Wolfenstein (360)

Platform: Xbox 360

Publisher: Avtivision

Classification: 18 (BBFC)

Just when you thought that the Nazis couldn’t get more monstrous, they start tinkering around with the powers of the Black Sun dimension and literally become monsters. And it’s this fusion of historical and fictional bad guys that has always been a winning formula for the Wolfenstein series.

Gamers have fallen in love with killing Nazis over the years and there’s no shortage of that with this title. And as if being able to stick a pickaxe in between the shoulders of an unsuspecting hun wasn’t enough, you can just throw it at them instead.

When they do die they do it in vast, realistic and gritty ways. If you shoot one in the neck, he won’t just necessarily plop to the floor or his head just pop off, instead blood will squirt from his jugular and he will clutch his neck as he slumps to the floor.

During the campaign players take control of an American soldier named B.J. Blazkowicz in a bid to investigate and stop the Nazis in their plan to build a supernatural army and push for world domination.

Other than the standard WWII weapons that nearly every gamer is hugely familiar with, you get to play around with weapons that harness Black Sun energy and are far more technologically advanced than even our own. And all of the weapons can be upgraded by visiting a black market hidden somewhere in town, but it won’t come cheap and must be funded by the gold that is found littered around.

But it’s not just weapons that will be used as players have the option to use veil energy to slow down time, penetrate and create shields and find places and items of interest. Like the weapons, these abilities can also be upgraded by shifty Germans on the black market.

Both the graphics and the physics go hand-in hand as being undeniably beautiful. Everything is incredibly detailed from the environments right through to the character animations and cut-scenes.

Grenades, the compulsory barrels and other detonated explosives ripple through the air, destroying all types of objects from doors to boxes, Nazis to monsters. And then there’s the canisters full of Black Sun energy that send surrounding objects floating around, including Nazis that are then like fish in a barrel.

Multiplayer is fast and frantic and has eight maps available for players to go crazy on, but surprisingly there is only 3 game modes available. The graphics seem to be toned-down somewhat but the speed in which it flows fully compensates for that.

Wolfenstein is great for anybody that wants a mixture of Nazis and Zombie killing coupled with a nice selection of weapons and powers, all presented in a wonderful looking package. And although the single player campaign takes less than ten hours, the multiplayer should be enough to keep people playing for a while.

SCORE: 9 / 10