Wolfenstein: Youngblood Review (PC)

What happens when you try to make a franchise's lore more in tone with real-life present-day situations?

The calm before the storm

Full disclosure: I have never had the chance to get my hands on a title from the Wolfenstein series before, and I was pretty excited when I was asked to review this latest entry. The problem is that despite never actually playing any of the games, the series has enough of a fan-base for me to have at least heard about it, so a general image was formed in my head. Naturally, I didn’t have time to go through all the titles that span almost as much as my life on earth, so I watched some YouTube videos with gameplay footage and had finally gotten the idea I needed: “Wolfenstein is about killing Nazis, with a few extra steps.”

The plot

So I jumped right in the game waiting to kill some Nazis of my own, and what I found was…...something completely different. As far as the story goes, they did a Ghostbusters-like switcharoo, and can now only play using one of two female characters. While not wanting to sound demeaning, I am against pretty much any game where my character choices are gender-locked. The story is placed 20 years after the events of Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, and the protagonists are none other than  B.J. Blazkowicz and his wife Anya's twin daughters, Jessica and Sophia. As such, you play one of the two twin sisters, with none of them having any special skill that sets her apart form the other, except for the looks and the role-play material. As far as the story goes, the only thing in common that I found with previous installments was the Nazi-killing motif, which eventually didn’t prove to be enough to redeem the game’s lack of...pretty much everything else.

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A bit of a let-down in the graphics department

Before I continue, I must state that the game itself looks ok, but is in no way on par with anything launched now in 2019…...or anything since 2015. Character models are incredibly stale and lifeless, movements seem very……”Counter-Strike 1.6-like”, and even the gore elements are poorly implemented. One great example is how when you perform a stealth kill and you plunge your axe 5 inches in a Nazi's skull, you see blood gushing out like it’s an ‘80s slasher movie, but the skull or face itself is perfectly intact when you pull the axe out. In fact, the creepiest thing about killing in general is when the enemy ends up dying and looking at you with what could be described as a poker face. To get a better understanding of what i am talking about, imagine that their cinematics, the one piece of a game that is always better-looking than the actual gameplay footage, looks worse than the gameplay footage of other 2019 games. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if I found out they didn’t even bother rendering the cinematics and just used in-game cut-scenes.

Sometimes they kill you, sometimes you get killed by them

If you’re the type that loves FPS games and is a great crack shot, you have my respect. If you think you can take those skills and make use of them in Wolfenstein: Youngblood, you’ll have my pity. Bullet trajectory is incredibly random and despite years of experience telling me to go for the head, I have to admit that it was useless here. Bullet damage seems to be based on totally random algorithms, as sometimes you can get instant kills form a single shot to the chest, while other times you unload entire clips into a single lousy foot soldier.

For starters, the game can be played in Co-op mode, with you controlling one sister, and your partner controlling the other. If you don’t have a partner, you’ll just have to rely on an AI-controlled ally that is as dumb as a doorknob.  Unfortunately, when it comes to you getting hurt and your partner coming for your rescue, his artificial IQ seems to go from doorknob to back of rocks in an instant. For example, sometimes she will instantly heal you before you even complete the “severely hurt” animation, while other times you will bleed out before she even reaches the room you are in. This is extremely frustrating, especially when you take into consideration the game uses a shared health pool, so not only do you have to keep yourself safe, you also have to make sure you don’t suddenly become an only child under Nazi fire.

Clunky mechanics

Everything about the game felt very off-putting. Resources were pretty much everywhere and it felt more like playing a Serious Sam game where the map would be filled with hundreds of foes. More so, the double-jump feature was extremely frustrating to use, especially since you have entire levels that could only be completed if you make good use of it. Not only does it look silly, and it just feels wrong, and object collision is poorly designed and you’ll fall down from great heights frequently. Imagine it being like the Predator’s power jumps from the Alien versus Predator series, only that the Predator is a bit drunk. Was it frustrating to play? Yes it was. Did it have a great story? Not at all. Would I recommend it to my close friends and acquaintances? Not unless I want to end up friendless.

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The Good

The Bad

Conclusion