CRITIQUE: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (SPOILERS)
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- A spoiler-filled review and analysis of Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus for the PS4.
Spoiler free review - cdavisgames.co...
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Sorry about the parts where my voice is notably different. As you can probably tell, I had a pretty bad cold. I tried waiting for it to pass, but it stubbornly refused to go away (and still hasn't!). It was either delay the video for another 3+ days or just get on with it.
Nazi Vegas would have been a really cool chapter
@Social Dissidence The Nazis were fine with a free market provided it didn't take away from the war effort - their authoritarianism stemmed more from a paranoia regarding social control rather than economic control. They were corporatist when it suited them, collectivist when it suited them - basically they were pragmatic in their evil.
@Adam Beasley Maybe he is referencing the forced ending of that chapter. Nuking it by BJ and CO with population still inside, lol.
I was disappointed the cut the idea of BJ blowing up the Hoover dam
_New Vegas_ Legion playthroughs be like
"As a society we're trained to keep our kids away from violence and boobs and shunt them towards gambling and crippling debt instead" Thats the truest thing i have EVER heard.
Another thing I don't get about the whole Anya not knowing B.J is dying is that she is a trained nurse who literally cared for him for 14 years. You'd think she'd realise he was dying after 5 months of him being in a coma.
My biggest issue with the gameplay was there was almost no indication that you were being hit. I would die and be like "when and who the hell shot me? I just had full health!". It was very irritating that a Nazi killing machine is downed after 2 seconds of being shot and it's not at all satisfying.
+Jake Moore Apparently a patch has improved this a bit so if you played at launch it might be better now. I still think it's broken though.
The SMG is way too accurate on enemies.
I rarely died during my play through. But I spent so much time retreating, picking up health, getting shot in the side, regenerating health that it was a frustrating experience. It's fundamentally flawed
The most annoying enemy for me were the Uberkommandos, if they spot you that grenade launcher will FUCK YOU and you’ll have to go through the whole level again.
I was about 10 feet from one in stealth but I had to sprint past one of the larger guys (I forget their name) and kill the commando, easy right?
I sprint past the big boy shoot the ubercommando in the head 3 times he blasts me and kills me instantly
I had 100 heath 100 armour...
I literally just threw my arms up in disgust.
Other than that I found the game fairly easy, even the hardest enemies were no match for the dual shotguns
@@Mr_Meatbox Recoil is a myth...
Another phenomenal and in-depth analysis. As I get older, I'm less inclined to play every game and much happier to just kick back and watch quality content like this. Please keep up the good work!
YOUR PART OF THE PROBLEM
Watch movies, tv series or something else then if you are less inclined to play games.....
Nil RCi 1- WTF!, 2- This game is PRACTICALLY a movie. Half of it is cut scenes.
@@markw7303
*you're
Honestly this review is not that good... one of the best scenes in the game (24:20) he doesn't like? WHAT
The parts with BJs thoughts about Caroline clearly show how much he respected her and misses her since she was the only thing left from his old life.
BJ is one of the best written characters of the last decade, Hes a great.
plus he just ignores the fact that theres a hint button to show your objective...
Watch this one instead... ua-cam.com/video/5ys2KitPyUM/v-deo.html
Its not exactly a review but its much much better at understanding the characters.
And that doesn't even go into the scene where BJ Finally breaks and is on his knees with his head on his mothers lap. Its a GREAT scene and really shows that hes not just a super macho badass. Hes depressed.
Edit: Sorry he did talk about that scene and was completely wrong about it.
The first Wolfenstein actually hints at going to Venus on a poster which is exactly the background hint you were talking about.
Fun fact:
Despite the actor being named Ronald, Ronald Reagan never lived in Arizona like the actor that gets shot.
So either it's a different guy or Wolfenstein-timeline Reagan moved at one point.
ManlyChicken
Another fun fact is that the Nazis not only did not like the KKK (since Nazis were Catholics and KKK are Protestants), they actually used them in propaganda as an example of a bad American institution. That SS guy would have arrested the two guys in robes for being members of a banned organisation.
Even more, the hatred was mutual. The KKK are ultra-nationalists, and therefore hate any group at war with America.
It could have been an interesting dilemma in the game.The KKK offer to help the resistance with the freeing of America...but I know it's current year so it would be a big no no
I could see the Black Panther guys and the KKK being forced to work with each other and both groups saving each other's asses a couple times and both overcoming their prejudices and proving that we're all people, no matter the skin color and that radical ideology and extremism just lead to hatred and bigotry, kinda like Engel's daughter's story arc. Unfortunately people today would rather just dismiss everyone as "lost" and refuse to see people as humans that are wrapped up in radicalism.
Not to mention that Nazis advocated more of Pan Nordic supremacy rather than with simply White supremacy, they viewed Englishmen and surrounding Normans as undesirable with various stereotypes (especially to their anti-Jewish sentiment) to Eastern Europeans (even without any Jewish blood traces) as "subhumans" especially when they started to have beef with Soviets in later years of WWII, the scriptwriting on the American geography within their fictional universe seems to be very oriented towards the fringe American urban pop culture instead of looking American geography in nuanced and broader looks
Also yeah, Black ultranationalists and KKK seemed more fitting that they're ended up fighting together against Nazis in case the NSDAP Germany flag flies over Statue of Liberty
"Is everyone listening in on this frequency?"
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Max Hass!"
I love Max.
I think the five month time gap was primarily to be able to have Anya be noticeably pregnant with BJ's baby...
Ideologs ruined this game
The problem with the game is it doesn't know if it wants to be a run and gun or a cover shooter, i spend most of time trying to figure what strategy to us but because its a mix of the two genres it feels like a jogging act. That courthouse level was a pain in the ass, most of kills at the beginning of the mission were melee kills because its faster and saves ammo.
+Darren Fair That pretty much sums it up. I hope they abandon cover shooter elements in future.
I felt phsicaly embarased when the credit music played because it was really loud in the middle of the night in a house with full of people
The stealth mechanics were totally broken in this game.
Quite literally
"why couldn't he escape the courtroom to be caught again?" We forgetting Blazkowicz is crippled and can't walk, hence why him escaping is literally only a dream?
He wasn’t crippled in the courtroom scene
@@thombo32 he was on a Hannibal lecteur style dolley. Being strapped to that kept him up. He was literally still in the wheelchair the scene before that. He was crippled still.
BJ's inner monologues are so much better in New Order.
38:52 "As society we've decided to protect our kids from blood, violence, and boobs, and shunt them towards gambling and crippling debt instead" so true.
That's kinda funny, Caroline admired BJ because of him helping her in Wolfenstein 2009.
In regards to the level design: This game's failure to live up to it's own potential (which is literally set-up for in the game) is mind-boggling.
FLAWLESS review from start to finish!
It's like you pulled the thoughts straight out of my head...
My first playthrough of this game I was on the courtroom section on the "I am death incarnate" difficulty and I literally couldn't fuckin do anything then after almost an hour of numerous tries, I finally got lucky with what little amount of ammo I gathered and the lmg I just laid behind some boxes in a corner and just spammed all my ammo and nades until I got to a better position and finally beat the level. I went through all of that just to watch bj get decapitated and conveniently reattached to another body. I was just baffled and perplexed as fuck.
Maybe I'm just losing interest in games like this as I get older but it looks quite boring. I was engaged with the new order but this looks like it retreads a lot of ground. I probably wouldn't finish it if I bought it
It's dreadful and the ham-fisted themes are the nail in the coffin.
Sounds like you have Nazi killing fatigue. Shame
Gruff White Male Protagonist I actually kind of liked the characters
This game may have well killed the franchise. It flopped in terms of sales. Such a shame this one ditched all the great stuff from Wolfenstein The New Order and The Old Blood.
Killed the franchise? Did it even really 'flop' in terms of sales? I have trouble believing that considering the high praise the last game received and the buzz surrounding this one's release, even if people were disappointed after playing it lots of people still would've purchased it to play it - and what did it really "ditch" from the past two entries, anyway? The combat mechanics are largely the same, the only thing that really changed dramatically was the level design, which granted is a big thing but you're acting like this is fucking Far Cry 2 and Far Cry 3 being compared.
If this killed the franchise, Youngblood was the nail in the coffin.
Wow, talk about hyperbole.
@@DangerSquad Everything bad about Youngblood was already present in NC. It just didnt stick out as much, because there was still some narrative and character development.
@@OkurkaBinLadin that's obviously not true at all.
So glad I'm not the only one who starts counting when any show/movie/etc gives the 'we have x seconds left' line. And is usually left disappointed.
I have a feeling when we look at this trilogy in the future this will be the game people say it's okay to skip.
And now Youngblood. The only trilogy where you play the first game and that's it.
@Gruff White Male Protagonist It's more of a side story so I don't count it as part of the trilogy. It is unsullied that way.
I love this channel. These videos get me through my gym sessions haha. Start a Patreon!
Thanks! I'll probably start a Patreon one day, but I want to get to the stage where I release content on a regular schedule and with consistent quality so that people feel comfortable backing me. I'm still a bit all over the place right now. The production of this video was a mess, with audio recorded in three different places over five weeks and lots of changes to the script.
At least they're long sessions.
+swifterik awesome, thank you for the kind words!
I listen to these at work
I love Wyatt hes a lot like a younger brother, that scene were he finally gets help for his drug addiction and he and BJ are talking to each other is fantastic just hearing BJ say that he loved Wyatt out loud was beautiful there both mentally scarred the same way but just deal with it in different ways.
I barely remember anything that happened in this game tbh, except maybe the part on Venus, New Order had wayyy more memorable moments.
I played on do or die and the court room sequence, oh man the court room sequence, didn’t change it tho.
in wolfenstein 2 the main thing that confused me was bjs dad because in the first game and old blood whenever he makes a vague reference to his family like saying how his dad called him billy boy he seemed like hes looking back on those moments fondly, giving off an idea that his childhood was at least not the worst thing in the world, which seems to bleed through in some scenes like when his dad gives him a gun and they go to face his imaginary monsters, something tells me it was supposed to be something along the lines of they lived in an area where people were heavily racist and his dad was the sort of person who taught him to stand up to the darkness of the world and make it his bitch, which he does later in life but they ended up turning his dad into a walking cliché just for the sake of giving bj a somewhat tragic backstory, not really something a muscle bound Nazi slayer really needs really, but yeah, in short I would have preferred seeing bj develop as his dad nurtures him to become the hardass he is now before maybe being killed by the Nazis, giving bj the last thing he needs to step out into the world and put his attitude to use but sadly not what happened, anyway essay over
This is exactly what I wanted to see out of BJ's dad. Thank you for putting it into words.
actually the "cube" itself is really just a red herring because after wyatt wakes up from his fever dream he points out it's just a doorknob
Best wolfenstein will always be Return to castle wolfenstein.
The new Order and the Old Blood were good too.
RTCW is the best. Can't decide if I like more OB or NO
I was so dissapointed with this sequel. I really liked the first one, the old blood was pretty ok too. The gameplay just punishes you too much, even after I switched the difficulty from the hardest one to 2nd easiest one. That credits music was so awful too
The Credit music is a real ww2 song, I don't think it's great, but it is a nice Easter egg.
Good critique of a mediocre game. It seems like a classic sequel in the movie sense: make it cheaper, assuming similar sales as before, end up with higher profit margin. I got a real Dragon Age 2 vibe - huge hype, terrible and cheap execution. Your 3 out of 5 is generous imo.
3/5 is an average score, you call the game "mediocre" by definition its an average game.
While i didn't care for TNC compared to TNO, its still a fairly competent game. Reviewers definitely gave the game better scores than it actually deserves, its still a better game than a lot of FPS' out there.
To me its a Michael Bay equivalent of a game, great production value with a few surprises that entertain but thats about it. I really hope Wolf 3 is better, maybe Machine games can make something redeeming out of the DLC stories..
@@dabluntz19 agree
I wish you didn't have to push a button to get pick ups as it slows the game down so much. Walking over them should pick them up.
It's like they weren't restrained enough with the story and went overboard with the stupidity.
The dogs on high difficulty are annoying as hell. I would love to know how a dog can kill me by, you know, biting my foot? Which was also covered in armor. Not to mention it takes like half a clip or more to kill them in the first place. And also that the dogs and other enemies in these games can magically DODGE bullets and gunfire with their funky dance moves. Don't lie, you know you've seen them do that duck-dance thing and just have bullets miss them.
The aiming is annoying as the controls were hyper sensitive and the reticle would fly all over the place while trying to get on an enemy. This was a big pain in the ass in the challenges in the DLC. It would take forever to stealth aim someone and by that time the other enemies would spot you and you were screwed because in high difficulty, you die in two shots even with full health and armor.
It was a huge mistake that you cant shoot people from hiding spots while using the constrictor suit. Yeah it's cool you could crawl through little tunnels but that's it. You can't shoot from there. That and the animation takes so long getting out that half the time you get seen just leaving the spot. And most of the time it would take forever for the game to recognize that you were trying to get IN the little tunnels that you'd be shot half to death just trying to get away and hide in the tube. You could sit there crouched pointing the reticle at the tube and nothing would happen and by the time it did you were either dead or you were shot to death when the animation finally kicked in but it took so long you were killed DURING the animations.
That brings me to another thing, the animations take forever. Yeah it's cool you can charge an enemy and R3 him with a melee attack but the animation for this attack takes forever and by the time you kill the one enemy the others have shot you dead by the time the animation concludes, which, to me seems pretty unbalanced.
The weapon wheel is just trash. It's ALWAYS selecting weapons you're not trying to get. It's so fidgety. That and it's always going into the secondary wheel while you try and select the pistol.
The direction indicator was trash too. Half the time it didn't even appear on the screen when I pressed it or it was so light in color that it blended in with everything else on the screen.
I did enjoy the game for what it was but it does have it's issues. I understand hard difficulties are hard but two or three shot deaths? Dogs killing you by biting an armored foot? Come on.....
"Is everyone listening on this frequency?!"
"Yes."
"Yeeeeees."
".........Max Hauss" 🤣
Missing the point of the Caroline “ interactions”, it’s not that she was some super soldier in life, it’s that she wasn’t he believes her good heart is guiding him in the afterlife.
Because of the types of enemies and how the commanders were set up, stealth in Wolfenstein 2 was not actually something doable with a reasonable amount of effort. The game feels a bit lacklustre on first play, but becomes a lot better if you give it a second go.
This critique video was WAY more fun than the actual game.
BTW
Metro Exodus looks like it might be fun.
Good review so far Chris - ours are very similar. You hit on a lot of the gameplay stuff I didn't though, which was awesome. Great job!
Thanks. I'm actually already subscribed to your channel but you released the video while I was still playing the game so I couldn't watch it for spoilers. It's in my "watch later" list so I'll check it out soon.
But BJ most definitely prattles on & on @ the end of New Order as well... talking about all the shot that happened when he was young. Remember the cold water from the lake w/his dad, & he most definitely has an emotional moment in his head... so that’s not just added outta the blue.
This was a nice and thorough review. And nicely presented, subbed and liked
16:56 Well he said he was from Arizona but the real Reagan has never lived in Arizona.
55:46 The cube was made by the Da'at Yichud.
5:37 There was a 5 month delay because the Nazi technology improved. There were enemies far more advanced than the ones in the New Order and it would be weird to see them at the same time.
OMG a The Thick of It reference, I swear nobody on the internet has heard of it, funniest show I've ever watched.
I spent about six hours watching all your videos today, and you're a really charming, reasonable reviewer. I'm sure you get this a lot, but you remind me of MattMatosis. Keep up the good work.
I'm a bit late to the party, but i must say this is a really good video. Great work man, really liked it and subscribed. Cheers.
Amazing analysis. I still love this game, but I also agree with a large amount of your points. I also love the nod to GiantBomb's Game of The Year podcast, thought I was in the minority of people who listen to those on a regular basis.
Another great video chris. Thank you!
What annoyed me with the story was we never really got to SEE ourselves liberating America! It's just a lot of getting ready, we never actually lead an uprising of any kind. I think a game like Freedom Fighters does it much better.
Let's be honest the plan to free BJ should've been seen to fail seriously the fact that there is a lawyer for BJ The Most WANTED man on Nazi earth and also don't forget a literal mass murderer they should've seen that coming as soon as the Nazis allowed anything like that.
I wouldn't even be surprised if this was just a plan to kill Alien guy because he was really Annoying they should've probably done it for some side characters as well
I'm only a half hour in so I'm not sure whether you clear this up later, but the side-quest(s) where you "show off your special powers" isn't just a bland "tutorial" of sorts -- only by completing said side-quest does your contraption-of-choice get an upgrade. For example, for the ram shackles, by completing the side-quest where you're pushing those boxes everywhere, your character is rewarded by having the ability to regenerate armor. The 2 other contraptions offer their respective, rewarding (imo) upgrades. I can see someone going through the whole game having missed acquiring the upgrade, (as the other side-quests are lame, for sure) so just wanted to let you know! Great analysis so far, excited to hear the rest of it. Loved your Prey and Evil Within analyses in particular. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us!
Edit: Nope, you addressed it. Keeping my comment intact for the compliments though :)
I returned to New Colossus last year and enjoyed my time with it much more on that second playthrough than I had the first time. I found that ignoring most of the optional commander hunt missions really improved the pacing of the game and made the story feel more urgent. I also found that it wasn't as fun to try to track down every collectible. This is disappointing for sure, as you'd normally want it to be fun and worthwhile to play a game to 100% completion, but New Colossus is honestly better if you just head straight through the story.
Thanks for making the quality critiques! Love it like always!
BJ talking to Caroline during gameplay was because the suit he had on (until the decapitation, aftet which he stops doing that) was her suit.
I get why you didn't understand that - it has nothing to do with the rest of the plot narratively or thematically.
Personally, I don´t agree with you, but I can´t deny the sheer quality of this review. You just earned a sub. (And yes I know I´m late)
This video mirrors my thoughts on the game almost exactly.
While the story in the original didn't have as extreme situations as this game, the places where the combat happened were much more memorable and fun to play and the plot that took you from one place to the next felt much more fluid.
If they can combine the everything that is good in these first two games into Wolfenstein 3, it could really be something, but it might just end up being mediocre as W2:TNC
tldw: game stunk!
Problem with the Hitler scene is couldn't decide if it wanted to be funny or creepy, and I guess it could've been both but the entire game couldn't decide what tone it wanted to be; moaning about his dad in one scene and rolling around on a wheelchair killing nazis in another- its sad hes in the chair, but you just got a funny trophy/chievement for a handchair melee kill!
Hey now, I’m an inexperienced gamer watching this. As a matter of fact, I don’t play the vast majority of games. I really prefer to watch you play and tell me about it, which is way fun for me.
Great video! I agreed with everything you said. I thought i was crazy when everyone kept telling me new colossus was a great game
I didn't had the issues you described with the loading interruptions from gameplay to cutscenes on PC. I guess you played earlier version of the game with such bugs. Or it's just the console dunno.
I still like to think that BJ is still at the asylum and this is all happening in his head.
Caroline... I'm gonna say your name a few times while I'm talking to myself, Caroline...
Caroline, the guys who wrote this game didn't play Wolf2009 so they don't know you KNOW I'm a badass... Caroline please cut my food for me and wipe my ass...
I know this was 6 years ago, but something I still think about in regards to the dream sequence is I feel like it wouldn't have been so miserable if it wasn't mandatory.
In other games, like Dishonored, they have an extremely difficult dream sequence in one of the side DLC; in the DLC you play as a character that fights the main character you play as in the main game, and you have a dream about that fight. The dream has two different outcomes depending on if you win or lose the fight, though, and I feel like they should've did that for the Wolfenstein 2 dream sequence.
If you win the sequence, you get to go see your mother and go through that cutscene, but if you lose, you just skip to the beheading scene. I honestly feel like that should've been what they did, and the random difficulty spike wouldn't have been such a pain in the balls anymore once it became clear that beating it was optional.
yes!!! you just made my day brother
another smashing video !!!
With the 7 seconds thing, this is Set. He almost definitely meant 7 seconds from the moment he said it, amd even then it took longer which is why he assumed he was dead.
0:40 nope. They changed the story because Donald Trump got elected. The game director said so himself. This game is very politicized and very preachy.
Wokenstein. I insta Uninstalled after the breast feeding scene that ended with BJ exclaiming "come and get it you WHITE NAZI FUCKS". I was so disappointed. It was already DEI infested before that cutscene but that threw it over the edge for me. This isn't a game it's a deep left ideological political statement. Fuck this game series for bending the knee. BAD GAME 0/10
Thanks for saying pacifier, I was really struggling for a sec 😌
ehhhhhh the self monologue BJ has during gameplay is very in character (maybe one of my favorite things in the game). Hes a killing machine who is STILL HUMAN. Hearing his ambitions about living up to expectations, wanting to raise his children in a world without nazi’s etc. helps the player remember BJ is more than the perfect nazi killer
They always went on about resistance fighters in the mountains. Just imagine a level in that kind of location.
I wish you had more factions and they have internal fighting. That’s how all resistance movements and revolutions go. Factionalism and infighting play a part. So, we have a black power and anarcho-communist as two factions. Say the Appalachian Resistance are a mix of right wing survivalists and old war vets. Survivalists and Black Power could clash and the war vets and Commies also clash a bit with Blazko and the Circle trying to keep them united and not kill each other. THAT woulda been great.
I've watched enough videos here on New Clossus and all of them have the same complains as you. Such a shame. Hope the third game takes in consideration all of them. Keep up the good work :)
+Little B Gaming Thanks!
I largely agree with the points with this video. I tried making a let's play for a friend of mine's YT channel but I found myself getting angry at the ridiculous combat difficulty and the running around in an attempt to find where I was supposed to go next. This caused videos to be WAY too long. To be fair, I did expect to have some editing and cutting but it got to a point where I just wasn't happy with the first playthrough and I didn't want to play through it again. The story did get some reactions out of me that I did like watching through my footage before, like with Caroline's death and Spesh dying, but overall at the end of the game I found myself saying: "That's it?" I was hyped for this game ever since it was announced at E3 and even bought the collectors edition for it, only for me to be greatly disappointed with it. Granted, like Chris, I did have fun at times but I found myself enjoying Old Blood and New Order a lot more. Also, why does NVIDIA optimize my game for 1366x768 at low setting even though I meet the recommended specs for the game? Probably an issue on NVIDIA's end but still. In short, I found that The New Colossus did not live up to its predecessor in most aspects and only succeeded in graphical prowess and sound design. BJ does look DAMN FINE in his New Order jacket.
I hope they bring back the occult and supernatural stuff back.
I am an extremely excited boy about this video
Didn't play the game so I didn't know what you meant at first but holy shit that was a horrible cover of a fairly good Twisted Sister song. Also, in Megaman 2 Dr. Wiley straight up transforms into a freaking green skinned alien that shoots energy blasts. If they'd do that with Hitler it'd be great.
Ironically, for a game featuring so much Nazi propaganda, Wolfenstein II ends up being more propaganda itself. I think it's when I saw footage from one of the bonus episodes for Wolfenstein II and the football player in it says "Man, I better take a knee," that I understood that this game was more concerned with being liberal propaganda than being a game. I agree with a lot of the liberal idealism in the game, and yeah, Nazis are evil, but Wolfenstein is borderline satire, so the messages come across as goofy. Dunno if what I just wrote makes any sense.
Great video, Chris. I remember when you had a 100 or so subs and look at how many you have now! That next milestone will come in no time!
It seems that someone hadn't seen Starship Trooper, I may agree with that the story have problems. Since when being a fucking NAZI is now something sympathetic? And please, you cant hide behind, ho, it conservatism, not about being xenophobic and racist, when all what they are the NAZI and the White Supremacist are xenophobic and racist. People like you always like to hide between vague notions and pretest, instead of admitting what really are, as someone had say, you are playing footsy.
Keyser94 Of course Nazism is about racism and xenophobia, I never claimed that it wasn't. However, I urge you to look to the US to see how many neo-Nazis and white nationalists [like Richard Spencer, David Duke, even Milo Yiannopoulos, though some would disagree with the last one] are hardline conservatives, and how much Trump has stoked the fires of fascism. Those two, in the setting of the US, are not separate, and to me it is clear that Wolfenstein II has imbued its heroes with liberal idealism - we have socialists, a black woman breastfeeding, a pregnant woman killing Nazis, interracial sex, etc. These are ideals that hardline conservatives, many of whom claim to be Christian, would deem abhorrent. That is all to say that given the setting it is not hard to see this being about the political climate in the US.
Actually that is more about the setting than their own ideals, because it set in the focus in the fucking sixties, you known, the era of hippies and sexual liberation, and counter culture, but during a NAZI rule, and compared to New Order this game is much more water-down because in New Order they go much more further than this, and is water-down because their corporate oligarchs don't want to upset Richard Spencer, David Duke, even Milo Yiannopoulos, because at difference from New Order, were there is a entire level dedicated to a Death Camp, doesn't show you how the KKK used black slaves or controlled the South as it was implied, as much the marketing of the game show otherwise, the game itself was very mild and tame with this themes, it was very pathetic compared to the original.
I definitely agree that TNC's characters are imbued with idealism. What I think some people forget is some perspective of the setting. And Chris pointed it out in the video that maybe the majority of America doesn't care about the revolution. They might be apathetic to it. So the people that would take up arms in this kind of setting would have that idealist mindset. I just think that it's more catered to today's 'events' to be more identifiable.
If you're after any evidence that The New Collossus is regressive anti-white, male-hating propaganda filth, look no further than the first cutscene featuring Grace. She's a hamfisted, walking, talking, racist, misandrist, hypocritical, smoking-while-breastfeeding liberal identity politics propaganda piece.
Great critique. Couldn’t agree more.
And also I really liked Prey tho
This game has stealth because New Order had stealth, and the New Order had Stealth because the Riddick games had stealth. Machine Games is composed of former members from Starbreeze Studios who made Butcher Bay and Dark Athena. The difference between this game and those is that Butcher Bay and Dark Athena had actual stealth mechanics (shooting out lights, dragging bodies, etc.) and New Order had levels that were actually designed to allow you to use stealth comfortably if you wanted to throughout the entire game. There were some sections that were dedicated action sections, but if the enemy isn't alerted to you the moment you wander into an area, you have the option to take out every enemy stealthily. Trying to do that in the New Colossus is so difficult because of enemy placement and the generally terrible level design that I would say it's not even worth bothering. In fact, it seems as if they've given up entirely on trying to create dedicated action and stealth sections, and instead have created sections that are so difficult to stealth that the player has no choice but to engage in action instead, relying on the commanders being in incredibly inconvenient locations. From the very second stealth section, the game expects you to kill a commander with another enemy in the room, who will not leave, without being noticed before you've even gotten a single upgrade kit to allow you to get a silencer or any throwing hatchets.The only time it gets better is after you get the Constrictor Harness which does provide a decent number of opportunities for a couple levels before you hit a brick wall with Venus. This is when the game really starts spamming Supersoldaten who cannot be taken out silently and have an unfairly large line of sight which makes stealth almost impossible. Believe me, I tried my hardest, and it only worked two thirds of the time after much hair-ripping frustration. It sucks for me too as I generally prefer to play stealthily in most games and I never had a problem pulling it off in the New Order or the Riddick games once I figured out how to silently shoot out the lights. In this game, however, I felt like I was mercilessly beating my head into a wall every time I attempted it, and it made the whole game unenjoyable for me.
Also, you're right in that the collectables are shit. Before, gold and the like were rewards for finding secret areas, going off the beaten path, or generally reaching areas that were difficult to get to normally. Here, going along with little thought being put into any of the level design, collectibles are just dotted around everywhere, nonsensically, hidden only by the environment overshadowing them, or you being unable to notice them. It feels like no thought was put into how the levels were constructed or they otherwise couldn''t decide what kind of game they wanted to make. Same as how only half the levels, in a game about liberating America, actually take place in America, and only in mostly unimportant locations. Also, a level on Venus with absolutely no setup despite the amount of work that went into making the moon level in New Order believable. The New Colossus honestly feels like a new studio stepped in and ultimately made a poor, confused attempt to replicate New Order with all the box-checking that would be involved.
Love this video!! So excited to see it. I could not possibly agree more with all the criticisms you brought up. I had to force myself to finish... I loved The New Order. The difficulty of TNC was ridiculous. I felt like I was terrible at games. I had to put it on baby mode and that felt lame. I just wasn't getting any better as I played. I'd bump up the difficulty when I felt like I had it down and would die 20 times. I wasn't having any fun. I shouldn't even say this because "uuubhhh git gud" but I love challenge. I love overcoming it and I'll try over and over agin but with other games I may get frustrated but I'm also having fun and trying to prove myself. This game was a slog. Thank you for this video, made me feel better about my thoughts on the game. Really love your channel.
Thanks! There's a huge difference between games where it's rewarding to overcome the challenge by learning how to play and ones where you keep repeating the same section until you memorize enemy placements and spawn points. TNC is definitely the latter.
This game was disturbing. I got this very strong impression that the nazi are supposed to be good, and I am pretty sure the heroes are terrorists.
I don’t remember how much time went through between real life WW2 and the last game, but I think it’s like 50 years. The war is long over. People go about their normal daily lives, and you are nuking administrative centers. I still remember the American woman slapping you for killing her son.
Hyped for the next vid! good job as its been so far
Personally, I don’t like BJ’s backstory at all.
The New Order shows that there are always two sides of a coin. The first coin is Aryan. On the train, Engel said that BJ is Aryan - the supreme race destined to rule the world. On one side, Aryans of the Third Reich considers themselves as superior and looks down on other races. BJ is the representation of the other side, the Aryans who are compassionate to others and treat others like equals. So it’s really ironic that the supreme rule of Aryans is taken down by other Aryans, who suppose to be allied with the Third Reich. The New Colossus ruins this by introducing BJ’s Jewish mother. Now BJ’s victory over the Nazi feels like underdog defeating the big dog (which is not a bad theme tbh, but it’s just so cliche and righteous, heroic, making it less interesting than ones has to murder their own race in order to save others).
The second coin is racism. I don’t like how BJ is established to be compassionate towards color people from childhood. BJ’s hatred towards Nazi is contributed by how racist they are, how they look down onto other races. However, J in The New Order compares Nazi reign and USA at the time, saying they are equally racist which made a very interesting point: BJ is fighting for a country that treats color people as poorly as Nazi treating non-Aryans. Combine this with the defect Nazi officer Klaus’s present in the resistance base, BJ has to confront the fact that whichever races the person may be, they are also human and deserves to be treated equally. Thus, he can strive to be better. But then in The New Colossus, he’s already compassionate towards other races, making his whole confrontations in the last game pointless. What if he learns after his dad’s racist world view but still loves his mom, would it make his final confrontation with his dad later on sweeter? Because by then, instead of him already accepting others from the get go, we would have seen his progress to be so and easier to accept that BJ is morally superior to his dad. Killing BJ’s dad then would not only acts as a revenge for his betrayed mother and abused childhood, but also him destroying the representation of his old, flawed world view.
Unfortunately Youngblood jossed a bunch of plot potential because it looks like they're going to go all over the place with 3. I think it would have been in keeping with the dark and cynical take of Machine Games that they are not fighting for the majority of Americans but conclude it does not matter. Their cause is just, they're right and so they'll fight for those who agree with them - and damn the rest.
I quite enjoyed it (besides all the stuff people have already brought up) but there's one thing that irks me more then anything else and it is how many new vestigial "features" there are as a direct result of the 3 gadgets. Explosions knock you down and kill you instantly because the ram shoulders make you immune to it, the stealth is even more fucked because the time slow / surprise you get with the tactical corset, and your health is balanced around a higher number (i'm thinking around 150) because the stilts SOMEHOW makes your overhealth not decrease. If none of these existed the game would be maybe not better but at least a little more... complete, I suppose
After 10 years of not playing any games I grabbed this one of the shelf, mostly because of nostalgic reasons. I needed 35 hours to go trough - I got lost too many times.
I will agree they fucked up with the ending music. The song would have been an absolute perfect fit had it been the original by Twisted Sister
Good and realistic critiqu, as allways! When you stream on twitch, how will you inform us?
I love your Vids, gaming knowledge and personality. When you switch to Patron, I would support you.
cheers :)
Thanks. I'm already streaming on Twitch although I've been quiet lately because I was away over Christmas and then came home with a terrible cold (as you probably heard in the video). My schedule will probably be Sun - Fri 2pm to 6 pm PST although it isn't set in stone yet. Here's a link to the channel if you want to follow me on Twitch - www.twitch.tv/cdavis_games
I would have preferred holding down bjs house in Texas and trying to hold out for the reinforcements and the house gets picked up right as your about to exit and in the distance the crew is trying to tell you to get of the porch before you're picked up and then the house gets picked up. I mean it is still a cramped environment but it's better in my opinion.
I was disappointed by the new colossus, but then I played it again a couple years later and I started to dig it. Hopefully we get a wolf 3, cause I heard the new colossus and young blood didnt sell very well.
Your dry, perfectly delivered comedy reminds me of Georg Rockall-schmidt
Ya know I love Wolfenstein so much (the original cause i am an oldmin and The New Order) I'd honestly just forgive all of this if it wasn't sixty bucks. That price tag is just ballsy, especially with this kind of review coming from a quality critic.
DOOM(and eternal) is difficult in a (relatively) fair and intelligent way. This game is difficulty in a cheap and stupid way. Either the machine games' game mechanics designers brains are broken and they should see a neurologist, or they are just trolls. I think they are trolls.
I agree with most of the things you say but I really didn't mind the action been broken up by long cutscenes or sections where I couldn't use a gun. It was a nice change of pace and the scenes were always very entertaining. Also when you mentioned the Anya pregnancy thing, it was fairly obvious the devs were subverting expections(I know that's not always good but I liked it here) but having her give 0 fucks about being pregnant.
Still hate grace. She kinda conflict the ideas on fighting racism but she treat the one person who's the daughter of the baddy like she brought the problem.
Fantastic Critique, my friend. Subscribed~
Well, I can understand all your points and don't mind you not liking the game but I personally had a blast playing it and don't regret it. I will say for others to wait for a sale on it, as well as playing it on an easier difficulty to have a fun time.
Yes, I hate this stigma against playing on lower difficulty, because it's on lower difficulties that you have leeway to try the cool and crazy combos and weapons, on higher difficulty you're stuck playing it safe and conserving hitpoints. Sure it's more of a challenge, but I'm playing to have fun, not to impress strangers on the internet reading scoreboards.
Dumbass the challenge is what makes playing on higher difficulties fun and no on higher difficulties the point is that you use all the combos you know and utilize all of the weapons.
This is a first person shooter, I know using all the weapon types count as different play-styles but hiding behind cover and taking peep shots isn't what I call fun.
Well I'd say this game isn't the best example why higher difficulties are fun to play its got a lot of cheap areas where it forces you to stay behind cover and take peep shots its annoying and tedious like the court room where your hp is capped at 50 there are little to no hp pickups and a whole battalion is thrown at you its not fun its annoying. Plus this game dosen't offer a diverse array of weapons you just have the normal boring shit that every generic fps game has these days expect maybe the laserkraft and the dieselkraft. So i wouldn't say this game is rly all that difficult becouse its more tedious than difficult. I was actually thinking of something like doom where its much more fun to play on the nightmare difficulty than easy becouse its a fair challenge and you have to keep moving around cause staying still means certain death. Your survival relies entirley on your skill and not how much cover or hp pickups there are. I didn't mean to say that you can't enyoy a game on easier difficulties and it probbably came off that way. I just had issues with what the other guy said how you have to sacrifice having fun ot get a challenge and that just isn't true although i can certanly see why you would think that after playing this game.
Fuck I deleted my response on accident.
I think the biggest issues for me after playing through The New Colossus are the pacing and the gameplay. There were A TON of amazing and weird plot points alongside personal and dramatic ones, but they would be ran through at a mile a minute. By the time the God awful credits started screeching at me, I was just confused rather than satisfied.
This would be fine if the gameplay was varied and improved upon the last games, but it actually feels weaker (almost certainly because of the power armor and super soldier body). Guns feel like they don't pack a punch anymore, the hatchet goes through limbs without resistance, you run at full speed while dual wielding, and almost all of it is done in metal corridors or a destroyed city.
I disagree with the idea that BJ isn’t a deep thinker. He’s always been thinking on random stuff like in old blood he thinks about the smell of a basement when in a cellar. I love his characterization and I feel it would be a shame to lose it. I agree this gameplay is repetitive and at times boring and I would have loved to see Appalachian rebels helping you storm a info bunker instead of New York part 2
i would not recommend playing wolfenstein on higher difficulties as combining nazi's spawning behind you with only a few shots being lethal leads to a LOT of frustration, however thanks to this i did not notice much of a difficulty curve going from hard to hardest softcore mode, so if you want to go all the way because it does not get that much more annoying
I really disagree with your opinion about stealth. It add a lot to the gameplay and helps pace the game. Not all combats have to play the same. When you have the choice of playing smart and using your wit, why would you use brute force instead? It's something I really liked about the Far Cry games, especially the first one. In the end this is still an action game, stealth is just here to add some flavor to the combats and make them less repetitive. It's simple enough as it is, I actually think adding more stealth mechanics would be detrimental to the gameplay.
Unrelated but you should try Titanfall 2 if you want a good singleplayer campaign.
Having a shooter with shitty stealth is like having a stealth game with shitty shooting.
Guess we will never know how part 3 will play out