Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

However, someone could always say "better late than never" and it is precisely with this philosophy that Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus on Switch must be taken, a port developed by the increasingly active Panic Button team (already author of the version for Doom Switch) that arrives on the Nintendo console eight months after the release on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. And it does so at full price (or almost) but without the DLC published in the meantime on the other platforms; even if it is not really essential content, sorry to not find it on board anyway.

I have already played and finished Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus on PlayStation 4 Pro (here you can find the full review) and I approached this new version already aware of what was waiting for me, or an FPS full of charisma, equipped with a gunplay excellent, long-lived and with some injection of more maturity in the gameplay than in the past (the stealth approach in many game sections) that cannot fail to please. In its own way, this new chapter of the series is even more demanding (as well as longer lasting) than Doom, with some sections that if faced with high levels of difficulty (already the third out of six) remain a real nightmare.

Situations that on Switch, with its controls not really ideal for a shooter of this type (unless you play with a Pro Controller in front of the TV), had made me fear the worst. Instead, although limited by the nature of Joy-Con, the new adventures on Switch by William "BJ" Blazkowicz also work in a portable version and much of the credit goes to the work (as usual impeccable) of Panic Button in adapting a similar title for Switch.

Of course, in portable mode you travel at 720p and I'm not even sure if they are fixed or dynamic, but if nothing else the 30 fps are kept very stable apart from some slight uncertainty in outdoor locations (however in minority compared to the interior). The visual impact on the Switch display, as well as rather washed out textures, unfortunately suffers from an evident "blur" effect that makes everything much less clear and incisive compared to what is seen on PlayStation 4 Pro, with the main result of struggling to see some enemies in the distance also because of the low contrast.

After a while you get used to it, but in the first two hours of play on board the submarine in certain dimly lit sections I often struggled to recognize an enemy from long distance and also the detachment between the in-game phases and the cut-scenes (definitely more defined) is not exactly the best. Considering however the reflections, the particle effects and the general detail, the landing of the game on Switch remains something remarkable, which among other things could push other major publishers (besides Bethesda) to invest more on Switch with their triple titles A, with the awareness however that some sacrifices will still have to be made (and here the difference between the 30 fps of Switch and the 60 fps of the other consoles is one of these).

In short, the technical stumbling block, thanks also to an excellent graphics engine like the id Tech 6, was overcome by Panic Button as it had happened months ago with Doom. And, as for Doom, here too I had to change the sensitivity parameters of the sticks a bit (I brought them both to 50) to obtain an effective aiming system. Instead, I immediately gave up on the one entrusted to the gyroscope of the console (in practice you aim by moving Switch), which if on the one hand it works well enough to aim down and up, it is much less comfortable to do it laterally.

With these modifications and assisted aiming (which then is up to a certain point), at the third difficulty level out of six I found Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus a definitely challenging first person shooter (the sequence in the theater is still a nightmare) but far from impossible or unnerving. Here too it is all a matter of habit, with the first moments of play on the wheelchair that proved unnerving, but only because I had not yet changed the sensitivity of the controls (and in the end I also preferred to lower the brightness a bit to avoid too shot effect).

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus then has the most beautiful and best written plot of the series (oh my God, not that it took that long considering the writing of the first episodes). The revolution led by Blazkowicz and his friends to overthrow the Nazi terror and free the USA from Hitler and the very bad Frau Engel is in fact a real pleasure from start to finish.

Moving on to the gameplay, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is very similar to the previous The New Order and The Old Blood (more to the first than to the second), with some more or less successful innovations. On the one hand we find the usual and excellent gunplay to which Machine Games has happily accustomed us since The New Order, but as already said before there is also a lot of stealth and the level-design, although not always inspired, can become much more intricate and labyrinthine compared to the past of the series. In short, a great shooter that on Switch lets you play very well despite inevitable technical compromises.

MODUS OPERANDI
I downloaded Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus on Switch thanks to a review code provided by the developers (the download requires about 24 GB of free space) and, having already completed it on PlayStation 4 Pro, I tested it on Switch for about eight hours. The game, entirely dubbed and subtitled in Italian and available on Switch from tomorrow to 59.99 euros, was already released last October on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

It's really amazing how well this story works, considering the absurdity of this fictional 1961 version, and how dramatically the mood changes from scene to scene. At one point, it's dramatic, and it gives a feeling of disgust at the prevailing racism, abuse and gratuitous cruelty. Not that we need another reason for wanting to overthrow the Third Reich depicted in this alternate reality - where the Nazis won World War II, and conquered the world, but it's still extremely effective in giving us the motivation to 'get there. That said, the next moment the game is going to bring us some hilarious scenes before returning to BJ Blazkowicz, and his own mortality, as his injuries from the events of The New Order recede.

Wolfenstein 2 takes us in its wake thanks to its impressive characters, remarkably well written and played. Exciting scenes highlight the monologues of BJ, the rebel leader Grace with her determined but sad gaze, or the crazy, conspiratorial and humorous rants of Super Spesh, are delivered to us in a convincing and successful manner. In no time, each of them has a deep backstory - they are an imperfect group of people who have gone through hellish war and ten-year occupation - and yet they have survived, being rebels, and in having lived their life. That said, with so many new and interesting faces, the characters in the first episode don't have much to do - including Max Hess and Bombate who don't have enough screen time apart from a few gags.

But it's the evil General Engel who steals the show from all the characters with her cheerful sadism, every time she makes an appearance. She's unpredictable, often one step ahead of you, and is completely ruthless, often playing with her prey to make them suffer. She is by far the most terrifying villain in video game since Vaas Montenegro in Far Cry 3. On top of that, flashbacks to BJ's childhood and his relationship with his racist and monstrous father (but not that much) are also extremely disturbing. In any case, these are all things that make you want to cut up a Nazi with an ax. A justifiable homicide in itself.

All of this shows that as long as you have complex, human characters, you can offer anything in terms of story. Wolfenstein 2's fifteen-hour campaign takes full advantage of this to stage twists and turns that will leave you speechless.

Killing a Nazi is already an exciting activity, but it is even more so thanks to the efforts put into the first person shooter phases, which are fluid and nervous, as well as the acting performances of your enemies when they come to die. Whether they react based on which body part you ripped off, or have their body sliced up in one of the various melee combat animations, or they explode and vaporize in front of your eyes when you are using a laser weapon, they absolutely want to show you how they die.

There are plenty of Nazis to kill, so you are encouraged to sneak up on every encounter to thin out the enemy herd by silently slaughtering the soldiers, and, more importantly, their officers, who tend to call in for reinforcements if you. leave them too long alive. Like The New Order, it's not exactly true stealth, in that enemies don't alert everyone when they discover a corpse (and you can't hide them), and you'll be discovered when. you expected not to be. And while one would expect better, this stealthy gameplay is a good way to prevent fights from starting the same way. It is also completely optional. If you prefer to go there with guns, it works great, although it's more difficult.

Wolfenstein 2 makes the most of its collection of fairly classic weapons (pistols, SMGs, submachine gun, shotgun, grenade launcher, etc.) by allowing you to combine them with each other, and customize them as you wish. Carrying two submachine guns on each arm, which has been an option for many episodes, is still as enjoyable as ever before, and allows you to sacrifice accuracy for double the firepower, which is very effective in close quarters combat or at average distance. Dual wielding is also handy if you want to be able to shoot a shotgun quickly, while you were previously silenced pistol, in order to get out of hiding. It is a way to benefit from an alternative fire mode. Unless, of course, you're using one of the excellent high powered cannons salvaged from the Nazis, which require both hands, but also include its own alternate fire mode.

My biggest disappointment with this system is that - without a late-rolled improvement - you can't pause the action to switch weapons. Instead, it's a clunky process, as there's only one weapon wheel for both hands, and you need to change the first to change the second. Good luck doing this under enemy fire.

Speaking of upgrades, each weapon potentially has three, including snaps, larger ammo capacity, and other things that change their behavior in more interesting ways than just increasing damage. Upgrade kits are scarce, making the choices you make all the more important - I only had half of them when I finished the game (although I missed several along the way).

Another interesting element of The New Order is the perk system, which gives improvements based on scoring, like when you shoot in the head or when you do fire damage. This encourages you to mix up your playstyle, and allows you to be rewarded regularly for your actions.

BJ may be a killing machine with armor, but he is not a tank. You must move forward while remaining cautious in order to stay alive, grabbing medikits, armor, and ammo usually found on the corpses of Nazis. This is something that has rightly earned The New Order a shower of criticism, pushing us to collect absolutely every item we could have, including unnecessary armor dropping from enemies. The New Colossus finds a much more interesting and classic way to do this: you can grab items by stepping on them - there's enough range so you don't have to stick to the enemy's body and spend too many time. You're still going to have to collect items, but it won't be as boring as the first episode.

Due to BJ's fragility (and the fact that I played on Hard, which is a cut above Normal), I was often killed, not knowing what had killed me. Whenever this happened, I wish I had access to a killcam focusing on the glee of the enemy responsible for my dismay in order to prepare for the second round.

But the only real problem is that in combat, BJ is always very picky about what he can jump. I have been killed more often than I would like because I got stuck by invisible obstacles while trying to skip over elements of the scenery - especially in the later levels.

The series of linear levels that Wolfenstein 2 is made of turns out to be what you would expect from a Nazi-occupied America. The irradiated remains of New York, the military installations, and a New Orleans turned into a walled-up ghetto, are particularly dark places, with some retina-catching footage, dotted with details and slices of life from an alternate fascist reality, making exploration interesting. It somehow humanizes the Germans you fight, but don't get me wrong, it's not about any moral about how a group deserves what happens to them, but hearing the prospects for the future. of a German family newly settled in America after the war has something interesting. And every now and then we hear of someone who died at the hands of the infamous William J. Blazkowicz, renamed Terro-Billy by the Nazi propagandists.

It is the zones without combat, between each mission, which stand out from the rest. Walking alongside a Nazi parade in Roswell or New Mexico, and listening to SS troops chatting with members of the Ku Klux Klan who find common ground is both strange and chilling. And the interior details of the houses visible from the main streets are excellent. The same goes for the submarine that serves as a basis for the rebellion, and which reforges characters and fortuitous dialogues. However, some of these protagonists are not at the level of the main strip led by BJ.

As this is a single player game, it's important to note that there is content waiting for you in droves after completing the storyline. Wolfenstein 2 recycles some of its cards for difficult assassination missions (and which must be unlocked by collecting items held by dead Nazi officers), allowing you to gain upgrades so far exclusive to choices made during the campaign. And there is also a reason to restart the game, including one of the first choices you make, where you have to choose to keep one of the two characters you meet at the start of the game, and which determines their presence by the after. This gives you access to a different weapon and this character plays a crucial role in the story. When I think back to the role Wyatt had in my part, I'm curious how Fergus, who is older, more jaded too, could have handled certain things.

Technically, after the first two hours of play, Wolfenstein 2 looks amazingly good on PC, while still remaining stable in performance. I have to admit, however, that during those first two hours, the game regularly crashed when I was trying to choose between Wyatt and Fergus - about 20 seconds after I started my game. It wasn't until I quit everything and stopped whatever was running in the background that it worked. Bethesda explained that this is an issue with the Nvidia drivers (on PC I use a GTX 1080), so there are beta drivers that should fix the issue if you encounter it. On a second PC using a GTX 980, nothing came to shake my game. As for the console versions, these worked without incident.

Phew ... Having finished Wolfenstein II , I am relieved to announce that the unfortunate first hour and a half of the game did not turn out to be representative of the overall campaign . After all, MachineGames did not include too many regrettable passages in its latest work, such as the one I wrote about in the review "in preparation" ... You don't know what I'm talking about? I'm already translating.

My first contact with Wolfenstein II was almost a disaster. As I launched this title, I was rubbing my hands at the thought that here was finally a sequel to one of the best shooters I have ever played. An hour and a half later, there was something between amazement and embarrassment on my face. In my life, I would not expect that the dark, after all, story from The New Order in the continuation will make a turn by one hundred and eighty degrees and turn into a grotesque cabaret. That a war drama poured with Tarantino sauce turns into a nativity scene in which any tragedy is blurred in a maze of infantile jokes and situational absurdities (even exaggerated for Wolfenstein ).

Nevertheless, I gritted my teeth and kept on playing, comforting myself that at least the shooting was on the same level in The New Colossus as before. Fortunately, it turned out that over time the other elements of the title also began to hit the right track. After those unfortunate 90 minutes of introduction, the game quickly rose from its knees, and a smile once again entered my face , triggered by an increasingly confident reflection that this was the Wolfenstein I've been waiting for - a worthy sequel to one of the best FPS I've ever played. And this conviction did not leave me for the next 20 hours, until the very end of the story. Even if there were two more small glitches along the way.

Inspiration. Count to four. Exhaust

At the outset, I must make one thing clear - this is not a game for people who have not had contact with The New Order . This sequel is so direct it can't be more. The action begins exactly in the same place where it left off in the "number one", and continues as if a week has passed from the previous episode of the story (like in a TV series), not just three years. Of course, MachineGames studio did not forget about this "detail" and prepared a movie that summarizes the plot of the first part - but to a person unfamiliar with the earlier installment of the series, the events taking place in the "two" may seem somewhat unclear, deprived of proper context.

The fans will feel at home from the very first moment - not counting the aforementioned turbulences with the climate. If you remember The New Order as a rather heavy game, in which humor only slightly lightened the dark atmosphere, The New Colossus may surprise you a bit unpleasantly. Although there are still many depressing or even shocking scenes here (especially since the creators presented, for example, the issue of Jews more boldly), the whole thing now has a less pessimistic overtone due to the fact that the number of comic inserts has increased, the characters have become more heroic and "cool", and the world was shown in brighter colors. In addition, moving the action to America meant that the game lacked such "wolfenstein" elements as gloomy castles or occultism dating back to medieval legends.

However, if you accept these changes, you will not regret it. The vision of the world dominated by the Germans is as consistent and poignant as in the previous part, and the plot is still a very strong component of the game. It is still the absolute top league among action titles, and the greatest merit of perfectly directed cut-scenes. Here, even an ordinary dialogue - e.g. briefing before a mission - attracts attention thanks to great texts, which the voice actors put a lot of heart into reading, as well as thanks to the effective work of the camera, dynamic editing and excellent musical setting. Mick Gordon did a great job again, composing the soundtrack. Apart from that, of course, the characters do their job - it's hard to get bored when so colorful, expressive characters appear in front of the "camera", with a lot of chemistry between them ... and friction.

What's best, there is a lot of this first - class fictional content in the game . There are even more cutscenes here than in The New Order , and they are nicer and longer (for someone who doesn't expect anything from this title to be beaten, probably too long). There are plenty of conversations and scenes especially on the submarine, which we return to between missions - you can spend a lot of time wandering around this hub and watching how members of the Resistance live. On the other hand, during the campaign, there are fewer stages focused strictly on exploring and / or building the climate than before - while the ones that are there are tearing the hats off. I will not go into details (read spoilers), I will only say that the creators focused more on such exciting sequences as the first meeting with Frau Engel in The New Order (train to Berlin), partially departing from traversing channels full of environmental riddles .

Terror-Billy sows ... terror

Let's move on to the mechanics of the game. The New Order lovers will find themselves in it in no time. Controls, interface, "feeling" of weapons or general rules of fun - at first glance, everything is very similar to the solutions we saw in MachineGames' debut work in 2014. At the beginning, the differences seem to be at most cosmetic - and the locations have become a bit more extensive, and the character development system or equipment upgrades have been designed a bit differently (and expanded), some collectibles have been modified (and new ones have been added), or the option to use two different ones has been introduced. knockers in both hands. It is similar with the available arsenal - Blazkowicz was equipped with a submachine gun, several new types of heavy weapons appeared, knives were replaced with axes, and that's roughly that. There is a slightly better situation among opponents - clashes with mechanized units are now more exciting and varied.

However, someone may draw a conclusion from this: stagnation. But in fact, The New Colossus offers a lot of things that can be regarded as innovative - only the problem is that describing these elements seems like a spoiler . Everything is broken down into broadly defined ideas for the next levels. I will not reveal a great secret if I give as an example the first mission in which BJ rides in a wheelchair on the board of the submarine. Sounds extraordinary, right?

I can assure you that in the other dozen or so stages, the creators showed no less creativity and practically every now and then serve new mechanics, thanks to which it is impossible to get bored. At some point, the gameplay takes a slight turn towards Dishonored , when Blazkowicz gets gadgets that significantly increase his exploration possibilities (although more open levels would be useful to better use the potential of these tools). Add to that the scenery that changes like in a kaleidoscope and skillfully accelerate and slow down the pace of the action, and we get a game that you simply cannot tear yourself away from. In a word - there is honey.

Id Tech in the shadow of the Vulkan

Let's discuss the technical issues. Shortly before the premiere, Bethesda disturbed us with the high hardware requirements of Wolfenstein II on the PC, but the devil was not that scary. I was playing on a computer equipped with a Core i5-4570, 16 GB RAM and a GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card with 6 GB VRAM and enjoyed stable 60 frames per second at ultra settings at 1080p, regardless of the detail of the location or the intensity of the action. The PS4 version, which I tested for several dozen minutes, also maintained the same level of animation fluidity (although with occasional slight drops), and in terms of the quality of the visuals, it was not noticeably inferior to the PC edition.

Such good results are all the more commendable as The New Colossus looks much nicer than the previous part ... and it performs noticeably better (at least on my computer). After Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, which offers equally high performance, I am slowly starting to believe that id Tech games will finally be among the best optimized titles on the market.

Unfortunately, other technical aspects of Wolfenstein II do not go hand in hand with the low hardware requirements. On Steam, quite a few users report problems launching the game , in part because the program only supports the Vulkan API. Fortunately, I was not affected by this kind of ailments - the most serious thing that happened to me was the application crashes three times (including two times connected with a computer reset).