Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Activision
Rating: 4.5/5

Based on the a classic first person shooter and before that a shooter, RTCW had a great legacy to live up to. Fans of the various iterations of the game would be expecting a great deal. ID would not get away with their habitual "engine technology showcase" and no storyline, a la Quake series. As with the forthcoming Doom sequel, the latest game had to be a case of show you have it or admit you do not. As you can tell, I was wary of this game. I have little time for ID's so called "plots" and their habit of style over substance. RTCW made me forget the earlier shortcomings from the first 5 minutes of game play.

What you have here is a stunning FPS. A good storyline (a bit twee at times) and some great game-play. It is very hard not to get into this game right from the first level. Be warned, it is the type of game where you can find yourself playing for hours with little or no idea how much time has passed. The storyline is fully engrossing and you just have to find out where you are off to next. As you dig deeper into the SS Paranormal Division's activities, you follow one of their chief scientists to various locations in Germany as well as to Nazi occupied Norway. As you attempt to find out what they are up to it becomes more apparent that you, Agent Blazkowicz, have to prevent certain parties in the SS from literally raising hell in Europe. A sobering thought for those of us who know our history is that the SS really did attempt to use the occult to aid the war effort (as did the allies as well).

ID do take some liberties with history of course. Most amusing are the leather clad uber-vixens and the bikini-clad Madame Blavatsky (She existed but was an old woman at the time.). It is interesting to explore several German towns, an experimental rocket plant, aircraft factory and a secret base in Norway. Most of the time, you face human guards of various sorts, with only infrequent battles with un-dead and uber-soldats (cyborg soldiers). I found most of the undead battling to be rather boring and predictable. It became fairly clear early on when an undead nasty was about to rise and attack you. It was especially annoying when Nazi soldiers being attacked by the newly raised would shoot at you even while being attacked from behind by ghouls. The Nazi soldiers, when not being attacked by zombies, were fairly clever in their tactics, whether dropping behind cover, rolling out of the line of fire or setting ambushes. It was possible to lay ambushes for them, but they would attack in numbers rather than one by one.