The New Order is a game that I find bewildering, it's praised, with many declaring it the best fps in years - yet, when I boot it up, I find myself bombarded with practically every detestable aspect of modern game design - with increasing amounts of disdain the longer the playtime goes on.
On the other hand Return To Castle Wolfenstien, an older re-imagining (which I played in tandem) seems to have lost none of charm. Just as it was in 2001 - it remains a flawed, but entertaining experience that is very much a bridging point between the old and new.
Much like Doom, Return To Castle Wolfenstien has more of a premise than a story, you are man, Nazi's do bad, go get them.
Cut-scenes exist, primarily at the start of levels with higher ups - old men in a room giving an overview in an attempt to add context to the game. Ultimately it's uninteresting and best to simply skip. Other sporadic cut-scenes, typically to introduce characters or events within a level tend to be more interesting and remain brief, not interrupting the flow or the game or detracting from the player shooting stuff.
While Return To Castle Wolfenstien half heartily cobbled together a plot as an excuse for game-play, The New Orders story takes precedence over it. Comparatively The new Order positively despises giving the player control, with a continual stream of interruptions at the start, middle and end of levels, be it cut-scenes or scripted sequenced with limited or a complete lack of control the game, as with many of the modern age seem more invested in emulating cinema rather than the interactivity video games provide. It's biggest influence, rather than Wolfenstien or in general, old school shooters seems clearly derived from Call Of Duty.
Return To Castle Wolfenstien was a mix of 80's action and camp - a silent, square jawed protagonist serves as an avatar to mow down Nazi's with dodgy accents - including impractically dressed females unashamedly designed to titillate. The game also injects sci-fi and supernatural elements in the form of augmented soldiers and mummy infested crypts. It's schlock loosely, yet cohesively melded together, to just - work.
The New Order seems to be under the impression it's Schinlders List, regardless of robotic dogs, or the impossibilities of duel wielding shotguns, Bj Blazkowicz almost illegibly mumbles about the horrors of war, his comrades and the evil's of Nazi' it's stoic tone mismatched from the absurdist nature of franchise.
Although post-Halflife, released in 2001, Return To Castle Wolfenstien still very much adheres to an old school mentality. It's mingles contemporary elements such as scripted sequences, escorts and character interaction, but it's sparingly used - opting to focus on exploration and combat.
As per the original, exploration yields treasure, which can seem relativity pointless as they yield no in-game benefit. Weapon stashes on the other hand became very useful at the higher difficulties. Occasional compulsory exploration for items or enemies are typically not to far off the path, making them feel like a natural organic progression.
The enemies AI is fairly impressive, they will straff, retreat, climb ladders and spot players from afar. While able to lock on to the player, as distance increases, their aim decreases to help avoid a sense of unfairness, it also serves the levels size, some of which are huge, unobstructed open areas.
Return To Castle Wolfenstien weapons are varied, ranging from standard pistol to more exotic weapons like the telsa-gun, automatically locking on to whatever is in front of the player a vibrant assault of blue hues - for such an aged title the details of these weapons like tiny scratches and imprints can be quite impressive when inspected.
Unfortunately, while id associated franchises such as Doom and Quake had impactful combat with creature moaning before collapsing into eviscerated chucks - Return To Castle Wolfenstiens enemies feel disconnected from bullets, soaking in round after round with no other discernible feedback other than an alerted state and canned death animation. Certain weapons such as the venom gun and flamethrower will elicit suitably gruesome feedback - but for the most part the enemy reaction feels anemic.
These problems are very minor when directly compared to The New Order. When it's willing to let you play, begrudgingly, it has it's own set of issues. It's AI rather than being progressive, is very much reductive to a decade old game - with enemies happily standing in place, popping out of walls with a general lack of mobility or awareness.
When battles become heated (per modern game design), the screen greys out with obnoxious screen-effects until the players health miraculously recharges, acting in direct contradiction to the games resource scavenging - which is more a novelty, than a requirement.
The only real mobile enemy in the game, it's ridiculous armored K9's, becomes a scripted sequences of repeated button tapping. Regardless of setting, unless the player is low on health, which is highly unlikely, it's doesn't have a failure state. This carried on to melee fights, which the game will seemingly randomly interrupt the players freedom, reducing it to a tapping scripted sequence.
The New Order very rarely gives the player freedom or organic interaction. Even the act of simply going through a vent, turning a nob, or pushing a button becomes an orchestrated script. The few sections which simply drop the player into an environment serve as nothing more as interludes so the game can push you along to it's next cut-scene.
Any sense of risk or reward is non existent, while Return To Castle Wolfenstien had checkpoints at the start of a level, with the player able to choose a save-point, a common staple of pc games, The New Order opts to place a stream checkpoints.
I've seen some people imply checkpoints are better however, quick-saves are optional, if a player chooses, they can finish an entire level without saving once, as well as spamming f5 on every conceivable opportunity.
In the case of checkpoints, the user is denied this freedom. The sense of threat dissipates and instead of half a dozen chapters the game has hundreds of micro-chapter acting as safely nets. Furthermore, with inconsequential death, the player can learn the placement of targets, which, in the case of New Order, is highly choreographed, never to change. Other problems also arise, being forced to watch the same scripted sequence over and over, being forced to collect the same items over and over.
While Return To Castle Wolfenstien will drop a player into a huge level entrusting with the intelligence to progress towards the end, The New Order will continuously funnel player along a linear path guided by markers to casualize an already casual experience. So untrusting of the players input, the game will cripple all feedback to a simple, and guided forward as to ensure they don't fall off a ledge or go off the beaten path laid.
Probably Return To Castle Wolfenstiens biggest, and most infamous misstep is stealth. These forced sections are trite instant fail states that act as nothing but a detriment to the game. Thankfully these are limited to a mere two levels and in replays, can be briskly skipped.
In this one, and arguably only regard, New Order is better. However, the stealth itself still isn't great. Enemy NPC's will follow the same routes completely oblivious to the players presence even when in plain site - directly making eye contact on occasion. Much of the enemy placement will be unnaturally contrived requiring no skill or dexterity as they look blankly into oblivion with their back to the player waiting for the slaughter.
Generally speaking, boss battles in most first person shooters tend to be terrible, it's especially vexing in Return To Castle Wolfenstien as the main grunts can be very challenging. All three boss battles require minimum effort, the final boss, in contrast to his build up as some sort of doomsday weapon, is laughable, on the hardest difficulty easily done with no reloads required.
Blemishes aside, Return To Castle Wolfensiten is Grey Matters masterpiece, and with hindsight, one of the last great old-school shooters. It offers open, expansive levels rewarding curiosity, exciting combat accommodated with challenging AI and overall package that shames most modern first person shooters.
The New Order by comparison is soyland green, the masses love it, but inherently, at it's core, it's wrong.