Wolfenstein PC Review

The third major release of the series in the past decade, Wolfenstein sees the return of William “B.J.” Blazkowicz, an American special agent fabled for his previous accomplishments in battling Nazis. He is sent to an eastern European town where resistance groups struggle to keep Hitler’s Third Reich from taking over. Isenstadt, chosen for occupation presumably because of its rural charm and close proximity to ancient ruins that house occult technologies ripe for the exploiting, is under martial law. Your job is to make use of B.J.’s talents to aid local organizations and find out what in the heck those crazy Germans are up to and why they came to Isenstadt to do it. You soon find out that something strange is definitely going on, but what?

There is no Dana, only Thule

In the first real mission you take on, you are given an artifact called the Thule Medallion, which bestows upon you the ability to enter an alternate universe, the Veil. While in the Veil, you can still interact directly with your home plane and vice versa, but you gain the ability to channel otherworldly energy into performing amazing feats of magic. These Veil powers are what allow you to become a one-man army and defeat the overwhelming Nazi presence in Isenstadt, but are they too powerful?

Veil Sight alone gives you night-vision, super speed, and a short-range wall hack, while it highlights enemies and reveals weak points on any baddies or structures that have them. Magical geysers that recharge your Veil energy are plentiful, as are Nazi containers filled with the stuff. Coupled with the minimal drain that Sight exerts on your energy pool, this means you can leave it turned on almost indefinitely, and why wouldn’t you? All the work Raven put into making the game world look as good as it does practically goes to waste when you hardly ever take off your sea foam blue goggles.

Granted, Sight is the power you will use the most, but it’s only one of the four you will acquire through about the first half of the game.

Mire is your basic, everyday bullet time - You move normally while everything around you slows to a crawl. Upgrade crystals can enhance the slowing effect, as well as create an explosion of energy around you when the power is activated.
Shield creates a barrier of transparent energy that encircles you to deflect bullets and other common projectile attacks. However, I found out the hard way that tank shells are unaffected. Upgrades can improve Shield by causing bullets to bounce off of it like rubber balls and enabling it to obliterate any garden variety Nazis that may come into contact with it.
Empower makes all of your ordnance extremely powerful, pin-point accurate from the hip, and can be upgraded to send your bullets through obstacles like concrete barriers or magical shields. Some enemies are able to dodge regular bullets, but flip on Empower for a second to blow them away, literally!

Any combination of powers can be active at once with an increased rate of energy drain, as would be expected. Of course, since you need to be in the Veil in order to use the other powers, Sight will be automatically enabled for the duration.