I played Castle Wolfenstein on the Commodore 64 and on the Apple. In those days it was innovative and fresh. Some credit the franchise with being one of the seminal stealth games or first person shooters. The original designer named Silas Warner died in 2004 and he wrote the original Castle Wolfenstein, created the sound engine called “The Voice” and the game engine as well. Perhaps the franchise should have been retired instead of reincarnated as this mess. Though it has been shown to run on the PS3 without the crashes it has on the 360, it still doesn’t help this shovelware.

At the start is a good movie that gets you involved in the character and it is a good way to cover up otherwise long load screens. You can’t expect a female avatar in a realistic WWII game. But this is Not A Realistic WWII game. So the omission of a playable female avatar is inexcusable. Once you get past the fail of no female presence in the game whatsoever, and settle into it, you’ll notice that they guy looks like David Boreanaz. Angel fights Nazi’s. You play as B.J. Glasscovitz. Seriously, they named him B.J. The guns recoil. You have to reload the rifle and there’s an animation of it that you can see. Shooting is the most fun part of the game. It has quite a bit more going on than a plain shooter. You’ll have to use dynamite occasionally and figure out a few puzzles. The red barrels blow up satisfyingly when shot, and the explosions are good. All the standard stuff is there as it should be. The game engine is solid. It is a shame that they weren’t more decisive, and kept it as a realism driven FPS because that’s where the strengths are.

The graphics are very sharp and detailed there isn’t much difference between frame rates of cut scenes and gameplay visually. Graphically it is excellent with a palette of more than only one family of colors. Blood splatters, things blow apart, sending debris everywhere. The explosions sound great turned up too.

Although, once you get past the surface of the game, it falls apart. The allies are speaking with  German accents when Italian, French or Polish would have been more consistent with reality. When they are on an operation in London, is is a stretch to have an American working with Germans.

It all gets weirder when an exploded bluish substance causes gravity to be suspended. The Nazi’s in level one float around on the ceiling yelling. That was a brilliant moment and led to a few laughs. Unfortunately that was the best part of the game.

There are lots of cool things to look at, but not enough of them are interactive. Typewriters, money, cans, crates, barrels, even some of the guns, all look interesting but none of them are accessible and the ones that do break apart don’t have anything inside. For the most part the pick ups are outlined with a bright light. Only the red barrels blow up. The guns are kind of boring due to the authenticity factor. It doesn’t make sense. When reality is boring they use it.

Some people react to the sound of sharp nails on a chalk board. I don’t. Historical inconsistencies bother me. I’m not the only one that feels that way. But the cavalier treatment of history effects me like a high pitched noise.

A complete ignorance of the primary sources just spreads around more rubbish. All it would have taken was a couple hours online to get the facts straight. For example in the game you acquire the “Thule Medallion”. In real life the Thule society predated Hitler. And though it might have had some influence, it was Hitler’s association with Vril Society whose objective was to explore the origins of the Aryan race and to perform exercises in concentration to awaken the forces of “Vril”. The talisman in the game gives the character powers of “Veil”.

Americans did not openly know about Hitler’s interest in the occult until after the war. The reference to Hitlers “paranormal unit” would not have been feasable at the time the game takes place. The reference made to the Manhattan Project isn’t right for the times either. It was classified, even the people that lived in Los Alamos didn’t know about it. It was called “Project Y” during the war, before it was public information which was years later.

The psychic jargon seems to be thrown in to spice up an otherwise dull game. When the Golden Dawn was mentioned I tensed up. The Golden Dawn was the premiere magickal organization of its time. They were not Hitler sympathizers then or now. Witchcraft is a legitimate religion. Some denominations of Wicca are based on the doctrines written by members of the Golden Dawn. Members of the organization were scholars who wrote hundreds of books about peaceful metaphysics, Quabalah and the Tarot. Step on history all you want but don’t screw with Wicca while I’m around.

The creatures that they call “geist” in the game is the German word for spirits. But the root of the word has many meanings. A geis means to hex or to curse.

Wolfenstien isn’t so much a WWII game as a time travel to WWII game. There are what should be two separate games going on here. One is a fantasy similar to Infamous and the other is your standard WWII shooter. Instead of trying to
take it up a notch by adding all the things that don’t fit together, they should have stuck to what Wolfenstien used to be.

There’s really nothing special here. It is kindof fun but there are lots of shooters around. This one isn’t anything great. And though we may be a tiny religious minority compared to other louder religions, but I find the indescriminate and uninformed grabbing of Wiccan terms and historical figures to be more than offensive. They should have gotten an occult expert on staff.

I will give this game two scores. Gameplay is average so I would give Wolfenstein a 6 out of 10. However, since the story line is sexist, historically innacurate, and religiously offensive. I’m giving it a 1, and I’d like to see an appology made to Wiccans, and Thelemists world wide.