Some context
I was a spoiled young lad in the early 2000’s, far younger and without my crippling caffeine addiction. There was an absolute glut of fantastic shooters to choose from and even more on the way. Halo, Serious Sam, Max Payne and the fantastic pc shooters from the 90’s on standby. One of the old 90’s greats was remade in the form of a truly modern 3D experience, at least, for its time. Return to Castle Wolfenstein was a little off my radar in 2001, I owned and played it back in the day, but it soon became part of my Xbox backlog. Much more important matters tugged at young Handick, saving the besieged galaxy and ogling digital strippers just to name a few. Old habits die hard. I've been playing shooters of all kinds, except my pc copy of Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Have I been saving best for last? Have you? Read on and find out.
Does it Run?
Oddly enough Return to Castle Wolfenstein runs on a Windows 10 Ryzen setup. trying to get the game running in widescreen with the .cfg fix wasn’t going to happen, so I opted to play in the retro 4:3 aspect ratio. Funny how the narrower aspect ratio is the only thing that hasn’t been brought back in these times of nostalgia and throwback titles. Everybody gangsta till the CRT shows up.
The second minor issue I had with RTCW was the ‘Snooper’ rifle's night vision scope (it can’t be turned off) completely washes out the screen with its blinding green haze. I don’t remember it being that bad on the Xbox, but then again, I don’t remember the game even having a ‘Snooper rifle’. Maybe this is what the Hulk sees when he’s not wearing his glasses, we can only speculate. All things considered, I did end up beating the game hipfiring the over-engineered rifle where needed, so it’s not bad enough to be a gamebreaker.
How Hard Is Return to Castle Wolfenstein?
Tech issues aren’t the only thing that can break a game. Difficulty can turn a ten hour campaign into a twenty hour nightmare. I played through Return to Castle Wolfenstein on the normal difficulty and found the first half of the game pretty easy. There’s two mandatory stealth missions in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, just like getting caught trying to nosh on shredded cheese at 2am, these two stealth are a fail-on-detection. The first of the two stealth missions is definitely the hardest, there’s eagle-eyed snipers that rush to their alarm buttons. I found the other big hurdle of the campaign were the experimental Ubersoldadt with their rotary cannons, tesla guns, and panzerfausts. Final boss? Surpisingly easy to be honest. It took me about 3 tries to put that zombie back in the dirt, way less deaths than even the paratroopers caused me.
How Long is Return to Castle Wolfenstein?
All deaths included, I won Return to Castle Wolfenstein in a little under 9 hours, not bad compared to www.howlongtobeat.com estimate of 8 hours. There’s eight main missions broken up into 25 smaller segments. Bite sized little snacks that helped me down this somewhat grey-unappealing dish. Eight hours is the right length for a game like this, there’s only so much to see and do in the antiquated physics engine and dull color palette.
Should you play Return to Castle Wolfenstein in 2020? Yes and no.
If you already had it kicking around like I did, then go ahead and play it. Any game crossed off the list is a plus in my Handickbook. It’s not terrible broken or difficult, there’s far more challenging games from this era, boring ones too. I didn’t regret playing it, however it pales in comparison to other games of its time. Another one bites the dust.
If you’re considering buying Return to Castle Wolfenstein, don’t. Holster that mp44 and hear me out. Nostalgia is all well and good, heck, there’s surely a die hard group of fans that tout RTCW as one of the greatest fps games of all time, but I’m not a member (of that club). If you really want to enjoy the pre 2014 New Order plotline that the 2001 title offers, I recommend Wolfenstein The Old Blood 2015. It hits all the major plot points with much better gameplay and graphics, heck, it even gets the mandatory stealth segments out of the way first, leaving the gung-ho action for desert. There’s better fps games from the era and I intend to post about them, but until then, stay safe Comrades!
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