Wolfenstein: The Old Blood Review

I'm not a big fan of the Wolfenstein titles MachineGames has made, I tried to play the New Order back around the time it came out and I stopped playing after a few levels, I didn't even beat that game until 4 years later and still wasn't a big fan. The New Collossus was a game I had a massive dislike for when I played at the time and I questioned why on earth I even got to the end of. Young Blood I completely avoided due to me already disliking the rebooted Wolfenstein franchise to begin with so I didn't even bother. The Old Blood however is a Wolfenstein game by them and due to me looking for PS4 games I wanted to buy for a convention, decided to buy this packaged with The New Order.

Anyways, with that out of the way, I'd say the Old Blood still pretty is a very enjoyable game. The "all killer and no filler" feel of the campaign contributed to that on top of it being a partial remake to Return to Castle Wolfenstein, a game I massively prefer over all of MachineGames' effort with the series. I still prefer RTCW but Old Blood for the most part is a game I had a good time playing.

I might as well start with the bad first since it really stood out to me when I started up the game. Major issues I had is that BJ's health and armor on the default difficulty can be shredded through quickly with enough concentrated gunfire when you partner that with enemies not giving health upon death, no ability to hold medkits, melee attacks often being scripted takedowns with no invicibility frames, and worst of all being forced to press the interact button constantly to pick up health and ammo, any fun I could be having on the default difficulty pretty much gets sapped away and I'm just getting frustrated. The combat being primarily around hitscan weapons is inevitably going to have some annoying design quirks I have to get past but due to all these issues I lowered the difficulty to, "Don't Hurt Me". I was starting to have more fun with the game that way.

The next hurdle I had to get past is the level after the Prologue, which for the life of me I can't figure out why MachineGames would have you get into a fun and intense shootout followed up with a dull and lengthy stealth section. These long stealth puzzle sequences where you need to hold switches on wired mech robots long enough to open electrified doors and a series of climbing sections is something I would never want to add in a game that is supposed to be about killing hordes of enemies. It's so bizarre compared to the rest of the game that I questioned why it was here at all especially considering how Old Blood is way more light on plot.

One final but major negative that the final boss is really awful, it's not bad enough that you have to pay attention to his attack patterns but you will also need to deal with Nazi soldiers shooting at you, partner that with everything I said earlier in the paragraph describing my combat gripes and it was a sour way to end off the game.

With all of that said, if you ignore everything regarding Chapter 1 all the way to the final boss, I had a great time playing Old Blood, it's esstentially everything good about the MachineGames' Wolfenstein titles minus everything I dislike about them like their over reliance on cutscenes and cinematics.

I like that this is the only MachineGames Wolfenstein where it's more of the secret agent espionage side of the RTCW rather than the whole leading the "resistance" their other games would do.

The weapons all sound powerful, weighty and punchy. The over the top death animations enemies have is one thing that I can say Old Blood does improve upon over RTCW. This was something MachineGames' Wolfenstein does really well and in Old Blood, this is what comprises most of the game.

You can even dual wield assault rifles and shotguns too which I can't recall many games letting you do especially with the latter and getting kills with the shotgun can feel very good. Getting silenced headshots with a pistol can also feel very satisfying too.

The overall loop of The Old Blood mainly consists of being in semi open areas where you either sneak around or go run and gun all though my strategy was to pick off as many enemies I could with a silenced pistol until the alarm eventually gets raised and I started mowing everyone down. Killing enemies with the sniper also has a great "omph" to it.

Enemy variety is also pretty good stuff, you got foot soldiers, shotgunners, bigger mechs who has a specific weak spot in order to be killed twice with a takedown and zombies, there could've been some more but the short length of the game cancels this out.

Pacing of TOB never really lets up and after Chapter 1 just feels like an epic action movie power fantasy. The levels also do a decent job at not feeling too hand holdy even if the blue circle at times can feel like quest markers.

Overall, I did really Wolfenstein TOB, and I did have major isssues with it, I also had a lot of fun with it for the short runtime.