18-Jun-2003 Imagine a world without Beyoncé Knowles, without Buffy and without the all-conquering first-person shooter. This was the lot of gamers before Wolfenstein 3D burst onto our screens just over a decade ago. Opening the floodgates, Wolfenstein changed gaming forever and without it, there would never have been Halo.
Amazingly, it has taken this long for a decent sequel to come about, but the wait has been worth it. Distancing itself from Medal Of Honor's gritty and realistic war setting, Wolfenstein is moving towards a fantasy setting, pitting the player against Nazis and killer zombies - naturally.
Nasty Nazis And Evil Zombies The levels in Wolfenstein are nice and big, leaving you plenty of room to look for the secret areas - though to be honest they are a little easy to find. The singleplayer mode is essentially the same as the PC version, but with an extra seven levels bolted onto the beginning, serving as a prologue to the main story.
Wolfenstein borrows a little from games such as Splinter Cell in as much as stealth is rewarded. For example, try to take guards out silently as they drop pick-ups, and you can get a drop on enemy patrols ahead.
One complaint we can make is that there just isn't much variation in what you're required to kill. After a few hours you grow a little tired of blasting an endless parade of green-jacketed militia men. Even with the zombies, it's pretty unimaginative.
Though not as truly co-operative as Halo, the split-screen option can be quite fun, standing shoulder to shoulder with your mate and mowing down Nazis. Unfortunately, the whole thing is badly let down by the slow frame-rate which at term judders along like the drooling zombies, especially when two of you are firing at a group of bad guys.
The real ace in Wolfenstein's pack is the online option, which gives you the chance to indulge in some nifty team blasting. Microsoft has thrown a lot of weight behind online gaming, and this is exactly the kind of software it needs to show it off.
Paul Davies
// Overview
Verdict
A solid update of a genuine classic. While it's not about to steal Halo's crown, Wolfenstein can still hold its head up high.
One of the main features of the offline version of Wolfenstein is the split-screen cooperative mode. This allows you to team up with a mate and mow down Nazis in tandem. You can play this mode as a unit, tactically backing each other up or you can both just storm off in separate directions looking for carnage.
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