Not long ago a novelty from the creators of Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake got to my HD - Return to Castle Wolfenstein. I couldn't miss this toy in no way, so read here my review of a very promising project by iD Software and Activision - Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
So, the game itself was developed by the Gray Matter inc. studio, although the multiplayer art was made by another company - Nerve. And upon starting the .exe file we see the familiar engine Quake3 by iD Software. So the system requirements must be analogous to Quake3 Arena ...
Starting the Single Player mode. First comes the choice between three difficulty levels: Don't hurt me, Bring'em on и I am Death incarnate. Then a stunning reel begins. I've seen a lot like this, but usually only SGI movies could reach such a high quality picture. This one is polygonal, but it looks like they used a lot of polygons for each character - even the mimicry and every smallest move are visible in details.
Well, the first level. It starts with a amall movie depicting an underground prison. Another mad scientist talking to a German sentinel and at the same time torturing a prisoner on the subject: "Paaaal, open your secret to me..." Then the sentinel goes to have a smoke, and this is when he gets attacked by YOU...The beginning of the game, POV...
You start armed only with a knife, but you can pick up a "pistolus vulgaris" from the senttinel's body. The rate of fire is rather low, the cartridge contains 8 shells, so it's good only for shooting skateboarders. Deeper into the underground passage. Walking, or running... Strafejumps are not bad, but some counter appeared in the left part of the screen, a kind of force indicator - when running and jumping a lot, it fades, and jumping gets more difficult. Concerning the game's atmosphere - all's just perfect. Fire, skeletons, web are done very beautiful. The sounds are also up-to-date - reminding the DOOM age - even give you a little creeps. Entering a room (the door open by default with "F" button) to the mad scientist, which is better to be killed by knife so not to attract sentinels' attention. In the same room we find out that we can crush/break almost any object on our way, and finally roast the prisoner. But this is for sadist children =). Some minutes after the guard breaks into the room, we kill him and go on along the passage. Behind the bars an intercommunication point is visible - pressing a button in the wall lets us enter a dark room. Some more frags on guards and a Light Machinegun "mp40" gets into our smart hands. By the way, there are some medpacks on the wall, they give you +25 health if you need it...
Also you can read notes scattered through the level. Up the stairs, we get outdoors. You can jump over the hedge to the right and... start the game back from the beginning =). So go on, kill a couple of sentinels and stand in front of long stairs. At the bottom of it behind an enclosure hides a secret, and the door to the start underground. Take some shells and go out - two more guards and a door to the room in the corner. At this moment a siren starts to howl. And in the corner room another goodie - grenades ("6" button by default). You get at once 3 of these pretty devices - they look cool and are thrown rather well. Don't keep it too long in your hand, it explodes 4 seconds after arming. Go back and up the stairs to the last but one floor into the room where you can turn off the siren and grab binoculars - a very sympathetic device when used, though it doesn't allow you to shoot while looking through zoom. Jump out of the window and kill a fascist on the opposite side of the street, picking up another toy - a Mauser Rifle firing with single shots and rather accurately. Outside you can use a new possibility of climbing the pillars. Cross the bridge to the next room, kill the guy and some more below through the shabby floor. And fall down there yourself. Into a large room with rider statues and a pack of enemies. Meat chunks!!! Kill'em all and find another sort of medpacks - right on the tables someone attentive layed portions of food - help yourself, get +25 health. Except there's no possibility of overeating. Go into the room to the right, level 1 ends here. Then go through on your own =).
   
Concerning the multiplayer... It's much more interesting to play than Counter-Strike, for example. More precisely, there is variety in the game. Four players' classes, various gadgets, different deathmatch standards. You can play for both parties Germans and Americans. There is a lot of weapons in the game - from knife to flame thrower, and also some additional kinds of weapons in the single player. More details...
 A regular knife. Damage from 11 to 13 depending on hitting the head or the body. An unuseful thingie, but it's really funny to run across with it...
 Pistols. A Luger for Germans, a Colt for Americans. Damage: 18 to the body, 50 to the head. A couple of headshots from the pistol can determine a battle's result...
 An mp40 submachinegun. Damage: 14 to the body, 50 to the head. A standard weapom for Medics and Engineers, so learn how to use it. The firing reminds of Kalashnikov in CS, but in fact it's the legendary Schmeisser used by German vermacht.
 Thompson submachinegun. 18 damage to the body, 50 to the head. A better thing than the previous one, but used only by Soldiers and Lieutenants.
 Sten submachinegun. A fathers' weapon with a high rate of fire, but quickly gets overheated. Damage: 14 to the body, 50 to the head.
 Mauser rifle. An analogue of the sniper rifle from CS. The same sight, and the damage... 80 to the body, headshot means instant death...
 Panzerfaust. A bazooka in our terms. 3 shells in the barrel, and it takes an interval of time between shots. Direct hot kills instantly, the considerable splash-damage is also present. Slows down a lot the player's movements.
 Venom machine gun. A real beast, though is doesn't start firing at once, but after the barrels' overspeeding. Reminds me a lot the Chaingun from Quake2. 500 shells in the cartridge, the rate of fire is stunning, each bullet takes 20 health points. With a Venom in your hands you start to move very slowly, like with the bazooka.
 Flame Thrower. Yes, that's it. Required for cooking absent-minded enemies and every short shot takes away 56 health points. More precisely, the enemy starts burning slowly after being hit. You can burn anyone like this, including yourself =).
 Grenades. The Germans have regular ones, Americans - the pineapples. Causes a great damage, exploded in immediate proximity to en enemy takes away 100 health points or more.
About the players' classes:
Soldier. Has a possibility of choosing almost every weapon, but only one. By default is armed with a knife, a pistol (8 shells in the cartridge, plus 3 spare cartridges), and for choice - mp40, Thompson, Sten, Mauser, Panzerfaust, Venom и Flame Thrower, and 4 grenades...
Engineer. Gets a knife, a pistol, 8 grenades and mp40, also has additional possibilities of planting a bomb activated by pliers (included), and of fixing heavy machine guns (read about them below).
Medic. A knife, a pistol, and 3 submachineguns for choice - mp40, Thompson и Sten. Plus a possibility of drawing an air strike and feeding teammates with spare shells. About the air strike - you have a special signal grenade which you must throw somewhere outdoors and then take to your heels. Some seconds later this place will be covered with bombs and everyone will die =). So be careful with this toy. And a possibility of dropping shells - you can drop a pack of them for your teammates to pick it up, te number of packs being unlimited. the limit is only in the dropping frequency...
 Also there are heavy machine guns on some maps. Get close to one of them, press "use" and help yourself. Now you can make a perfect meat loafs out of your enemies. The rate of fire is impressive, each bullet takes 20 health points, but there's a manoeuvrability limit - you can turn and fire only in 180-270 degrees range. Also you can destroy MG42 and let an engineer to fix it...
So go on, play and try the features. IMHO, the game deserves the public's attention... And one more thing - don't judge this review too severely, because I just didn't have time to describe many things. A kind of first view!
   
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