Wolfenstein 2 being a direct sequel to the original game taking place 6 months is a fairly competent addition to the Wolfenstein Franchise. Though that doesn’t mean it’s without flaws and gripes like most sites praise it to be. After finishing the game on one of the more difficult settings ( Call me Terror-Billy ), it took a total of 10 hours to finish. Though only 8 of it was spent playing the game, which I will explain later on. So I’ll make it easy on your eyes and on your time, and pick a few things I liked, didn’t like, and found a bit weird. Make it short and simple and there you go.

Things I liked

Variety - Wolfenstein 2 seems to have a very large variety in almost every department. Levels placed in very different locations, like the conquered New Mexico, the desolate nuke hole of Manhattan as hinted at in the first game, and the secret Nazi base. On, now get this, the planet Venus. Personally I found Venus to be my favorite level, everything about it just screamed “Wow this is cool” to me, like the moon level did in the first game.  Enemy variety seemed to be a large focus in this game. There are now 3 heavy enemies with more varying weapons, a large diesel cannon, a laser, and this auto-shotgun turret thingy? I dunno’ Nazi’s are a bit inventive in the ways of murder.

Weapon Customization - So there are these cool little sewing machine looking things that allow you to add attachments to your guns. The game has this weird habit of hiding these amazing things from you, though, so you really need to be on the lookout. Personally I found myself sticking silencers on everything I could and maining the AR, it’s a really good gun in my opinion. And while the game happens to have somewhat less of an arsenal in this installment, the upgrades really make up for it in the content department.

Play Styles - This game is tailored to playing the game how you want to, as long as you aren’t a pacifist that is. You can sneak around nearly every level, though it’s a little tricky it can be done. And if you don’t like doing that? Game’s got you covered. You can blast through pretty much everything guns blazing. Though I think that the best way to play is a mix of both. There’s also these really cool body augments you get later on in the game due to a really big plot point that I can’t spoil. There’s the Ram Shackles, The Constrictor Harness, and best of all, the Battle Walkers. Or as I referred to them as, the Battle Stilts. I’ll probably go ahead and take my time to go back and choose all of them to try, but on my run to review, I chose the Battle Stilts. I mean they’re just really cool, who doesn’t wanna go around on stilts slaying Nazi’s. They add more of a tactical edge to the way you get around and engage, the Ram Shackles are more of an aggressive play, allowing you to boost into enemies, and the Constrictor Harness allows for a more stealthy play style, letting you constrict your body down to climb into smaller places you couldn’t before, at the cost of breath.

Things I didn’t like

Stability -  This, oh this right here is why I had 2 extra hours of basically nothing but a broken game to waste my time and slow my review. I bought the game on PC, which of course falls into the same trap that every triple A game these days does, horrid ports designed for consoles in mind, and not PC, at all. I actually had to wait a few weeks before being able to play so Bethesda and Machine Games could fix their broken game. Not only one crash, but many plagued me in the early stages, and to this day it still crashes when you tab out of the game to use your computer for other reasons. A phone nearby is a must if you need to google anything, and want to have a fun experience afterwards. And the audacity of Nvidia to not release a game ready driver specifically for Wolfenstein 2 was the icing on the cake. Eventually after a .10 patch and a week or 2 of waiting they pushed a few updates and got the game to a nearly playable state, though I don’t recommend you get this game on PC if you can help it.

Cheap and Dumb AI - The AI in this game really unnerves me. One moment they can be the dumbest thing in the universe, stare right at you and not even know you’re there, or look at a dead comrade and just think nothing of it. Some cases it was just straight up immersion breaking. Other times though, they’re the exact opposite of this. They seem to just randomly have 200 IQ out of nowhere, track you through walls and be the Chris Kyle of the Nazi world, sniping you from across the map with a pistol caliber SMG. Or there’ll be times it just throws them at you over and over with brutally difficult brute force that’s not even fun at times, making you replay the same section over and over dealing with the exact same enemies that just won’t die because for some reason, they’re gods. It’s really strange how bad they’ve gotten, considering in the first game they were kind of dumb, but they seemed to play out just fine.

Lack of Satisfaction - Now I know I can’t really dive into this without getting into some serious spoilers. But brief summary of my gameplay was; “ Kill Nazi’s, Run, Kill Nazi’s, Run.” Don’t get me wrong it’s fun to kill all these different kinds of Nazi’s in different places in different ways, but at the end of the game I didn’t really feel like I had done anything, like this could’ve been a really long DLC bundled into the first game, or split down the middle somewhere. Either way it didn’t leave me with a feeling of “Winning” anything, and found myself sometimes wishing the game was just over.

Things that I found Weird / Strange

The Story - The story is really split up into 2 parts after a certain plot point ( Yes the same one I mentioned before. ) It fell into this weird “DLC” like void where it almost didn’t seem like it was finished? Like the game is there and it’s good, fun to play and all. But it really needed a bit more story to finish off what had been happening, a real revolution needed to be there instead of just lighting the fires to start it. It was a fun story, but lacking in content.

Simplicity - This mostly goes towards health / armor and perks earned within the game during the time of play. The game has what really feels like a regression in the way of progression, if that makes any sense. Where in Wolfenstein: The New Order, you had to find statues and idols to upgrade your health and armor capped at 200, this one has you start with 50 healthy and 200 armor, then after that plot point switches you to 100 health and 100 armor, obviously with the same overcharge. The perks are also a lot more hands off and minimal, and somewhat unnecessary other than the one that lets you regain health after killing an enemy, that one saved my life a few too many times to count. Other than that I didn’t find myself caring about them, and left them in the background to be forgotten. While I think these changes are alright, I think it’s weird Machine Games decided to “Innovate” on them.

Enigma Codes - These were added as a sort of “bonus mode” into the game to do when the game was over. Don’t feel like doing them, don’t want to do them, won’t ever do them. You have to decode these codes in the Enigma Machine which is a timed puzzle solver that I just find to be really unfun and tedious. Probably won’t waste my time with these missions, as they don’t seem to add onto the story or progression any.

Conclusion

In short Wolfenstein 2 is in fact, a sequel in all terms of the word to Wolfenstein 1. But there isn’t really a reason to rush out and buy it right now. Give it time, let it drop in price. 60 dollars is not worth an 8 hour game at all, and the DLC is gonna be paid. If the game were 40 dollars I think it would be very worth, and trust me you will too. I’ll give the game a 6.5/10 just because I find it to be a worthwhile game, just not something you need to do now. Maybe something for when you’re bored after wasting your life in CoD WWII or Destiny 2, and need a change of pace or simply something to get the anger out. Other than that, save your money for now, get it when it’s on sale.