Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus- Episode Zero Reflection

“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra. –Jimmy Johnson

After Blazkowicz finishes off beating up Nazis and sends General Engel to Davy Jones’ Locker, there are three other Resistance fighters, each on their own adventure to undermine and destabilise the Nazi regime with their own unique talents. The expansion content to The New Colossus introduces former quarterback Joseph Stallion, the OSS Agent Jessica Valiant and Captain Gerald Wilkins as playable characters. In Episode Zero, players briefly play as each character – Stallion breaks out of a Chicago Nazi facility and steals a Panzerhund, Valiant infiltrates Nazi bunkers in California to find information on Operation San Andreas, and Captain Wilkins moves through an Alaskan base on the first steps of stopping Operation Black Sun. It’s a taste of what’s to come in each of the upcoming DLC packages: as a result of having picked up The New Colossus on launch day after curiosity took me, I received Episode Zero free of charge, as well. Each of the newly introduced characters have one of Blazkowicz’s contraption abilities, allowing them to be played in a certain manner, and their stories each serve to extend the depth of what’s happening in the world of Wolfenstein following General Engel’s death, furthering the world-building that Wolfenstein has excelled in since The New Order released.

The biggest draw about The New Colossus DLC are the play-style choices that are imposed on players. Because each character has a slightly more limited version of the contraption upgrades Blazkowicz has, each new character force players to adopt a particular playstyle that they might have not otherwise made extensive use of in The New Colossus‘ main campaign. Stallion’s extensive football background allows him to tackle opponents, withstand explosions and throw things further, but he’s not capable of stealth to the same extent as Blazkowicz or Valiant. Valiant can sneak through ventilation shafts as Blazkowicz could with the constrictor harness and excels at reaching spots that others cannot access, but she’s also vulnerable whenever situations devolve into a direct firefight. Captain Wilkins’ Kampfwanderer gives him the ability to access high ground, similarly to the battle walker upgrade. Each of the characters do not have any of the perks that Blazkowicz has, and weapon upgrades are gone, forcing players to play more carefully in each of the segments. It’s a fun approach to The New Colossus that showcases a different adventure to Blazkowicz’s, and Episode Zero does a succinct job of setting the stage for what players stand to experience should they choose to buy the DLC.

Screenshots and Commentary

• The full DLC, titled The Adventures of Gunslinger Joe, for Joseph Stallione’s story was released back in December 14 of 2017. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I actually had Episode Zero available in my account: this DLC is only available for players who pre-ordered the game or bought the season pass (both of which are risky manoeuvres), but it seems that buying the game on launch date seems to have been sufficient to make me eligible for Episode Zero.

• Episode Zero released on November 7, a week after I began playing through The New Colossus, and I did not beat The New Colossus until eighteen days later. After clearing through the Übercommander missions, I finally set my sights on Episode Zero, which begins with Stallion. It felt a bit strange to have lost all of the perks that I unlocked through the main campaign, and my weapons were sent back to their starting incarnations. Fortunately, exploring the mission will find weapon upgrade kits for Stallion’s weapons.

• Unlike The New Colossus‘ campaign, however, the upgrade system in the DLCs seem more similar to those of The New Order, where upgrades players find will be specific attachments for a weapon. I acquired a drum magazine and the nailgun upgrade for the submachine gun, which was my preferred weapon for this mission on account of ammunition availability: rifle-calibre rounds were more uncommon. The close quarters hallways seen in the first section of Episode Zero means that dual-wielded weapons on full-automatic are the most effective.

• Stallion’s football experience confers him abilities equivalent to Blazkowicz’s ram shackles prior to upgrading them, and are on the whole, slightly less powerful: I don’t think it’s possible to tackle a commander and have them explode into chunks of meat and a shower of blood as Blazkowicz can do, but for the most part, Stallion can sprint through metal grates and take out soldiers without too much difficulty.

• Going purely from Episode Zero‘s preview of all the DLCs, I feel that Stallion’s is probably the most unremarkable of the three: it’s set in a bunker that appears largely recycled from assets seen in The New Colossus‘s main campaign. While I’ve heard that Stallione gets to fight on Venus, the setting had already been explored in The New Colossus: I’ve seen some footage of The Adventures of Gunslinger Joe, and the fact that it looks fun notwithstanding, I think that I will wait for the other DLCs to be released before I make a concrete decision as to whether or not I’m grabbing the season pass come the next Steam Sale.

• Stealing the Panzerhund results in some gameplay reminiscent of when Blazkowicz was rampaging through the ruined streets of New Orleans: the flamethrower is absolutely vicious in the narrow hallways here, and will make short work of any opponent. Its armour can be replenished from pieces dropped by enemies.

• Panzerhunds were the bane of my existence when I was forced to fight against them during The New Order: when one broke into the Kreisau Circle’s headquarters, I expended more than half of my ammunition stores trying to stop it. By The New Colossus, however, heavy weapons and contraptions make the fights a bit more straightforward, even if the Panzerhunds seen in The New Colossus are supposed to be more powerful than their counterparts in The New Order.

• After seizing the Panzerhund and escaping, the story shifts over to that of Agent Valiant in The Diaries of Agent Silent Death. Her stealth-driven gameplay is rather more exciting, forcing players to choose their battles carefully; Valiant seems less durable than Stallion and Captain Wilkins, making it imperative to make use of the shadows to get around without being caught. She starts Episode Zero with a knife and a suppressed pistol: in spite of its weak damage compared to other weapons, it can be used to silently dispatch foes with a single, well-placed shot to the head.

• There’s an entire roast suckling pig with potatoes and vegetables that can boost Valiant’s health up by a hundred points, overcharging it. However, with the ability to keep overcharged health as with The New Colossus‘ campaign with the right perk, Valiant’s health will slowly deplete back to 100 points over time. While I lamented the lack of burgers in Super Spesh’s All American Diner during the Roswell Übercommander mission, food items are scattered through the game, and one of my preferred techniques for situations where I had been low on health was to collect health items after I’d reached a particular increment.

• Since health recharges up to a maximum of twenty points to the nearest multiple of twenty, finding three donuts could allow players to go from 20 points of health back to 80. This system is a fine balance between the recharging health of Halo and the non-regenerating health of games like Half-Life 2, allowing players improved survivability while maintaining their attention on keeping their health in a good state.

• The Diaries of Agent Silent Death is set to release later this month, and I’m actually curious to see what it will entail. If Episode Zero is a reliable indicator, Valiant’s maps are a bit more exciting than those of Stallion’s, being styled in an ostentatious manner with golden monuments, Nazi artwork and the like. Here, players will find themselves in large rooms that seem to be made of nothing but locked doors, but fortunately, there are small openings that Valiant can make use of to sneak through and access new areas.

• Valiant does not last very long in straight up firefights with only a mere pistol, but once more powerful weapons and some armour is found, the tables are turned. This recording studio feels quite similar to the courtroom seen in the mid-game of The New Colossus, but there are differences enough to make the mission feel unique. Being a spy of sorts, her missions look quite exciting, and I’m a bit curious to see what Operation San Andreas will entail.

• During my playthrough, I managed to remain stealthy right up until near the end, where I ran into a Supersoldaten and set an alarm off. Fortunately, I managed to sneak into one of the ventilation ducts and continued on deeper into the facility, out of range of the alarm. I did not manage to find any of the upgrades for Valiant’s weapons save the suppressor for the pistol, and admittedly, it does make me feel a bit under-prepared to enter new areas without the marksman optic mounted to the assault rifle.

• Valiant’s mission ends when she reaches the documents archive where the file she’s seeking is held. The file’s sitting out in the open and once she finds it, her part in Episode Zero comes to an end. In the end, I barely made it to the final part of the mission, with only twenty health remaining, and stopped to look around the details in this area before wrapping the mission up.

• Evergreen trees can be seen out the windows of Captain Wilkin’s mission in Episode Zero; his mission deals with the experiences he has in Alaska while trying to stop Operation Black Sun. I don’t think I’ve seen any shooters set in Alaska, and the last time I was in Alaska was many years ago, on a cruise to the Inside Passage. It’s absolutely beautiful here, being a place where snow-capped mountains merge with the ocean to create a unique landscape.

• The Amazing Deeds of Captain Wilkins is supposed to deal with the “Sun Gun”, a planned Nazi weapon that would have been placed 8200 kilometers above the surface of Earth and have a surface area of nine square kilometers. The weapon would have worked by focusing the sun’s rays onto a narrow point on the surface that would have hypothetically burned through cities and even boil away bodies of water. The Sun Gun was well ahead of its time, and Nazi scientists predicted that it would take at least fifty years before such a weapon could be built.

• Captain Wilkins is equipped with the Kampfwanderer, which performs similarly to the Battle Walker, allowing him to take the high ground over his opponents, and here, I deal with Nazi soldiers standing between him and the objective: Episode Zero has him fighting through a facility set along the western coasts of America (as evidenced by the evergreen trees), with the aim of softening up a Nazi facility and destroying a heavy weapon at the facility: here, I finish off the remaining Nazi soldiers firing at me, leaving naught but a pile of bodies in my wake.

• In English, the phrase “bury the hatchet” stems from American tradition, where hatchets or tomahawks were buried in a peace ceremony to signify disarmament. Its origins tie in with the idea of making peace with a past conflict, but in Wolfenstein, “burying the hatchet” takes on a whole new meaning. English idioms are rather interesting, and despite my background in English, there are many phrases that I remain unfamiliar with. The Chinese similarly have what are called chengyu (成語, jyutping “sing4 jyu5”); some of them are pretty intuitive and make perfect sense, while others are quite obscure.

• Of all the DLCs, I’m most looking forwards to seeing The Amazing Deeds of Captain Wilkins, especially if flying to the Sun Gun space station and engaging in space combat is a part of the missions. Here, I reach the control room and clear it of remaining hostiles so I can make use of the control panel. Level designs notwithstanding, one thing that I found consistently enjoyable through each of the characters was their extensive exposition and the fact that they give monologues similar to Blazkowicz’s, offering further insight on their personalities.

• By the brilliant  morning light of the West coast, I prepare one of the defensive cannons and aim it towards the much larger weapon to destroy it, bringing an end to Episode Zero, this discussion and the end of my Wolfenstein II writings for the present. I still find myself impressed that buying The New Colossus on launch date gave me access to Episode Zero; in the end, while it was a bit costlier to do so, I ended up saving quite a bit of time, so I find that I did get good value for my decision. Looking ahead into January, I’ve got my Yuru Camp△ post inbound in not more than a few days, and I’ll be wrapping up Wake Up, Girls! New Chapter! soon.

For the present, while I’m convinced that each of the three DLC packages, one each for Stallion, Valiant and Captain Wilkins, are likely to be quite fun in their own right and add newfound well-written stories into the Wolfenstein universe, the sample of the gameplay through Episode Zero suggests that there’s no new weapons, enemies or abilities. Furthermore, The Adventures of Gunslinger Joe, already released, seems to be quite short – if this instalment’s length is an indicator, then the DLCs together will likely add around five to seven hours of additional content in total (compared to the nine advertised). When one looks at the price tag of 30 CAD for the season pass, it’s probably not worthwhile to pick the DLC up in the absence of a good sale. For the present, then, I have no plans in continuing my adventures with Stallion, Valiant or Captain Wilkins – for one, I still need to go back through and beat The New Colossus on the Fergus timeline, which gives me access to the Laserkraftwerk. Of course, once I gain a bit more insight as to what the DLC offers once all of the instalments are released, and if a good sale should appear, I could change my mind and pick things up to continue what folks have concisely described as more Nazi Slaughtering Goodness.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus- Übercommander Missions

“Some things are so unexpected that no one is prepared for them.” —Leo Rosten

Enigma codes in Wolfenstein: The New Order unlocked new difficulties for the game, and while they were a curious addition, did not offer too much incentive for collection. By comparison, The New Colossus provides a new application for Enigma codes: they drop from commanders, and when a sufficient number have been accured, they can be decoded to unlock the location of an Übercommander, high-ranking commanders working directly under General Engel. More heavily armoured and armed than standard commanders, Übercommanders oversee entire regions and are hypothetically capable of succeeding General Engel. Thus, eliminating Übercommanders would remove the Nazi presence in the United States, and from the perspective of a continuation, it would mean that the American resistance against the Third Reich would be strengthened after all of the Übercommanders are dealt with. Each mission is set in a familiar area explored in the campaign, and a large number of enemies, including standard commanders, stand between Blazkowicz and the Übercommander. However, while the areas might be familiar, some of them have a new twist to them, being set during a different time of day, or else has seen extensive modifications since Blazkowicz last visited. When all of the Übercommanders are dealt with, players will unlock a special Übercommander mission that is called “Riverside”. Set in a pitch-black bunker with more robots than soldiers, it’s a complete change of pace from the missions previously. The eerily quiet, dark settings seem to conceal a greater evil, and it is with unease that Blazkowicz steps into the bunker, armed with only a flashlight against the enemy that is the lack of light. Fighting through hordes of robots and the occasional soldier, players eventually reach the final Übercommander, who is standing out in an open area overlooking the river, unattended save one Zerstörer guarding him.

In an intense but brief fight, players will take on the Zerstörer and finally, the Übercommander himself, completing the kill-board and ensuring that General Engel’s chokehold over the United States come to an end. Entertaining and concise, Übercommander missions are separate from the campaign and serve to further the story in The New Colossus further, providing players with an additional element to explore in the game. Their primary advantage is conferring upon players an opportunity to backtrack and explore areas further, allowing for collectable items and weapon upgrade kits to be found if they’d previously been missed. Being able to go back and find weapon upgrade kits is a hugely useful feature: players who may have missed them now have the chance of collecting them again. Considering the sheer intensity of the fight awaiting folks who reach the Zerstörer fight on board the Ausmerzer, which is a challenge even with fully-upgrade weapons and contraptions, it is most wise to have weapons that give players all possible options. In combining extended story elements with fair gameplay, the Übercommander missions represent an advancement in The New Colossus, providing an incentive to make use of Enigma Codes and replay missions, in turn giving the game a bit more replayability beyond the original campaign missions.

Screenshots and Commentary

• In the Übercommander missions, the Übercommander’s position is given by a blue outline around the commander signal. Here, I am in the Penthouse by night, rather than evening, and the shift in lighting makes fighting Nazis a great deal more interesting. Prior to each mission, Blazkowicz sets out in a submarine, helicopter or later, to the Venus base, a flying saucer of some sort. After arriving in each area, Grace gives him a bit of a primer, and then it’s off to the main attraction: Nazi killing.

• Here, I return to Mesquite, where the Nazis have turned Blazkowicz’s former home into a film set, where they intend on filming Blazkowicz’s life story. Under the cover of darkness, Blazkowicz must sneak through the guarded set to locate the Übercommander, and looking around, it’s astounding to see just how much has changed since the events of the campaign. It was here where I back-tracked to find one of the weapon upgrade kits: during the chaos of the campaign mission, I did not bother looking for the upgrade kit and so, missed it.

• Stealth is typically the best way of getting through a mission without sustaining heavy damage, but against the likes of Supersoldaten, stealth is pretty ineffectual. The end result is that more often than not, I found myself engaging in firefights. The plus side is that taking out a Supersoldaten gives Blazkowicz a heavy weapon, which can be used to waste any reinforcements that subsequently show up.

• While the campaign did not allow Blazkowicz to draw his guns in downtown Roswell and was set during a parade by day, the Übercommander mission returns Blazkowicz to downtown Roswell at night, amidst streets patrolled by Nazis and Klansman of the KKK. Tempting it might be to sneak up behind one and bury a hatchet into the base of their skull, or else mutilate them with high-powered weapons, the more prudent thing to do is silently dispatch them with a suppressed pistol before breaking off into the alley to the right.

• The Roswell mission was one of the few places in The New Colossus where I ended up unlocking the Ghost achievement, which entails making it through an entire district without triggering the alarm. By nightfall, some of Roswell’s landmarks come to life, including the theatre, which is set to screen a propaganda film. On the topic of films, I’ve been keeping a close eye on Girls und Panzer Das Finale, but the information is about as abundant as information for Half-Life 3, which is to say that it doesn’t exist at all.

• Because it is an utter waste of effort to wonder when Girls und Panzer Das Finale is coming out for the folks who don’t have the disposable income to fly to Japan for each of the six instalments, I’m going to return to The New Colossus; here, I find myself outside of Super Spesh’s All American Diner after sneaking by a massive robot. The front door is closed, and there are several ways of getting in. The most stealthy approach would be to use the constrictor harness and crawl through a vent at ground level, but the battle walker allows one to climb onto the roof and hop into the diner undetected. Players with only the ram shackles could run into a bit of trouble here with noise.

• After some looking around, I worked out the way in by means of the battle walker and managed to sneak into Super Spesh’s diner undetected. By night, the bright lights make the venue an inviting one, and it would have been nice to stop here for a burger and onion rings. However, with Super Spesh gone, there’s no option for food, and after briefly exploring the kitchen to see if there was any food lying around (Blazkowicz can eat food items, such as doughnuts, to regain a small amount of health), I proceed into Super Spesh’s secret hideout.

• Because I did not set off any alarms during this mission, the Übercommander was completely unaware of my presence, and so, I was able to finish him off using a stealth kill. Subsequently, I explored Super Spesh’s hideout and found the weapon upgrade kit hidden in the level; there are some districts where the weapon upgrade kit can only be found when revisiting it on the Übercommander mission, making the Übercommander missions worth replaying.

• I’ve heard that some players were able to get more than the twenty-one weapon upgrade kits available in The New Colossus by exiting the mission and saving after one was found, but there’s little point in collecting more than the maximum, since there are only seven upgradable weapons in the game. Overall while I missed the Marksman rifle, which had excellent optics and a versatile alternate fire mode that turned it into an assault rifle, as well as the double barrel shotgun, The New Colossus brings to the table more versatile weapon upgrades and more flexibility in choosing the path one takes in upgrading their weapons. The shooting overall was generally quite fun.

• I’ve noted in an earlier The New Colossus post that the Lasergewehr would probably be my favourite weapon in the game overall for its sheer power and versatility at almost all ranges. However, as a heavy weapon, it’s limited by its unwieldiness, so for conventional weapons, I would stick to the Sturmgewehr assault rifle: while slower firing than its predecessor in The New Order, the weapon nonetheless has reasonable hipfire and acceptable RPM for close quarters, while the attachment of a marksman optic allows the weapon to transform into a thirty-round marksman rifle.

• I know that today is the release of Yuru Camp△, and I’ve just finished with watching the first episode; I’m saving the rest of my remarks for a proper discussion later, so my first real post of 2018 will deal with Wolfenstein. With this being said, Yuru Camp△ has met expectations in its narrative and visuals, while exceeding expectations with its soundtrack. I’ll aim to have a proper talk for it after I wrap up Yūki Yūna is a Hero: Hero Chapter‘s finale, which is airing tomorrow – a post on my first impressions of Yuru Camp△ would therefore come out either Saturday or Sunday.

• So far, 2018’s been off to a smooth start, with warm weather and a clear set of goals for work. The Steam Winter Sale also ended earlier today, and I think this is the first time since 2013 where I sat out a Steam Sale. This year, my eye is on Far Cry 5, Metro: Exodus and Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, so I’m likely to save for those and in the meantime, play through some titles that I’ve not opened since I picked them up in earlier Steam Sales. For instance, I still have yet to complete the DLC in Valkyria Chronicles and play through Skullgirls.

• The end goal of every Übercommander mission is the collection of a death card from each defeated Übercommander. After players secure it, they are given the option of returning to the Eva’s Hammer, or else linger in the district a bit longer. The latter is definitely an option for players looking to find all the collectibles in the game, now that all hostiles have been properly dealt with.

• Once all of the Übercommanders are taken care of, players unlock the Riverside mission. The mission requires eight enigma codes to unlock, and if one is short enigma codes, the best place to farm for enigma codes is the Penthouse district of New York, where the close quarters make finding commanders a straightforward task. The mission begins normally enough, but as Blazkowicz descends deeper into the Nazi bunker here, he is plunged into total darkness.

• The only light for most of the mission comes from Blazkowicz’s flashlight, as well as any small point lights that have no emissive properties. Even if one is armed to the teeth with all of the fully-upgraded weapons and contraptions, there’s an eerie mood in the bunkers quite unlike anything seen anywhere else in The New Colossus. The first hint that this secret mission exists is that players do not earn the pair of achievements for taking out all of the Übercommanders and completing the kill board after the “last” mission on the map is dealt with.

• The labyrinthine tunnels of the bunker makes it extremely easy to get lost, and occasionally, I found myself going in circles in this area. The combination of the tunnels, coupled with darkness, makes this a mission that has terrified some folks playing through the level, although I would count said individuals as lightweights, since Blazkowicz is sufficiently armed to deal with all threats encountered in the tunnels.

• The minimalistic, barren designs of the concrete walls inside the bunker have led at least one guide to wonder if the mission was originally intended to be a part of the game but removed after, given seemingly incomplete design as evidenced by the bare-bones assets and lack of lighting. However, rather than detracting from the experience, the level design succeeds in creating a sense of unease in players who venture into the black depths of the facility.

• I concede that there might be some jump scares for folks who move faster than they can see with their flashlights, but a careful, methodical playstyle will allow one to make it through the bunkers without much incident. Stealth in this mission is a bit of a mixed bag, since alerting enemies to one’s presence isn’t a good idea, but on the other hand, there are no standard commanders to bring in reinforcements, and the suppressed pistol isn’t particularly useful here.

• Close to the end of the seemingly endless tunnels, I managed to take out a Supersoldaten and promptly took its Lasergewehr, allowing me to push onward into the facility. Soon, I spotted a ladder leading players back to the surface. It’s the first bit of natural light in the level since things began, and standing out in the open is the last Übercommander. However, he’s not alone, being guarded by one Zerstörer. I decided the fastest way to wrap things up was to rush the Übercommander and kill him quickly to grab the death card (which freezes the time) and exit the level before the Zerstörer could waste me.

• Of course, players feeling up for the challenge could try to take on the Zerstörer, but any sort of carelessness will result in a quick death. This brings the first of my two post-campaign The New Colossus posts to an end, and somewhere before January ends, I’ll do a talk on Episode Zero, the first chapter of the DLC. In the meantime, posts coming out in the near future are for Yūki Yūna is a Hero: Hero Chapter‘s finale and my opening impressions of Yuru Camp△. In addition, I will be looking to do a talk on Wake Up, Girls! New Chapter! once its finale comes out (likely on the upcoming Monday) so that I can wrap up the last of the Fall 2017 anime. Finally, because we’re coming close to the ten-year mark after Kotomi’s arc in CLANNAD finished, another post on CLANNAD will be inbound shortly.

One further improvement of the Enigma Codes of The New Colossus is that they are also a bit more straightforward to unlock, being a simple patter-matching exercise. The sum of their contributions to the narrative, ability to allow players a second (or third) chance in unlocking game-changing upgrades and occasionally presenting an area as being different than when first encountered in the campaign mean that overall, The New Colossus is able to make superior use of its Enigma Code and Übercommander mechanic to encourage replay on top of the fact that players can go through the campaign a second time to attempt it using a different special weapon. It’s a pleasant surprise for a standout single player campaign in a market where most campaigns are usually regarded as an afterthought, while not a full game in its own right, the Übercommanders missions ultimately succeed in providing a few additional hours of time spent in The New Colossus. For the folks who’ve gone through The New Colossus already, there’s a pleasant surprise waiting for those who have also taken the time to finish the Übercommander missions if they’ve not already done so, and individuals who’ve yet to finish them will find further incentive to warm up The New Colossus again.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus- Capturing the Ausmerzer, Final Impressions and Reflections

“Lady…that the best you got? Then your best won’t do. You’re among wolves now, and these are our woods.” —William “B.J.” Blazkowicz

After returning to Eva’s Hammer, Blazkowicz is treated to a surprise birthday party, and Wyatt subsequently goes missing. Blazkowicz finds him hidden in the shooting range, and after talking him out, the Resistance prepares to mount an assault on the Ausmerzer. During the preparations, Sigrun reprimands Grace when the latter calls her a Nazi one time too many, earning Grace’s respect, and after boarding the Ausmerzer, the Resistance disables its automated defense system. After reaching the upper levels, Blazkowicz destroys a pair of Zerstörer robots defending the bridge, and reunited with Anya, the Resistance succeed in capturing the Ausmerzer. Later, they travel to the studio doing a live broadcoast of General Engel’s interview for television, and Blazkowicz executes her with a hatchet, avenging Caroline. Wyatt gives a speech about the Resistance’s plans to liberate the world from Nazi rule, and Blazkowicz recovers his mother’s ring from Engel, proposing to Anya. This brings The New Colossus‘ campaign to an end after a sixteen hour long journey; it’s been a while ride whose gameplay mechanics and set-pieces have evidently improved upon those of its predecessor. The game simply looks and feels great, from the shooting to the settings. On the other hand, The New Colossus‘ narrative and pacing exude a different feel than those of The New Order: humour is present to a much greater degree to convey a sense of hope that was absent in earlier games, and this seems to mirror that, as Blazkowic works towards rallying the world against Nazi rule, the possibility of returning liberty and freedom to the world merits a few more smiles and laughs. The ending suggests the possibility of a sequel, where Blazkowicz finally realises his wish to live an ordinary life in a world free of Nazi rule.

The New Colossus‘ return to America opened the floor for exploring what things might’ve been like under Nazi rule, illustrating the core element that the United States was built on and its importance in the American identity. Political commentary and so-called attempts to promote a particular perspective aside, The New Colossus shows that America is defined by its freedoms and liberties: America under Nazi rule prima facie seems unchanged, save the fact that flags with the Swastika are flying everywhere, and culture seems to have only diverged somewhat. However, as players explore the game further, hints of the oppressive Nazi regime become increasingly apparent. Mandatory language laws, imprisonment and execution of racial minorities and the constant lack of personal privacy are rampant. Individual liberty is the single most critical aspect of the American identity. This entails the right to express oneself, choose their own leaders, following their own beliefs or the right to be treated equally – under Nazi rule, liberty is nonexistent. This is what Blazkowicz and his resistance are fighting so hard to bring back: it is not customs, pastimes, culture or cuisine, but a firm belief in freedom that defines America. So, the suggestion that The New Colossus is a political commentary on how modern-day America and the Third Reich are no different is untrue, and individuals who would contend otherwise are evidently unable to grasp the bigger picture that The New Colossus conveys in its narrative.

Screenshots and Commentary

• Sigrun’s knowledge of evading the ODIN system allows the Resistance to bring Blazkowicz and Anya close enough to board it, high above the city below. When I first started this mission, my initial inclination was to run for the boarding platform, which was rapidly closing, but this led me to fall to my death. So, I ended up waiting for Anya to open the platform. Because this post deals with the Ausmerzer mission alone, I’ve chosen to go with twenty screenshots rather than thirty.

• With every weapon upgrade available and each of the contraptions upgraded, I finally felt ready to take on the Ausmerzer; the mission starts in the same area that Blazkowicz traversed while trying to disable the electromagnet holding Eva’s Hammer in place during the second mission. I’ve long become familiar with the enemies at this point in time, and I’ve found that the Sturmgewehr, when fully upgraded, is the best weapon in the entire game for its versatility. The jungle-style magazine boosts ammunition capacity, the marksman optics facilitate long-range combat and the armour-piercing rounds makes it possible to eliminate heavy opponents quickly. Combined with a high rate of fire and reasonable hip-fire accuracy, dual-wielding the Sturmgewehr is probably the most useful for dealing with unexpected situations.

• Here, I reach the first of the ODIN terminals, sweeping and clearing anything that moved. The old areas of the Ausmerzer are familiar, but after Blazkowicz reaches the first terminal and enters the password to deactivate half of the weapons, Anya prepares two elevator pods so that they can reach the next control room, set in a new area of the Ausmerzer.

• In German, ausmerzen is a verb for “to weed out” or “eradicate”; “Ausmerzer”, then, is probably taken to mean “Eradicator”, befitting of the airship’s purpose. Once the first terminal was found, I found myself facing a horde of soldiers and switched over the the Kampfpistols, emptying nearly my entire stock of ammunition on them. Similar to The Old Blood, there are few occasions in The New Colossus where these explosive launchers are really able to shine: the damage makes the Kampfpistoles best suited for crowd control and damaging heavier opponents, but ammunition is scarce. For their power, Kampfpistole rounds are wasted on most soldiers.

• A Supersoldaten begins attacking the pods and rips the top off the one that Blazkowicz is riding, but I came prepared. In TheRadBrad’s playthough, he used the Dieselgewehr to kill it, but the blast damage whittled at his armour. Conversely, I struck with the Sturmgewehr: its armour-piercing rounds made quick work of the Supersoldaten and dealt no splash damage to me. After reaching this point, it’s a massive firefight to clear the area of Nazi soldiers.

• The ram shackles are powerful enough to reduce victims into a pile of meat and blood: after locating the second ODIN control center, I sprinted in and ran towards a soldier in here, who met the same fate as Corpse Party‘s Mayu Suzumoto. While both similarly feature their share of blood and gore, the separation between the two titles is that in The New Colossus, players are responsible for turning folks into bloody chunks, while in Corpse Party, players usually find classmates reduced to the same and must evade the supernatural forces responsible. Consequently, if Blazkowicz were introduced into Blood Corpse with his superior arsenal, the game would necessarily be reclassified as an action adventure – even the likes of Sachiko would be no match against the Dieselkraftwerk.

• Will I play Corpse Party, one asks? The game normally retails for 17 CAD and reaches a minimum price of 11.04 CAD on a discount. It is not compatible with a Mac and has low system requirements, while reviews are exceedingly positive. Being an RPG with multiple endings that require some thought to get right, rather than a steady aim and quick reflexes, my bet is that I’ll end up with every bad ending conceivable if I play Corpse Party because my gaming skillset is making headshots, not working out optimal decisions in games with branching storylines.

• It took me a little while to work out where to go after the ODIN systems were disabled, and in the end, I noticed a crane reaching towards the centre of this room, allowing Blazkowicz to access a pod. Climbing up a ladder here will finally take Blazkowicz to the Ausmerzer’s upper deck, and it is here that the final level begins to shine, matching the spectacle seen in The New Order‘s final mission to assault Deathshead’s compound. In The New Colossus, the visuals are even more impressive.

• While presented as a terrifying flying fortress, it is here that players see for themselves the Ausmerzer’s arsenal: large guns are mounted on the deck for bombardment, and the airship has a distinct feeling similar to that of a ocean-faring battleship. With the open skies above and a large city below, the scale in this level is truly breathtaking. Of course, there’s no time to admire the scenery: the entire airship remains to be captured at this point.

• The Zittadel robots no longer intimidate me, and while I could have destroyed it using conventional weapons, it seemed so much more fun to pick up the Lasergewehr and annihilate it in a head-on attack. Here, I focus fire on the missile launcher to deprive it of a long range assault: AP rounds from the Sturmgewehr are effective, but having a Lasergewehr makes this battle trivially straightforwards. Because they were so entertaining to use, I have an excess of 300 kills with heavy weapons in The New Colossus, whereas in The New Order, I stuck with standard weapons.

• One of the perks available only in The Old Blood was the fact that players could carry the MG46 machine gun in their inventory, had they accumulated enough kills with it in the game. The weapon was only marginally more powerful than standard weapons and as such, I never did run too often with it. Conversely, in The New Colossus, heavy weapons were definitely worth using, and while each of the different weapons have their unique points, the Lasergewehr is the most versatile: the Dieselgewehr and Hammergewehr are both fun but better suited for close ranges, while the Übergewehr requires a bit of skilful timing to use owing to its slow firing rate.

• With my heavy weapons perk levelled to the maximum possible, I was able to carry a ridiculous amount of ammunition for them. The slower movement speed was offset by the vast amount of firepower available, and unlike The Old Blood, these weapons definitely feel powerful. It becomes possible to hold down the trigger and watch as untold amounts of destruction unfolded; the deck here was cleared in no time at all.

• One detail that I began noticing with the Schockhammer is that, when the rotating barrels are engaged to allow the shotgun to fire all three barrels at once, the weapon goes through three rounds per pull of the trigger, and this is reflected in the shells being chambered in the magazine. Subtle elements, such as weapon chambering animations, never cease to impress me; I am always fond of games that make the effort to add these animations to weapons.

• The sheer amount of chaos on board the Ausmerzer is such that I’m glad that there are no weapon upgrade kits here to collect: the mission’s entire focus is on capturing the Ausmerzer. Compared to the specific weapon upgrades of The New Order and The Old Blood, the kit-based system of The New Colossus is superior in that it offers players a choice in upgrading their weapons to best fit their play-style. While natural progression will eventually see all of the upgrades unlocked, providing options allow players to pick and choose their preferred weapons to upgrade early in the game.

• I acquire another Übergewehr on board the Ausmerzer, and look back on the parts of the ship that I’ve already progressed through. I’ve heard people state that the Übergewehr is a black hole generator, but this is ludicrous. Documentation properly describes the weapon as using a combination of electricity and diesel fuel to create a powerful energy blast capable of igniting and vapourising even heavily-armoured enemies outright. Overall, the heavy weapons of The New Colossus are much more fun to use than the MG46 and MG60 seen in its predecessors.

• When the doors open and pods containing Supersoldaten were launched, I immediately began charging the Übergewehr. There’s a small mechanical indicator on the weapon that shows whether or not the weapon is fully charged: the Übergewehr won’t fire until this indicator is filled, and in the heat of battle, it can be a little difficult to determine what one’s firing state is. Here, I use the weapon to one-shot a Supersoldaten using the Übergewehr’s main energy blast. After a number of these pods are launched, two Zerstörer (“Destroyer”) robots, the level’s bosses, come out in full force. It’s the toughest fight I’d faced in The New Colossus, even with fully upgraded weapons and contraptions.

• Armed with Übergewehrs of their own, the Zerstörer robots can one-shot Blazkowicz. The Übergewehr, while powerful enough to kill everything else in The New Colossus in one shot, will not destroy the Zerstörer as easily. While slow moving and slow to fire, the fight is compounded by the endless number of soldiers and Supersoldaten that join the Zerstörer. This fight was absolutely overwhelming and it took me a few attempts to get it right: victory is not achieved by superior firepower (least of all with heavy weapons, which slow the player down) alone, but rather, clever use of the available environment to evade and gain better positioning.

• I managed to kill one Zerstörer using the Übergewehr, which earned me an achievement. The second one, I destroyed in conjunction with the unending reinforcements using the Sturmgewehr. There’s an entire floor below the top deck, and escaping in here to avoid enemy fire, as well as thinning out the standard soldiers, are an essential trick to completing this battle. The boss fight is much easier with the Ram Shackles, since players can batter soldiers to death while beating a hasty escape. After I figured out the environment, and fell back on the old DOOM strategy of shooting the remaining Zerstörer until it was destroyed, I finished this section to finally capture the Ausmerzer.

• With the Ausmerzer under the Kreisau Circle’s control, there is one final loose end to deal with: General Engel herself. By a bit of a hilarious coincidence, one of my old classmates has taken this surname. The irony comes from the fact that I did not particularly get along with this individual or their friends (followers, really) too well, since they regarded themselves as being the height of popularity and set the standards for what was “in”, whereas I believe that people should make their own decisions regarding brands, life choices and politics.

• This was the easiest final fight ever: Engel does not stand a chance against Blazkowicz, and this was one of the most violent things I’d seen since The Animatrix‘s Second Renaissance. On the flip-side, Blazkwicz avenges both Caroline and Super Spesh, setting the stage for an opportunity to finally liberate the world. I’ve heard negative reception towards the cliffhanger ending, which is reminiscent of Halo 2, but the possibility of getting another Wolfenstein game a few years down the line is an exciting one. I look forwards to seeing how this journey ends. With The New Colossus‘ campaign at an end, I will be returning in the future to talk about two other aspects of The New Colossus not covered during my campaign run. Looking at the calendar, we’re now a month away from Christmas. There’s quite a lot to do before Christmas arrives, but I look forwards to a peaceful Christmas with family that I foresee spending in Battlefront II or The Division, as well as relaxing with a good book in hand.

Overall, my final verdict for Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is that this is a game well worth the price of admission: while perhaps not quite as focused as its predecessors from a narrative perspective, the story nonetheless fits together in a satisfactory manner to reinforce the idea that Blazkowicz’s war is finally beginning to turn in a favourable direction. Between the world-building that further explores what a world under Nazi rule might be like and a large cast of characters that offers no shortage of humour to the journey, The New Colossus might not have the same sense of sombreness or urgency of its predecessor, but it replaces this with hope, suggesting that a world liberated from Nazi rule might very well be close at hand. This looks to be setting in stage a continuation, and I would welcome another instalment in the Wolfenstein franchise. In conjunction with generally solid gameplay (the game is an overall improvement over its predecessor in every department except for indication that damage is being sustained) and fantastic audio-visual elements, it was a superbly entertaining journey to pick up weapons and absolutely shred Nazis. With The New Colossus now in the books, there’s actually still a few things remaining before I can say I’ve fully finished the game: I’ve got a few Übercommanders left to finish off, and because I bought The New Colossus on Day One, I got Episode Zero to complete, which serves as an introduction to each of Joseph Stallion, Jessica Valiant and Gerald Wilkins, who are playable characters in the upcoming DLC.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus- Review and Reflection after the Manhattan Bunker, New Orleans and Oberkommando Venus Base

“Welcome to the Oberkommando. Population: shitload of assholes. You got my ODIN codes, assholes?” —William “B.J.” Blazkowicz

With a powerful new body, Blazkowicz is sent to a Nazi bunker in Manhattan to retrieve a file on New Orleans and learns that the Nazis have a plan to systemmatically eliminate everyone in a large walled ghetto there. Travelling to New Orleans with the Kreisau Circle and fights his way through the occupying Nazi forces to meet up with Horton Boone and his resistance members. Blazkowicz’s combat efficiency impresses Horton, and after a few drinks, he gets into a shouting match with Horton that culminates with Blazkowicz earning his respect. Horton and his crew agree to join the Kreisau Circle, and Blazkowicz uses a captured Panzerhund to distract the Nazis while Horton’s people evacuate to Eva’s Hammer. He returns to the Eva’s Hammer and uses the nuclear cannon to generate a shockwave that pushes the submarine back into the ocean ahead of the Ausmerzer’s arrival. Back on board, the Kreisau Circle learns that the Ausmerzer was originally built to suppress resistance forces and would be a powerful asset if captured. However, the Ausmerzer’s ODIN defense system must first be disabled, and to this end, Blazkowicz travels to Venus under the guise of an actor auditioning for the role of Terror Billy in a propaganda film. He comes face-to-face with Adolf Hitler himself, although far from being the mastermind of the Nazi’s rise to power, he’s now degenerated physically and mentally, suffering episodes of psychosis and a persistent cough. After a tense audition where Blazkowicz brutally kills a Nazi soldier for a scene, impresses Hitler and is given the part. Blazkowicz later steals away from his quarters, fighting his way through the Venus facility and reaches the Oberkommando Base, located on the blisteringly hot surface of Venus, where he finds the codes for ODIN.

This is where I am so far for The New Colossus, and like The New Order before it, I’ve advanced through the game at a high pace – The New Colossus is engaging in its story, and the colourful cast of characters have been the game’s strongest point, adding much humour to an otherwise grim world. The second half has definitely been a blast, and while perhaps similar to The New Order in essentials (stealing a powerful Nazi war machine to supplement the Kreisau Circle and travelling to a facility in space to acquire codes required to make this endeavour possible), the second half of The New Colossus is coherent, focused and clear as to what Blazkowicz’s goals are. One of the aspects that is absent in The New Colossus are over-the-top boss fights mid-game: so far, the toughest enemies I’ve encountered so far are the Zitadelle robots, which can be easily defeated by making use of an AP round-equipped assault rifle to eliminate its weapons. By comparison, The New Order had Blazkowicz fight the London Monitor in a titanic battle. While the lack of memorable bosses in The New Colossus prior ot the the finale is noticeable, The New Colossus offers an excellent set of Übercommander assassination missions, in which Blazkowicz returns to previously explored districts to kill off a high ranking officier, as well as side-missions that allow him to explore Eva’s Hammer in more detail. The additional world-building provides further depth to the world that Wolfenstein II is set in, and I’ve found it to be superbly enjoyable to revisit old locations with upgraded weapons and contraptions.

Screenshots and Commentary

• After getting a new body, gameplay changes slightly as Blazkowicz regains access to 100 health, but loses the ability to pick up additional armour. Dropped in New York without an air filter or powered armour, the return to Manhattan has Blazkowicz picking up health packs every so often to ensure that he does not succumb to the radiation. Of the three contraptions, I picked the battle walker, which allows Blazkowicz to gain the high ground in combat and access locations that are otherwise out of reach.

• The other two contraptions are the constrictor harness, which allows Blazkowicz to squeeze into incredibly tight quarters such as vents and openings closer to the ground, and the ram shackles that offer the ability to ram through some doors and boxes. My choice in the battle walker was made because it seems the most fun to use, bringing to mind the Bamboo Boogie Boots from Futurama. The ram shackles are the best suited for a highly aggressive play-style, while the constrictor harness is fantastic for stealth. It is possible to acquire all contraptions and upgrade them, and this is something that I ended up doing.

• Panzerhunds make a return as mini-bosses of sorts in The New Colossus, although by now, I have no shortage of options in dealing with heavy enemies. The battle walker allowed me to climb onto hard-to-reach places or maintain a superior vantage point over the battlefield. Together with the Hammergewehr, I absolutely massacred the Panzerhund here. I’ve read that the lowest difficulty is the best way to enjoy The New Colossus, but I would have to disagree with this remark: normal difficulty is fine.

• Collectable concept art, star cards, Nazi Gold and Max’s toys are scattered throughout The New Colossus, and while I’ll pick them up if I find them, my greater priority is on collecting weapon upgrade kits, since those directly affect gameplay. I missed a few during my playthrough, but thanks to the Übercommander missions, I’ve been able to collect everything, allowing me to fully upgrade all of my weapons. The constrictor harness can be found here, and I used it to take out the Übercommander on this map, as well as to help me find the second of the upgrade kits.

• Here, I find the Kampfpistole to complete my collection of weapons. Returning from The Old Blood, the incarnation in The New Colossus now has a six-round magazine, and while initially appearing to be a downgrade from its predecessor in The Old Blood for firing grenades, the Kampfpistole can be upgraded to fire rocket-propelled grenades. The weapon is based off the Sturmpistole, which was a modified flare gun that was intended to be an infantry-portable anti-tank solution that could further be mounted as an under-barrel attachment, as seen in Brave Witches.

• Reaching the end of the Manhattan Bunker with the New Orleans folder in hand, there’s a short elevator ride that takes Blazkowicz back to the surface. After returning to Eva’s Hammer, I spent a fair bit of time unlocking Übercommander missions with the enigma codes I amassed. Before heading to New Orleans, I cleared out Manhattan, Roswell and Mesquite: the missions don’t feature auto-saves, and the Übercommanders are armed with the Kampfpistole. On some missions, I was forced to take them head-on and died more times than I cared to count, but I managed to finish the Roswell mission without being detected.

• Under Nazi occupation, New Orleans is distinctly woebegone, with empty streets and boarded up buildings. For some reason, I’ve inexplicably associated the Deep South with Tango-Victor-Tango, if only for the fact that one of my friends introduced me to the site and Marble Hornets and I began playing Left 4 Dead 2 during the summer days, when the weather up here in Alberta elicits the sort of atmosphere seen in the Deep South. Marble Hornets is set in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Left 4 Dead 2 takes players through the swamps and cities of Louisiana. Thus, playing through New Orleans in The New Colossus elicits memories of summer evenings spent browsing Tango-Victor-Tango and watching Marble Hornets long after research hours ended when I was an undergraduate student.

• I remember seeing gameplay footage set in New Orleans during demos back during the summer and found myself highly impressed with the visuals. Compared to The New Order, lighting effects and details are slightly more sophisticated, and I originally wondered if my computer would be able to handle The New Colossus. While we are on the topic of Tango-Victor-Tango, the last week was a little hectic after one reader sent me a request to help fact-check for the Hai-Furi page there; they were looking for some assistance in determining which of the technical examples were legitimate and which ones were fallacious. I spent most evenings looking through examples and verifying them in place of my usual relaxing.

• In the end, I managed to corroborate most of the information save two claims: that methane clathrate (“burning ice”, or “gas hydrate”) deposits were not located anywhere near Japan, as well as the assertion that Akeno, Moeka and Mashiro’s nicknames (“Mike”, “Moka” and “Shiro”) are common cat names in Japan. The former is untrue, as geological surveys have in fact found the presence of some deposits, and the latter is also untrue: a year-and-a-half after Hai-Furi ended, I still haven’t found anything to suggest that Akeno and the others are named after cats beyond one bogus “discussion” whose author claims that “the cat theme is there and intentional, though – it extends to the entirety of the Harekaze crew”.

• After twelve episodes and two OVAs, cats have a practical, rather than symbolic role in Hai-Furi, so I’m going to leave the discussion there and transition over to talk of dogs, specifically, mechanised ones. Panzerhunds have been trying to kick Blazkowicz’s ass throughout all of The New Order and most of The New Colossus, so when Horton gives Blazkowicz a captured Panzerhund to ride, the game kicks things into twelfth gear. The Panzerhund can pick up armour off defeated enemies to restore its armour pool to prolong its usefulness in combat.

• It is incredibly satisfying to use the Panzerhund’s flamethrower to incinerate enemies: the flames are so intense they can burn through the Supersoldaten in mere moments, and even explode a heavily armoured vehicle carrying Nazi soldiers. However, all good things must come to an end, and eventually, the path becomes too narrow for the Panzerhund to fit through. After entering an abandoned factory and fighting off a horde of Nazis, Blazkowicz makes his way into the sewers of New Orleans.

• It turns out that the massive robots I’ve been fighting are called “Zitadelle” (German for “Citadel”). Their armaments allow them effectiveness at all ranges; while they are intimidating with their size and loadout, they can actually be destroyed quite quickly. My preferred tactic is to use the Sturmgewehr’s AP rounds in single-fire mode and blow off the left arm first, limiting its attacks to close range, and then destroy the remaining arm, which causes the entire thing to explode spectacularly. The stealth approach is a bit riskier, involving sneaking up on it and severing both of its fuel lines. Igniting the fuel also allows for the Zitadelle to be destroyed quickly.

• I originally was not intending on playing The New Colossus entering the weekend – Yūki Yūna is a Hero: Hero Chapter was scheduled to release, and I was aiming to have a post out for the first episode of Hero Chapter out that evening, but we ended up with a recap episode, and so, I ended up taking the time to advance further in The New Colossus. I’ve previously remarked that I have plans to blog about Hero Chapter in an episodic fashion, and while no new episode was aired, I did see that another anime blog had a talk out for the recap, published while I was still at work. If this is the case, I do not think I’ll be able to offer the fastest discussions on Hero Chapter, but I think I can make interesting, insightful posts nonetheless. I will try and see if it is viable to get posts out on the same day that episodes air, although it is possible that Saturdays are when the posts will be published, as well.

• While the section through the New Orleans sewers is short, they nonetheless bring back memories of the sewers from Enter The Matrix. The last time I completed the game was back in late 2015, and I’ve been meaning to do a pair of talks on the game, but the opportunity has not yet materialised. A Matrix reboot is supposedly in the works, and it could be time for me to take another look at a game that I greatly enjoyed when I was younger, back in the days when dual core processors and high speed internet was just beginning to become commonplace. The ram shackles can be found here for observant players, and folks who missed it can always return to claim it during an Übercommander mission.

• At this point in The New Colossus, I’d upgraded enough of my weapons so that even Supersoldaten were not much of a threat: the Schockhammer X, when fully upgraded, features a forty-round magazine and can fire three shots with each pull of the trigger. It will annihilate almost anything downrange, and after I cleared out the area here, I found another weapon upgrade kit inside the house, in a small room to the left. This is one of the upgrade kits that are more out of the way, and in my experience, was the second most hidden one.

• Adolf Hitler is depicted in the game, and far from the powerful dictator who commanded the Third Reich, the Führer now is a wretch of a man, troubled with a failing body and neurodegenerative disease. Critics have praised this particular direction, suggesting that it’s the perfect caricature of one of the most vile individuals calling themselves a leader in history, and for this, I find that this particular incarnation of the Führer is ill-suited to be the antagonist of any sequels, being relegated to a pathetic and somewhat comedic role. There’s an easter egg here for folks who are inquisitive.

• The Oberkommando base on Venus is a familiar concept, being similar to the Moon base from The New Order. However, the different environments mean that the Venus base and Moon base are completely different from one another. The presence of a Nazi facility on Venus also attests to just how much of a technological advantage they have over the world, and to have constructed a base on Venus, of all places, is a nontrivial feat: consider that we’ve not returned to the moon since the last Apollo XVII mission in 1972.

• The interior of the Venus facility feels a little bit like the average space museum, with all of the surface relief models and satellite replicas. The page quote here comes from a point during this mission when Blazkowicz closes in on the Oberkommando center, bringing to mind his comments on the Nazi moon landing in The New Order. Present in the new Wolfenstein games since 2014, I’ve been a big fan of the random quips that Blazkowicz will make during the course of a mission.

• The engineering in the Venus base is incredibly detailed, and really gives the sense that it was designed to withstand the extreme pressure and heat on the surface. Hallways are composed entirely of steel and look like they’re designed to withstand high pressures, with HVAC components visible here and there to hint at how much resources are directed towards keeping building interiors cool. Windows are small, compared to the large windows and high ceilings of the lunar base seen in The New Order. It’s apparent that Machine Games investigated architecture suitable for conditions on Venus, and the interior of the facility screams Venus, with its yellows, reds and tans, compared to the greys, whites and blues of the moon base.

• At its surface, Venus has an average temperature of 462°C and a pressure of 92 atm. The atmosphere is largely carbon dioxide, with traces of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen. Precipitation takes the form of sulfuric acid, which is highly corrosive and can cause severe burns. In The New Colossus, Blazkowicz dons a special suit in order to traverse the facility’s exterior, and while it is not implausible for a suit to withstand extremities of temperature, I find its construction to be most impressive, given that it can stand up to Venus’s atmosphere, which exerts an equivalent of the pressure found in the oceans down at a depth of one kilometer.

• One of the nuances about Venus is that Blazkowicz must be mindful of the amount of coolant remaining in his suit: it depletes over time, forcing him to resupply at special stations. Running out completely results in a painful death, but it seems that moving around at high speeds and taking damage in combat thankfully does not appear to have an impact on the coolant supply. It is possible to instantly restock on coolant by entering a building, and while it can be easy to neglect coolant levels mid-combat, The New Colossus provides cues for players: Blazkowicz will remark that it’s a good idea to resupply or that it’s getting hot when he’s low, and an alarm will go off if levels are critical.

• In The Old Blood, the Kampfpistole could not be dual-wielded, so when they made it an option to pair the Kampfpistole with another weapon and even use two at once, there is the possibility for limitless destruction, allowing Blazkowicz to reduce entire groups of enemies to puddles of blood and chunks of meat. Fully upgraded, the Kampfpistoles can put out six rockets at a time when dual-wielded, with each Kampfpistole firing three rounds at a time for massive damage.

• This ladder goes up a shaft leading to the next section, and it is here that the best-hidden weapon upgrade kit is located: it’s found halfway up the shaft on a ledge adjacent to the ladder and can only be accessed by climbing to the top and hopping back down. There are a total of twenty one weapon upgrade kits in The New Colossus, and while I’ve heard of players farming Übercommander missions to acquire more, one only needs twenty one to fully upgrade every weapon. The last upgrade kit is found in one such mission, and can’t be missed, being on the way to the Übercommander.

• Admittedly, the exteriors on Venus bring to mind the terrain and landscapes of Mars in DOOM: this is the closest that Wolfenstein and DOOM will come; while the games original incarnations were quite similar in mechanics, their narratives differed greatly, and both games contributed to the development of modern shooters.

• Scattered throughout the Venus base are large spherical fuel tanks that explode when shot. A well-placed explosion can eliminate an entire group of enemies at once, earning players environment kills that contribute to a perk that reduces explosive damage taken.

• The Übergewehr is the ultimate weapon in The New Colossus, being more or less the Wolfenstein incarnation of DOOM‘s BFG 9000. Like the BFG, it is so powerful that it can reduce entire groups of enemies and even Supersoldaten into unrecognisable piles of meat and blood. However, unlike the BFG 9000, Blazkowicz cannot carry the weapon in his inventory, experiences reduced movement speeds while wielding it (like all other heavy weapons), and there aren’t any powerful bosses to use it on. It must be charged before firing, and creates a massive energy sphere that vapourises anything it touches. The scene where players are presented an opportunity to try it out is also reminiscent of DOOM, where players can try their newly-acquired BFG 9000 on a room full of possessed.

• As I wander deeper into the Oberkommando facility, I’ll also take this time to remark that its been a bit more than a week since the Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu Ka??: Dear My Sister OVA began screening in Japan. With the home release (and correspondingly, my review) likely to come in Spring 2018, I remark that discussions on the OVA has been fortuitously light. With this in mind, at least one English-speakers have already seen it, having reserved tickets ahead of time and traveled to Japan with the sole purpose of seeing the film. While one might perhaps admire their tenacity and disposable income, I simply don’t have the time to do something of a similar scale. So, for folks wondering when I’ll write about Dear My Sister, the answer to this is that it’ll be close to the home release: ordering BDs is rather more economical than spending an excess of two thousand Canadian for one 50-minute long OVA.

• It’s actually a bit surprising to learn that I’ve spent roughly fifteen hours in The New Colossus and I’ve still got quite a bit to do before I finish the game: I spent most of the past weekend in The New Colossus. Most of Saturday was devoted to looking around for a new tree top ornament with LED lights, which I was unsuccessful in finding, and then visiting a local meat shop to buy some spicy kebabs and chicken wings. Despite the lateness in the day, the clerk gave us a sample of their meatloaf, which tasted quite wonderful. I nonetheless managed to get a good way into the Oberkommando mission after a hearty dinner of fried chicken and fries with a nacho salad to start – it’s always satisfying to spend a Saturday evening gaming following a crunchy and flavourful fried chicken, which seems the perfect accompaniment for shooters (after washing and drying the dishes, of course).

• Contrary to complaints about things on Steam reviews, the amount of content in The New Colossus is nothing to sneeze at, and it looks like that I might not be able to finish The New Colossus‘s campaign and Übercommander missions before the hopefully upcoming Steam Black Friday sale, where I’m looking to pick up The Division. I’ve mentioned this in passing previously, and while I didn’t think the value was there when the game was going for 35 CAD during last year’s Winter Sale, the game has seen discounts to the tune of 60 percent off, which corresponds with a price tag of 28 CAD, which is rather more reasonable. Coupled with the fact that this time of year, leading up towards Christmas, ties in nicely with the atmosphere in The Division, it feels like the time is right for me to experience a game I’ve not played since the open beta back in February of last year.

• As for Star Wars: Battlefront II, I’m still on the rocks about whether or not I’ll be picking it up. The crisis with the loot crates notwithstanding, the gameplay looks mechanically solid, and the Christmas season seems the time to be playing a Star Wars game. I’ll make a decision on Battlefront II closer to The Last Jedi‘s première, when the game will likely be sold at a discounted price. Back in Wolfenstein, I’ve upgraded all of my weapons and have all of the contraptions upgraded as well, meaning that I’m more or less ready to roll onwards and finish the final mission on board the Ausmerzer. I will be returning once I complete The New Colossus to do a final impressions on the game overall. In the meantime, Hero Chapter‘s first episode is set to air this Friday, so I’m looking forwards to seeing what this entails.

From a technical perspective, The New Colossus is an incredibly fun game that definitely has earned its place in the sun as a worthy predecessor to The New Order. The biggest strengths in the game lie in the world-building, which expands upon what was seen in the first game, and the cut-scenes were as entertaining to watch as the shooter elements were to play. Notably, The New Colossus is able to strike a balance between comedic and serious moments more so than its predecessors – finally, we have a game that feels consistent with the marketing and advertising, and the humour interspersed throughout the game conveys a sense of hope that, with Blazkowicz and his raggedy-ass bunch of resistance members, there really is a possibility to liberate the world and return liberty to its people. The New Order ended on a somber note; defeating Deathshead did not stop the Nazi stranglehold over the world, and similarly, The Old Blood concluded with Blazkowicz joining Fergus for the ill-fated run on Deathshead’s compound. Both games had easy-going, hilarious advertising campaigns, and the games themselves left me feeling a bit melancholy, knowing that all of Blazkowicz’s effort notwithstanding, his dream of ending the war and settling down to start a family would not be realised yet. The change in atmosphere in The New Colossus, seemingly irreverent, actually gives the impression that the world Blazkowicz dreams of building might not be an impossibility after all.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus At The Halfway Point

“You take freedom away from the American people, you’re playing with fire. And I intend to pour some gasoline!” ―William J. Blazkowicz

After reaching the remains of Manhattan, Blazkowicz makes his way to the Empire State Building to link up with the American resistance elements. The trek through the crumbling ruins of New York is an arduous one; Blazkowicz fights off hordes of patrolling Nazis and even a massive robot. After meeting up with Grace Walker and Norman “Super Spesh” Caldwell, Blazkowicz clears off the area of Nazi reinforcements before flying back with Grace’s resistance team to Eva’s Hammer. Blazkowicz informs Anya of his condition after she confronts him about avoiding her as of late, but their conversation is broken by Grace, who announces a plan to cripple Nazi leadership (the Oberkommando) at their base in Roswell, New Mexico. After recovering a nuclear warhead from the bowels of Eva’s Hammer, Blazkowicz travels to Roswell and meets up with Super Spesh, who provides support for him as he infiltrates the Nazi base, plants the bomb and annihilates it. However, when he makes a detour to his old home in Mesquite, Texas, to retrieve a family heirloom, Blazkowicz confronts his father and is captured by General Engle. An attempt to free him from captivity fails, and Blazkowicz is sentenced to death, briefly imagining himself escaping and meeting with his mother one last time during the trial. During his execution, General Engle personally beheads him, but the Kreisau Circle recovers his head and manage to keep him alive, grafting his head onto a new body. Swinging from the morose and maudlin to whacky comedy at the drop of a hat, The New Colossus has been one hell of a journey so far, and this is from just completing the first half of the game, which I’ve heard to be the weaker half (in turn suggesting that things will continue to get better as I progress further).

When The New Colossus first released, it was bug-ridden: I’ve been fortunate in that the game has been very stable for the most part. With this in mind, my first evening with The New Colossus was characterised by not being able to take screenshots and my mouse sensitivity settings reverting to their default values whenever I re-entered the game. I’m also able to alt-tab out of the game now without suffering crashes. The game has since seen some patches and at the time of writing, both of my issues have been rectified, allowing me to focus on the gameplay and story. Shooting and movement is of a high quality, thanks to both the Id Tech 6 Engine and a capable GPU, presenting an experience as smooth as that of The New Colossus‘ predecessors. However, where The New Colossus really shines is in its characterisations: more so than the previous Wolfenstein games, The New Colossus presents Blazkowicz as a mortal man struggling to deal with his impending death and resolute determination to have a proper family, having known only abuse with his father and seeking solace in his mother’s company. The Kreisau Circle and crew on board Eva’s Hammer become his new family, and in exploring Eva’s Hammer, players see through Blazkowicz some more interesting and meaningful interactions amongst the people on board. Similarly, the extent of General Engle and the Third Reich’s fanaticism is superbly presented – by The New Colossus, the enmity between Blazkowicz and Engle reach new heights; Engle addresses Blazkowicz with a mixture of revulsion and perversion. While The New Colossus might be a shooter whose marketing campaign was centred around wholesale slaughter, a colourful, well-written cast of characters forms the centrepiece of The New Colossus, and moments spent on board Eva’s Hammer exploring are just as enjoyable as the moments where I am taking on Nazi robots with the Lasergewehr.

Screenshots and Commentary

• In the past 24 hours, Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka: Dear My Sister premièred in Japanese theatres, although unlike Girls und Panzer: Der Film, things have been quieter – I’ve not seen quite as much excitement around the ‘net. There will be a time to write about Dear My Sister later, so for the time being, I will focus on The New Colossus. After seeing the trailer footage of a Fat Man-like device being used on New York for The New Order, players will have a chance to see what New York looks like in the aftermath. In the trailer, the bomb appeared to have been detonated in Lower Manhattan: if we assume a similar yield of 20 kilotons, the blast would level everything within a 1.1 kilometer radius and severely damage buildings out to a distance of 1.24 kilometers.

• Looking at the maps, then, it is plausible that the Empire State Building would have survived, structurally intact. Blazkowicz is dropped into an area outside of the detonation, since most of the buildings are still standing, albeit severely damaged and exposed to the elements. Of the crew on board Eva’s Hammer, Blazkowicz is capable of surviving the radiation in New York owing to the suit of Da’at Yichud powered armour, and so, he is sent to go into the ruins of Manhattan to locate the New York resistance.

• The hazmat gear Nazi soldiers have are reminiscent of the cleaners from The Division, and I’ve made a decision about The Division: the game’s gone on some sales now for prices well below what I’d seen previously, and I’ve heard rumours that Steam will have a Black Friday sale this year starting on November 22. If this is the case, I will likely pick up The Division; this time of year seems to be well-suited for playing through The Division, and I would like to get a bit of a start on it.

• After I found my first weapon upgrade kit, I added the suppressor to my pistol so I could headshot commanders from a distance outside of the throwing range for hatchets. The pistol is surprisingly useful and while I avoid sidearms in most games, Wolfenstein‘s pistols are immensely useful for stealth approaches, being able to eliminate most standard enemies with one well-placed round to the skull. The second weapon upgrade I would apply was adding a marksman optic to the assault rifle. The lack of dedicated long-range weapons in Wolfenstein is a first: The New Order had the Marksman rifle, and The Old Blood gave players the Bombenschuss. The marksman optic turns the assault rifle into an accurate weapon for longer-range combat, making it an indispensable upgrade.

• The lighting effects in The New Colossus are impressive, and here, I stop to admire the volumetric lighting in New York before descending into the subways. I’m playing the game on standard difficulty: I went through the previous two Wolfenstein games on “Bring ’em on!”, occasionally switching to “Don’t Hurt Me!” when things got too tricky to play through in The New Order. Because I became much more familiar with the mechanics by The Old Blood, I’ve not had to do that, and in The New Colossus, while some parts of the game kicked my ass, I’ve managed to overcome those segments without lowering the difficulty.

• I imagine that when I begin my journey in The Division, I will be seeing a lot more of the New York Subway; The New Colossus has a few sections set in the subway systems of New York, and in the close quarters of the tunnels, having a good close quarters weapon becomes indispensable. Since I’ve yet to get the shotgun here, I stuck with the Dieselgewehr, a flamethrower-like weapon that launches fireballs that are devastating against even heavily armoured opponents.

• The derelict tunnels of New York are reminiscent of those seen in the Metro series of games. My introduction to Metro was through Last Light four years ago, when my GPU came with a complimentary copy of the game. A mere curiosity at first, I came to greatly enjoy Metro: Last Light, went back and beat Metro 2033: Redux, and presently, I’m looking forwards to seeing how Metro: Exodus will handle. I’ve heard the game will be more open than its predecessors, and I’m hoping this to be true, as Metro: Last Light and Metro 2033 were both highly linear in nature.

• Against the Supersoldaten, who dual-wield heavy weapons, even a single Dieselgewehr proves to be absolutely lethal, making short work of them on standard difficulty. By means of a pilot light, the weapon can be kept ready for firing on short notice at the expense of mobility, similar to the Lasergewehr. One thing I was not expecting here was suddenly being knocked down by dogs, which causes Blazkowicz to drop any heavy weapons he’s wielding and lowers mobility. Jumping up after being knocked down is the fastest way of getting back into the fight.

• Here, I fight against a massive robot in Manhattan: it is armed with a missile launcher similar to the Cyberdemon’s aerial bombardment ability, plus a flamethrower for close range combat. When I encountered this monstrosity, I was running low on Dieselkraftwerk ammunition – I ended up emptying my magazine into it, and then switched over to dual assault rifles, hammering the missile launcher to destroy it. It subsequently became a matter of staying out of range of the flamethrower and shooting it until it ded.

• After linking up with Grace Walker and Super Spesh, Blazkowicz stays behind to hold off the Nazi reinforcements while the other resistance members are evacuated. The penthouse fight is high intensity and offers only a few places to hide from enemy fire. I ended up using dual assault rifles throughout the fight, counting on the heavier hitting rounds to deal damage. Enemies will appear from all directions, and it took me several attempts to overcome this part of the game. There is a weapon upgrade kit up here, and some cans of fuel for the Dieselkraftwerk, which is useful for taking out the Supersoldaten that arrive.

• Back on board Eva’s Hammer, Grace’s crew settle in and open up a hacker’s corner. Exploring Eva’s hammer is surprisingly fun, and there’s even a club with a working Wolfenstein 3D mini-game in an arcade console. I ended up grabbing some potatoes for Rosa, a pig that Max Hass is fond of. I cracked a smile when I saw how Rosa’s room is set up; there’s a disco ball in here that certainly livens things up. Walking through Eva’s Hammer and exploring all of the rooms was fun, and there’s even a shooting range here where Blazkowicz can go to resupply and practise shooting. Some weapon upgrade kits are also hidden in here.

• Deep in the bowels of Eva’s Hammer is a nuclear weapons armoury that is protected by Supersoldaten: the heavy weapons will make short work of them. There are numerous recharging and refuelling stations here. I note that all heavy weapons can be warmed up, allowing them to fire more quickly, but this comes at the cost of movement speed.

• By this point in The New Colossus, I’ve also opted to grab the armour-piercing rounds for the assault rifle, as well as the nailgun upgrade for the submachine guns, bolstering their damage potential. I’ve chosen to focus on improving the weapons’ versatility first, before maximising their damage – weapons each have three upgrade slots, and some upgrades are more useful than others, so it’s not too big of a deal that I miss some of the upgrades.

• While I miss the Marksman Rifle from The New Order, the assault rifles of The New Colossus appears to have fulfilled that void when upgraded with the optics and AP rounds: their advantage over the original Marksman Rifle is that they have a larger magazine capacity and ammunition is more plentiful. In the confines of Eva’s Hammer, a pair of assault rifles with AP rounds will make short work of the Supersoldaten when heavy weaponry and Dieselkraftwerk ammunition are in short supply.

• A couple of rounds from the Dieselkraftwerk will eliminate the Supersoldaten, and here, I narrowly dodge laser fire from one. Looking at the date stamps on these screenshots and the calendar show that we’re almost halfway through November. Work’s been quite busy, and I daresay I’ve finally found my groove again – October and September was a little slow, but it feels like I’ve been a bit more productive again. Thus, it feels great going into the Remembrance Day long weekend: I’m not convocating this year, so I spent today relaxing at the local bookstore, which was much busier than it had been during the summer.

• Afterwards, I visited the Café 100 and had their sizzling plate chicken steak with black pepper sauce for dinner. There’s nothing quite like a Hong Kong style chicken steak; the meat is tender and tasty, perfect for nights that are lengthening now that Daylight Savings has rolled back. A ways back, our province was discussing whether or not Daylight Savings should be kept permanent, and while it would be amusing to do so, I can also see it as being a hassle for transportation schedules, as well as NHL games. Back in The New Colossus, I finally find the room with the warheads and retrieve one.

• After acquiring the bomb, Blazkowicz returns to the bridge and is briefed on his next assignment, to smuggle the nuclear warhead into the Oberkommando headquarters in Roswell and blow the place sky-high. The first segment is to rendezvous with Super Spesh at his All American Diner, and this starts with a walk through the streets of Roswell, New Mexico. The atmospherics here are surprisingly detailed, and it’s worth taking the time to look around and see what’s changed, versus what’s stayed the same, in an America run by Nazis.

• My favourite cutscene in The New Order is set at Papa Joe’s All American Diner, when a Nazi officer enters and asks for a strawberry milkshake, comments on how it’s his favourite American thing, jokes about how the rest of the menu should be more German and begins asking Blazkowicz for his papers. The fellow seemed friendly enough until he recognises Blazkowicz on the wanted posters, prompting Super Spesh to shoot him. They enter his command post and Super Spesh briefs Blazkowicz on how to infiltrate the Oberkommando headquarters. As an aside, there’s an app on the App Store called “The Spesh”; rather than any space alien conspiracy or anything of that nature, it’s an app designed to find specials for entertainment and dining. While a great idea on paper, the app itself has a terrible design.

• I managed to complete this entire section without triggering the alarm, attesting to the usefulness of the suppressed pistol. There’s another weapon upgrade kit located here, and I ended up saving it so as to upgrade the shotguns as soon as they are found. The sheer scale of Nazi facilities in Wolfenstein makes exploring an incredibly fun experience, and the aim in this section is to take control of a rocket-powered train to reach the Oberkommando headquarters.

• What’s impressive about this section is that train tunnels will be continuously generated until players reach the front of the train to helm the controls. This is where players will first find the Schockhammer X, an upgrade from the Schockhammer seen in The New Order, and features a high rate of fire thanks to its three rotating barrels. The best upgrade for this gun are ricochetting shells, which bounce of walls and can damage enemies multiple times if fired in close quarters; this is why saving that upgrade kit found earlier is useful, as the upgrade allows Blazkowicz to tear through the close quarters inside the train with relative ease.

• The raw firepower offered by dual-wielding both the Dieselkraft and automatic shotgun is unmatched, wrecking havoc with anything that is downrange of the weapons. The automatic shotguns are incredibly powerful and can blow limbs off enemies: one feature in The New Order I found amusing was that some weapons were powerful enough to gouge holes into victims or blast appendages off. I’ve noticed that headshots can blast heads clean off enemies in The New Colossus, as well.

• Here, I watched the animation where Blazkowicz cuts off the commander’s arm before burying the hatchet…into the commander’s skull. The melee kill animations are incredibly satisfying, and against some enemies, Blazkowicz will slice their legs off. It’s absolutely brutal and absolutely hilarious, but one thing about The New Colossus I had to reacclimatise to was that melee kills on enemies do not restore health as Glory Kills did in DOOM.

• Like The Old Blood, listening in on the conversations the Nazi soldiers have with one another offers a great deal of insight into their own backgrounds, as is finding journal entries, letters and postcards. There are moments where the nameless, faceless Nazis that Blazkowicz wastes are presented as ordinary humans, but all empathy goes out the window when they spot Blazkowicz and open fire on him. While the game’s proven to handle quite well, the mechanism for switching weapons in dual-wielding is a little cumbersome, and it’s best to make the switch before entering a firefight.

• On the other hand, dual-wielding two weapons of the same kind at once is easy, and it’s possible to engage the alternative fire mode on one weapon only. Here, I square off against an UberSoldat, a mechanical, Terminator-like enemy armed with energy weapons and graced with incredible speed. The best countermeasure against them are dual shotguns: a single blast from each (or two consecutive shots from a single shotgun) on standard difficulty will make quick work of them.

• Super Spesh has very quickly become one of my favourite characters in The New Colossus: between his paranoia about “space aliens” and excitement at the prospect of making Nazis experience a bad day, his character’s offered much comedy in the game. He suggests to Blazkowicz that the nuclear warhead be placed inside the nuclear reactor so the radioactive signature is hidden. I managed to blast my way to the end and set the bomb, but alarms suddenly go off: Blazkowicz’s presence has not gone unnoticed, and the Oberkommando begin evacuating, leaving Blazkowicz to fight another robot.

• Complicating the fight are the numerous soldiers that show up, coupled with the fact that there are gaps in the platform that lead to deep chasms. It took me a few attempts to get this part right, but I managed to succeed in the end, destroying the robot. Being knocked down here is quite costly, so I prioritised engaging the robot’s missile launcher first.

• As Blazkowicz moves through the facility to escape, Nazi rockets are seen taking off: this whole scene brings to mind the sort of facilities seen in DOOM: I haven’t played through DOOM since I beat it last year, and while the multiplayer was mildly entertaining, the campaign is worth going through again. One of the things that both DOOM and Wolfenstein nail is the simple HUD, which gives enough information to be useful and places the elements in familiar spots so I can immediately ascertain Blazkowicz’s state at a glance.

• After vacating the Oberkommando Headquarters and detonating the warhead, Blazkowicz heads to Mesquite in Texas, where is family home was. He finds the ring that belonged to his mother, but finds himself face-to-face with his father, Rip Blazkowicz. A racist and self-serving, Rip frequently abused William and Sofia; he is defiant to the last and attempts to sell out Blazkowicz to General Engle before being killed. Engle soon arrives and pulls the Blazkowicz home from the ground, and Blazkowicz is captured here.

• Super Spesh dies trying to free Blazkowicz with a ruse, and Blazkowicz is sentenced to death. At his trial, he imagines himself breaking free and meeting with his mother, who reassures him. During this segment of the game, Blazkowicz is able to make use of the Hammergewehr, a quad-barrel automatic shotgun that is absolutely vicious in close quarters; I used it to reduce a group of soldiers into a pile of meat and blood à la Mayu Suzumoto of Corpse Party (and most certainly not Mayu Shimada of Wake Up, Girls!).

• While Blazkowicz’s execution was a sobering scene that outlines just how sadistic General Engle is, the mood changes abruptly when the Kreisau Circle rescues him. The grim mood gives way to a sense of lightheartedness as Set Roth works to bring Blazkowicz back from the dead. I was all smiles here – how Blazkowicz is rescued is well beyond the realm of any known science and quite over-the-top, comparable to Futurama in execution; Blazkowicz is preserved as a head-in-a-jar until Roth manages to link his head to a new body.

I think I’m at The New Colossus‘ halfway point now: with Blazkowicz restored to full physical fitness, it seems my days of being stuck with fifty percent health and ability to pick up two hundred points of armour are long over. I’ve had the change to test out the battle walker stilts, as well: taking the place of DOOM‘s double jump, the battle walker contraption acts as a mobile set of steps, and allow Blazkowicz to reach high places, perfect for picking off enemies with headshots. It’s apparent that the gameplay is about to change, and this shift keeps The New Colossus refreshing and novel; MachineGames has evidently found new ways to continue to keep Wolfenstein exciting. Moving ahead, Blazkowicz is heading to New Orleans; the deep south has long been a place I’ve associated with long summer days and as we’re approaching winter, it’ll be quite fun to play through a warmer locale with a Blazkowicz who handles more similarly to his old self from The New Order, albiet with some fancy upgrades. My experience at the halfway point suggests that the price of admissions was worth it, and I’m looking forwards to seeing just how The New Colossus will prove this point to be correct in the game’s second half.