Dom Robinson reviews

for Xbox

Distributed by
EA Games

The second level was reasonable. Infiltrate an enemy bunker underground, blow each of them away and make your way to the top before you drop a charge and then get out of there. Then things began to take a turn for the worse as I played the next few levels. Firstly, the gameplay is too linear. You do expect this with certain kinds of game but this game follows this path too rigidly. When you see a town square with plenty of available exits and stairwells you expect to be able to investigate but the stairs are always blocked and there's way too much of "this door will not open". And why would the enemy stand next to barrels just shouting "Shoot me and I'll explode"? There's also not enough to do in some levels. On one of the PC levels I was really up against it as enemy men piled down some stairs, each to take a shot at me. Here, there's only a handful which are easy to blow away and when you do take aim and fire - where's the blood??

Similarly, the graphics lack detail when getting too close. Everything looks fine when you're running about but I noticed this problem as I started investigating the scenery, hoping I could go through some of the doors on the level. There's no major problems with the sound, but all the best effects seem to happen at the start of the game. Definitely a 'could do better' game. It's excellent at first, but soon gets repetitive. Unless the full version on the PC is better, you'd be best going for Return to Castle Wolfenstein on that platform. Update: A couple more levels in and things are improving, but it's still a case of 'try before you buy' with a rental.

GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ENJOYMENT
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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2002.