Wolfenstein: The New Order is receiving positive reviews on both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3. It seems as if MachineGames pulled it off with bringing a retro first-person shooter up-to-date on a new-generation console. However, things aren't perfect. While lots of critics are enjoying the blast from the past, combat is slightly off (crucial to a shooter, mind you) and some have that other nostalgia that they've played better that's been released in this series.
Quick facts: The newest installment of Wolfenstein is developed by MachineGames and published by Bethesda Softworks. It was released on April 20th, 2014, at the full retail price of $59.99 on consoles. It is also available on both Microsoft consoles (One, 360) and on PC.
Outliers: Of the 31 reviews currently posted for the PS4 version at Metacritic, no one scored the game lower than a 60 when converted to a scale of 1 to 100. Places such as Game Revolution and Polygon gave it the highest score (90).
Other notable scores include a 78 from IGN, 75 from Destructoid, 70 from The Escapist, and 60 from Joystiq.
Cross-platform comparison: Over at GameRankings, Wolfenstein received a slightly higher overall rating (77.8 percent) on PS4 than it did on PS3 (74 percent). Both scored lower than the Xbox One (82.62 percent).
It's a much closer race over at Metacritic, which actually has the PS4 in the lead with 79 compared to 78 for the Xbox One. They haven't garnered enough reviews to post an average score for PS3 or Xbox 360.
Here are some quotes from Polygon (9.0), The Escapist (3.5 stars), and Joystiq (3 stars).
Arthur Gies (Polygon):
The result is a game at the mercies of both old-school blast-em-up first-person shooters and the storytelling ambitions of its new stewards. It shouldn't work. Numerous other shooters have tried and failed.
But Wolfenstein: The New Order doesn't fail. Its bizarre love triangle of traditional shooter elements, sci-fi pulp and believable human angle becomes something much more than its origins would suggest.
Jim Sterling (The Escapist):
Weird difficulty spikes notwithstanding, Wolfenstein is a pretty enjoyable romp with a number of notable highlights. An entire section set in a Nazi war camp is particularly engrossing, as is the entire beginning section during the 1940s assault on Deathshead's compound. If I'm honest - and it may not be a popular opinion - I have to confess that I enjoyed Ravensoft's 2009 Wolfenstein game a little bit more, finding it a touch better paced, and enjoying the occult influences more as opposed to The New Order's robot-heavy ideas.
Wolfenstein looks pretty good on the PS4, though it's not going to make any eyes explode, and the cutscene compression is noticeable. There are also a few apparent - though minor - visual glitches that crop up now and then. There's a lot of attention to detail when it comes to faces, though this might not be such a good thing during one of the game's standout moments - a moment that uses such facial detail to create one of the more disturbing moments I've seen in a videogame.
Ludwig Kietzmann (Joystiq):
Despite a silky frame rate, the rhythm of combat is just off. Taking down Nazi grunts and super-soldiers leads to more goodies, but you have to pick up each and every clip, health pack and bit of armor individually by running over it and pressing a button when the prompt appears. The game's pace feels energetic as you blaze through the sewers of Berlin or a barracks on the moon, but it's dragged down every time you transform into a bullet-sucking Roomba. When would you not want more ammo?
