RTCW aka Wolfenstein - By Saint

It is not easy to write a fair review on a single map multiplayer test of a game whose single-player is supposed to be its selling point. I did in my time play the original Wolfenstein, and I did enjoy it, although it was then eclipsed by the Doom series. The secret maps at the end of Doom2 rekindled the memories with a dewy-eyed nostalgia and now the game, inevitably, has finally been updated. Although I have to say at this point that the only similarities between the original and the sequal are that both have guns and both have Germans. But then these are the reasons I enjoyed the first installment so that can hardly be bad.

The machine guns are standard, the sniper rifle deadly, the pistols irrelevant, the grenades cool, the mini-gun a thrill, and the rocket launcher scary. The flamethrower, however, is my weapon of choice, not least for the hissing sound it emits as it coats your friends and foes alike in incandescent liquid and the well-implemented slow-motion slideshow that shakes your graphics card every time you pull the trigger.

Yet whereas the Germans of the original were merely there to add comedy and slapstick, in the sequel they are far more serious. The heavily accented soundbites of the radio and the longcoats of the axis defenders throw you unprepared into the dark and oppressive realism of the demo. The map we are given is a sea-landing on a heavily fortified beach complete with mounted weapons, snipers and airstrikes, which thrusts you into the terrifying world of war. It is a highly tactical level for a highly-tactical multiplayer experience.

You can choose between four classes for the map. The soldier has the best weapons, the engineer has the dynamite, the medic has the health and the lieutenant the ammo and the airstirkes, though why anyone would choose to spoil their game by helping others through being anyone other than the soldier is completely beyond me. When you die, you can either wait on the deck for a medic to seringe you with the elixir of life, or you can enter a limbo mode, in which you can alter your class and weapon of choice as you wait a few seconds to be dispatched in the next wave of reinforcements.

Graphically, the game, and in particular the flame effects, is something special. Sure, it may be run on the quake3 engine, but the moody atmosphere of the dark surroundings littered by explosions and flames and tracer bullets creates a great deal of tension and thus excitement. The sound effects are similarly amazing; the numerous earth-shattering explosions punctuated by the fuzzy sounds of the radio and the cries for a medic to patch up a destroyed corpse.

The netcode of the game may be appalling (I pinged an average of 70-140 on UK servers with my ADSL), and the whole thing scarily reminiscent of Team Fortress Classic, but it is a lot of fun. The sheer weight of obligation of holding your post at all costs against the onslaught of invaders, or of advancing slowly across the missile torn beach in buddy-buddy style is a shot of adrenalin straight to the heart. It does not matter that the objectives are facile and that in order to complete them you tread effectively the same path every time you play. It does not matter that the sniper rifle doesn't fire straight or that the game all too often degenerates to a laggy standstill. It is you against them for tactics, you against them for willingess, you against them for speed and you against them for surprise and precision. So yes, as you may have guessed, I enjoyed the test and am looking forward to the full release.

Game :	Wolfenstein - Official Site
Publisher :	Activision - ID
Price :	n/a
Release date :	Pending
Rating (out of 5)
Graphics :	Not Rated Yet
Sound :
Playability :
Lifespan:
Value for Money :
Overall :