What Has Become Less Relevant (Return to Castle Wolfenstein)

August 16th, 2009

return-to-castle-wolfenstien

Last year I consulted my brother as to what PC games within his ownership ought I play in order to classify myself as someone well versed in the essentials of PC gaming. He provided me with a list and then I removed a few. To date I’ve completed Quake, Portal, Half-life (series), a couple of PopCap Games and Return to Castle Wolfenstein, which is decidedly less impressive to list than I originally thought it might have been. Oh, well, this is going to be a long expedition, so I’m just working on first person shooter games at the moment.

The only game on that list which I haven’t written extensively about is Return to Castle Wolfenstein which when I think about it kinda makes sense. I played Wolfenstein 3D as a kid and thought it was pretty funky, although perhaps a bit too puzzly for all the Nazi-shooting going on. After finishing Return to Castle Wolfenstein and thinking about this new Wolfenstein game (just titled “Wolfenstein”) I can’t help but think to myself “why do these games even exist?”.

Wolfenstein 3D layed the groundwork for an entirely new genre of game; the first person shooter. (Alternatively, it lead the way for Doom and Doom II which proceeded to lay the groundwork – either either) Return to Castle Wolfenstein on the other hand utilizes the popular Quake III engine and offers little else besides a largely uninteresting narrative to piece together a modestly fun single player game.

Maybe I’m missing the point here but both of these Wolfenstein 3D sequels (I am of course making assumptions of the new one) don’t appear to achieve anything that hasn’t already been achieved before, nor are they really doing anything significant within their own means. These sorts of pretender games which follow in the ripples of larger, more important games aren’t in anyways a bad thing. If you enjoyed Quake III imensely and further have at least some unflinching love for this dark part of Germany’s past, then sure, Return to Castle Wolfenstein is satisfying. Yet, if you’re a general tourist of the genre, then it all just feels a little tired. Tiredness, which I predict has only strengthened with age. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy this revisiting of Nazi Germany, Return to Castle Wolfenstein comes recommended, but with the knowledge of its caliber.

While trying to pinpoint why I found Return to Castle Wolfenstein so anti-climatic, I want to also talk about limitations of the FPS genre. I’m not sure if these ideas make much sense, but they’re floating around, so I might as well share them.

return-to-castle-wolfenstein screenshot

I feel that my complaints may be tied to this larger criticism of first person shooters in general. The genre intrinsically has a lack of interplay between player and target. You move your mouse over some variation of bad guy, click, maybe click again and move on. Yes, there are tactics, such as moving and shooting, hiding, flanking etc, but the fundamental process is highly repetitive. Level design, AI operate as diversifiers here, they’re (some of the few) primary mechanics which play a major influence. These control knobs when turned correctly can make each confrontation unique and enjoyable, but in a title such as Return to Castle Wolfenstein it all feels the same, nothing is distinct and everything is boring. Quake or Halo on the other hand are always fun to play, even though you are repeating the same tasks over and over. In Halo it comes down to the construction of conflict which is designed to maximize impact and in Quake the level design represents a ghoulish character itself, giving the game another dimension to hold onto. Outside of these few variables, there is little diversity within the formula which is why so many modern first person shooters rely on new-fangled gimmicks (see here for examples) as a selling point. In reality though, most of these are artificial.

Ingenuity is ultimately what will bring this genre forward, but ingenuity is also very hard to achieve. Looking forward, it’s clear that the scripted set piece structure of Call of Duty 4 will be a continued winner, but racing elements in Rage or drop landing in Section 8? Perhaps not.

When Return to Castle Wolfenstein was relevant, these aforementioned issues were not (and hence it didn’t really need to do anything fresh, copying Quake III was ore than adequate) but with the genre slowly becoming the most prominent in the industry, playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein in this context where something fresh is essential in maintaining a presence, it doesn’t really hold up too well.

EDIT: Gametrailers has recently posted a retrospective on the Wolfenstein series which discusses the muliplayer element of Return to Castle Wolfenstein; the coo for the title, provides a much more balance overview.

Additional Readings

Planet Wolfenstein

Bookworm Adventures Column

August 14th, 2009

Column: ‘Lingua Franca’ – The Fun Of Language Development with Bookworm Adventures

Due to an influx of new columnists at GameSetWatch my latest Lingua Franca column was delayed by two weeks. It’s a pity because I timed it perfectly to balance out the lateness of the previous column as well as fitting snugly with the release of Bookworm Adventures 2 (which I covered in the piece). You see, this is the problem with me, I can’t cover new release material, and in the land of video game hysteria, Bookworm Adventures 2 is old by now. ^_^

I’m a big fan of the Bookworm series, so I was super pleased to conduct the interview, even if most of my ideas were dismissed instantly. As you’ll be able to tell when reading, the interview was a little awkward. Combine that with my dimwitted, anecdotal intro regarding the poor spelling and grammar of yours truly and I look like a bit of an ass. 😀 Anyways, I’ll leave you to judge that for yourself. Enjoy!

Additional Readings
Bookworm Adventures Deluxe – Linguistic Observations

Play Impressions: Revisiting Wrecking Crew and Wii Play

August 11th, 2009

I really did wish I had something to write here, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. I want to say that I’ve been busy with my final semester of uni, but I know that’s not true, besides attendance, of course. I just don’t particularly have a lot to say, nor have I made sufficient progress with anything I’m playing to say anything concrete. I’m not sure where the time is going, I’m just floating in liquid here. There are some minor commentaries that I’d like to air of two games which I’ve recently revisited.

Wrecking Crew

The first is Wrecking Crew; the NES puzzler which involving Mario as a demolition man knocking down slabs of cement and ladders in a screen-clearing puzzle format. I bought and played this title for the first time when re-buying my old NES stuff a few years ago and originally spent a solid 2-4hr play session joyously banging through the first 40 odd levels of the totalling 100.

Since then it’s been sitting on my shelf as I hit a slump at around the level 44 mark. Several of the preceding levels constituted a ditch of broken and/or incredibly irksome levels, so I stopped playing. Picking it up again though has taught me a few things about the game which I don’t believe I reported on the first time.

I originally felt Wrecking Crew to be a breezy, under appreciated puzzler, it’s still under appreciated but perhaps I understand the reasons for that now. The most severe problem with Wrecking Crew‘s design is that there are multiple avenues to complete each level (as a whole, each level can be regarded as an individual puzzle), yet, particularly in the later levels, only one avenue is ever the right one. Therefore in many cases the game will lead you down the garden path as you unknowingly make your way towards the wrong direction. This is exacerbated by the slow pace in which Mario both walks and knocks down structures and the superfluous number of items he has to destroy. For many levels it feels as though Nintendo cared more about making the design look pretty by cramming it with destructible objects, rather than showing consideration to the player who must individually destroy all said objects to much repetition. Additionally, it’s not always clear from the outset how one should approach each level as original ideas may fall apart once the enemies start moving around the levels, blocking pathways and obscuring outlets. Toss in a few broken levels and Mario’s jerk of a construction manager who chases him around some levels and it grows tiresome quickly. I just ended up sampling the final 50 levels as it never seemed worth the effort of nailing down that one series of moves to solve each puzzle. It’s an arduous task, with little reward.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMnhcuDyePk

Still, I like Wrecking Crew. It has the stylistic charm and simplistic design of the early R&D1* games, plus a generous serving of 100 levels, most of which are decent, a handful excellent. It’s a shame that the later half had to take such a nose dive as I was seriously engaged for my first time around.

Wii Play

The other game I re-approached recently was Wii Play. Sure it’s the generic experimental offspring of Wii Sports, but it did only cost $10 with a Wiimote and many of the games are steeped in hardcore gamer sensibilities – why do people whinge over this game? I have an ultra skilled friend who has managed to attain platinum medals for pretty much all of the individual games, something which I find completely baffling as I can only muster a couple of platinums total, the rest varying from bronze to gold.

The assortment of mini-games each demand perfect precision and an earnest level of concentration to crack; the kind of abilities that can sometimes get the best of me. While I aced the Duck Hunt redux game in one fellow sweep, I didn’t fair too well in the other titles. The problem is that the games require complete concentration to the degree that you stop thinking about the game and allow the natural twitch sensation to take over. Doing this consciously on a whim, when you’ve got a ticking score displayed on screen can almost be sickening as I found was the case with the Ping Pong game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SglVSylIcl4

The rules of this game are incredibly simple, move the pad to hit the ball, try to keep the rally going as long as possible, in this case up to 200 rallies for a platinum medal. As mentioned though, said score tally builds in the top right hand corner of the screen which ultimately caused me to notice and constantly fail once I knew that the pressure’s on.

Always being weary of the scoreboard, I would notice when it came close to my previous high scores of about 160 and upon hitting that mark I would attempt to hit the subconscious zen. The problem is that hitting this mental slumber is difficult to do in a conscious state, yet the scoreboard almost forces you to notice. Trying despite this knowledge almost made me sick in the stomach. A very interesting game experience nonetheless.

*can’t quite put my finger on the internal studio, can anyone provide a point of reference?

Posted in Game Discussion | Comments (2)
Tags: wii play, wrecking crew

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