Return to Castle Wolfenstein Review

Game: Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Year (s): 2001
Company: dev. Gray Matter Studios
pub. id Software
Engine: id Tech 3
Type: Shooter
Viewpoint: First-Person
Metacritic Score: 88
My Score: A solid modernization of graphics and gameplay that would, in turn, become dated.


Price (as of March 30, 2014)


Regular list price on Steam: $9.99
Lowest Buy-It-Now on eBay (new, with shipping): $30




Obligatory Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UJGNUb5RnE


Plot


You're B.J. Blazkowicz, the same silent protagonist from the original game. You start by escaping Castle Wolfenstein. After that, you're sent on a bunch of missions to abort Nazi rockets launches, steal prototype technology and weapons, perform covert operations, and so on. Ultimately, you end up heading back to Castle Wolfenstein to stop the resurrection of an unstoppable evil knight from the dark ages.




Save System


Manual Save? Yes
Quick Save? Yes
Area Load Save? Yes
Checkpoint Save? I think so, but am not sure.




Combat and Gameplay
This game has all the key features of the time: ladders, crawling in ducts, pre-rendered death animations (3D, no sprites), water, use of WADS-based controls, some destructible scenery, walk-over healing kits, cutscenes, and somewhat blocky-looking people,
The combat is generally straight-forward with little to mention. However, some levels must be completed without signaling any alarms, so there is a minor stealth element.




Expansions / DLC / Sequels
Four Wolfenstein titles have followed Return. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (it sounds like Quake 3 but with Return to Castle Wolfenstein weapons) and Wolfenstein RPG (a short game for mobile devices) both came out under the radar.
Wolfenstein (2009) is a sequel to Return to Castle Wolfenstein and was developed by Raven Software. It has a metascore of 74.
Woflenstein: The New Order is due out in May of this year. This one takes place in the 1960's, in an alternate timeline in which the Nazi won. This will be the first Wolfenstein game that does not incolve id Software, though it will utilize id Tech 5 for the engine.




Final Thoughts
If I'd gotten this in 2001, I'd have played the hell out of it. As it was, I played through a few levels, having fun until I came to a level with acrobatic enemies. The first small room had several bad guys. I only had thirty health, and I was out of ammo except for the sniper rifle. That being said, I turned on godmode and merrily progressed through the rest of the game.
Play it for nostalgia if you can, or just play it for kicks. Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a pretty good game for its era, and still runs fine on modern hardware and software.