Dr. Christopher Kunz

Me and Wolfenstein, we go way back. In 1992, I played the shareware version of Wolfenstein 3D when it was actually legal in Germany (a week or so; got the disk off an imported english games magazine for a gazillion bucks). Wolf3D’s level editor was awesome on a stick. I loved Return to Castle Wolfenstein and just today, I picked up the newest addition to the Wolfenstein franchise, aptly named, erm, Wolfenstein. 

Review and a couple pics after the break.

I recently played some Call of Duty 5 (a.k.a. “World at War”) and for the first time in the Call of Duty franchise, I have to admit I’m bored and disappointed. The good is: Graphics and sound are up to highest standards and really make good use of my shining new gaming rig. However, the gameplay is utterly terrible. I should probably have realized this by the time of CoD 2, but here goes anyway.

I’m currently playing the demo for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars which is surprisingly entertaining. Basically, it is a Battlefield1942-like game set in the Quake universe and puts the Strogg, those machine-men who are trying to enslave Earth, against the GDF, an Earth army set to stop them.

See some screen shots:

The demo offers the full array of five different classes per faction which are:

1. Grunt/Soldier: Has high explosive charges and can carry an automatic rifle, machine gun or rocket launcher
2. Medic: Heals.
3. Covert Ops: Can hack enemy turrets or buildings, deploy a video camera to scout areas and has scoped rifles. The Strogg Covert Ops has the infamous rail gun.
4. Engineer: Deploys turrets and rocket launchers, can repair tanks and deployables and has a bit weaker weaponry than the others
5. Field Ops: Can call for artillery or air strikes, deploy radar dishes or artillery and hands out ammo.

The (only) map in the demo is called Valley and is supposed to resemble Yosemite Valley in the USA. It is fairly large but linear, since specific landmark waypoints have to be breached by one faction before an advance makes sense. However, you can take a covert ops soldier and go everywhere - very nice to flank those Strogg bastards.

By accomplishing missions like “destroy defense turret” or “build the bridge”, you can gain upgrades like faster reloading, additional weapons or items.

The graphics are nice, but not extremely spectacular. The gameplay is a lot faster paced than BF2 (which is the last game in the Battlefield franchise that I actually played), and playing against the computer AI (I’m not fast enough for actual PVP multiplayer, be it World of Warcraft or an FPS) is a very pleasant experience.

I’m looking forward to the complete game, it will probably be a very nice variation from WoW.