them was annoyingly hard. Hiding masses of them in corners of large rooms sucks, especially when the weapons you have to hand can't do the job quick enough. Bloody annoying.

WOLFMP was fantastic, though I tried to get back into it a while ago to find things had gotten a lot more irritating with people getting kicked after a single accidental teamkill (PROTIP: Don't jump in front of the guy with the panzerfaust when they're about to fire it) and people crying "OMG!! N000000B!!" as soon as they get nailed with said panzerfaust from miles away. >:D

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What could it have done better? I seriously doubt it could have confined the game to tight corridors and maze-like dungeouns the way the original wolf3d was without receiving harsh criticism. They'd be restricting themselves to the confines the engine didn't have, and would surely have been a waste.

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The only thing I didn't like about the game was the two levels where you failed the mission if a guard set off an alarm. It just didn't sense to me when the other levels let you shoot everything.

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caco_killer said:

The only thing I didn't like about the game was the two levels where you failed the mission if a guard set off an alarm.


The problem I have with levels like that is that I'm a big fan of the Thief games and the sneaking in RTCW (and a number of other games) simply isn't done as well as it is in Thief. I never feel that I have as much control over my sneakiness as I do in Thief and getting caught always seems a bit random compared to Thief where you know just how and why you messed up - and how to avoid doing so.

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I think it was a pretty good game. It could have been more faithful, but then again Wolfenstein isn't the easiest game to remake. One thing that bothered me, though, was the horrible story presentation. Those cinematics where 30 gray haired men were discussing the mission, were awful at best. Oh and the ending is tied with Quake4 as being the most idiotic ending of all times :P

But other than that it was a solid game with very atmospheric music! (Yes! Music!) I thoroughly enjoyed it.

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Loved it. It's the only PC game other than Doom that I've ended up playing in a speedrunning fashion.

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Shaviro said:

But other than that it was a solid game with very atmospheric music! (Yes! Music!) I thoroughly enjoyed it.


Gotta agree on that, RTCW probably had the greatest WW2 soundtrack I've ever heard.

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Yeah. I love the suspense music as well. It works so much better than just environmental sounds, in my opinion.

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Let me just ask this of the forum - when you got to the cable car in the third level, how many people did the Where Eagles Dare thing and stood on top of the car instead of riding it like a normal person? That added so much more awesome factor to that sequence, especially being able to snipe guards from it (though it does nothing to improve your ability to remain hidden)...

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WildWeasel said:

when you got to the cable car in the third level, how many people did the Where Eagles Dare thing and stood on top of the car instead of riding it like a normal person?

I tried running down the cable. It didn't work. :(

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I thought it felt bouncy and depthless and didn't really work out at all. It was like a drunk version of Half-Life in some ways, lacking personality and love

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RTCW was a good game, but I can't say I'd ever think of it as a remake of Wolf3D.

Doom3 was a much better "remake".

The music for the 3DO version of Wolf3D far supassed the action tracks of RTCW IMO (I'm intentionally not mentioning ambient tracks because 3DO Wolf3D has none really :p).

And the music for PC Wolf3D owns both IMO.

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I loved it and thought it had most of the elements that made the original Wolfenstein what it was. Nazis, Denglish (that's what you call fake German spoken by English speakers), elements of the supernatural, areas that creep you out, etc. I never did get all the way through the game, though, so maybe it loses its lustre after the first few levels.

I really hated the Nazi assassin ninja chicks, though. They seemed like rip-offs of the Covert Ops assassin ninjas from Half-Life, and those were fucking annoying to begin with.

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Danarchy said:

I never did get all the way through the game, though, so maybe it loses its lustre after the first few levels.

Spoiler alert. Last boss fight is fucking gay.

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The first castle and underground section were pretty cool. However the stealthy sections were tedious and the quality of the maps drops off the further you play.

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Szymanski said:

The first castle and underground section were pretty cool. However the stealthy sections were tedious and the quality of the maps drops off the further you play.



absolutely. as one might expect from doomers, i like to go in guns blazing, not sneak around oh so tactically. this and the laughable elite chicks should have been left out in order to make the game more speedrun-friendly and creepy. the supernatural part captured the style of the original well. minus the disappointing boss fight, i would have liked the angel of death as the mastermind while himmler thought he's in control of an experiment to turn the war using arcane powers...

i found the multiplayer part very enjoyable. played it in some clan ladders, although i never got too far :p

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kristus said:

Pretty much what Enjay and Geek said. I loved the game. But it could have been more faithful. Though that would have required it to go in a much more arcade oriented direction. Which wasn't that popular for the time of it's creation.

ScoreRTCW

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