Wolfenstein: The Old Blood and Retro Shooters

Credit: Axow

    The mainstream game's media asserted that the expandalone Wolfenstein: The Old Blood represents a continuing transition in FPS of the modern back to classic that began in The New Order. They gave these changes some lip service by evoking a sense of nostalgia around the base game, using words like "classic," "arcade-like," and "traditional." Concerning the health system in The New Order, Polygon's Arthur Gies said, "absent the fact that health will recharge to the nearest multiple of 20, it can feel like 1992 all over again." On the Old Blood, Kotaku's Luke Plunket wrote:

           

While the game is happy to leave health and ammo lying around levels, you’ll end up getting most of it from the bodies of the soldiers you kill. The way you have to dance over your kills, scooping up ammo in the midst of a firefight to make more kills, was   probably the most enjoyable thing you did in New Order. It really helped to make that old 90s style of FPS design (which this game wears proudly on its sleeve) feel fresh, so it’s nice to see it remain an integral part of the design here.

    Their summations reveal what the new Wolfenstein gameplay embodies. It is not a return back to classic FPS, but a middling compromise between health/armor pickups and regenerating health. Wolfenstein: The Old Blood takes concepts from 90s shooter and waters down the structure and mechanics that made them so great. The Old Blood's enemy unit differentiation, weaponry, and the classic concepts of set drops for health/armor are filled with compromises that limit the quality of the game.

    Classic shooters spaced out pickups and placed powerful ones in secret areas of levels. Doing so increased the tension of levels for longer, forced players to make better choices about taking enemy engagements, and pushed them to prepare a full stack (200 health 200 armor) for each part of a level they explored. Not preparing a stack caused immediate death at the hands of powerful enemies.

    The Old Blood does not follow classic design. Levels are broken down into closed off arenas before cut scenes. Armor absorbs damage but only overcharges past 100 (or 125 with the armor perk) and counts down quickly. Instead of the pickups being spread out and powerful ones being hidden, they are frequently found in corners and under props. Furthermore the abundance of pickups in each arena and the quick countdown of overcharge cheapens the act of preparing for the next engagement in the game. The game expects the player to either pick up health and armor while in a firefight or get back to a stack of 100 health 100 armor each time before entering the next arena. A central aspect of old school shooters was preparation and seeking out high value pickups, such as the Megasphere's 200 health 200 armor boost in DOOM 1 (referred to as DOOM from here on out) or Quad Damage in Quake. This has been lost. The game focuses only on small chunks of gameplay rather than spending 10-15 minutes playing through a whole level. In classic shooters, taking damage and not seeking out pickups caused players to die and restart the whole level. The only penalty for taking a lot of damage in The Old Blood is having to find a few health packs and armor pickups before leaving the arena.

    The plentitude of pickups is made to counteract the majority of The Old Blood's enemies using hitscan weapons. Making line of sight with enemies outside cover can end a player's life quickly. This onslaught resembles how making line of sight with enemies in Halo brings on a volley of projectiles which force the player to hide until their armor recharges. The design simulates short term difficulty by having the player play peek-a-boo with enemies for short bursts of time. The Old Blood apes the design, but instead of regenerating shields or health, it provides small pickups scattered all over the arenas. The pickups' value is lessened as they are plentiful, don't provide much aid, and the player's health is always going down from enemies' high hitscan damage. In fact they are so plentiful that the game wouldn't feel very different if it had regenerating health instead.

    Having to enter line of sight with enemies and sprint to find pickups improves the risk and engagements in The Old Blood over modern games, but it still does not reach the zenith of DOOM or Quake. In DOOM, an encounter with Grunts, a Pinky, and a Caco Demon requires the player to make quick decisions about which enemy to take out first. The player must position himself properly to take out the charging Pinky while dodging the gun fire and projectiles from the grunts and Caco Demon. At close range, the player should focus the Pinky with a shotgun or chaingun. Pinkys have moderate health and thus expending rarer plasma cells is not advisable. Once dead, the player should continue dodging hitscan from the Grunts and projectiles from the slowly approaching Caco Demon while firing bullets or shells at the Grunts.  Finally he should deal with the high health Caco Demon by using plasma projectiles from moderate range to increase the chance of connecting with the Caco Demon or back up to fire rockets and avoid their splash damage.

    Engagements found in DOOM require good aim, good positioning, and quick decision making on appropriate weaponry. The strong unit differentiation and weaponry found in DOOM forces players to make interesting decisions on the micro that will allow him to conquer each gun fight while maintaining health, armor, and ammo. That is what makes old school design so interesting. The absence of similarly robust design like that in DOOM is a point of lamentation in modern shooters like The Old Blood.

    Almost every weapon the player uses in The Old Blood is hit scan. The pistol, AR, sniper, chaingun, and shotgun all fall under this category while the Kampf Pistol (whose ammo is extraordinarily rare) is the only projectile weapon. The weaponry is all very similar because of the lack of strong unit differentiation. The majority of gun fights are against soldiers who have very slight differences. Variants include with head armor, without head armor, and Commanders who only have a pistol and must be killed first to stop waves of soldiers from respawning to attack. They all die quickly with only head armored soldiers requiring two shots to the head.

    The player finds the rest of the enemies less often. Heavy soldiers are the  most common, slowly patrolling with a shotgun. They are moderately armored, taking several shotgun blasts from close range to kill. They can immediately wipe the player out unless the gas canister on their back is shot or they player sneaks up on them.

    Super soldiers are incredibly slow, heavily armored, and use the MG-60 chaingun. They must be shot in their electrical shoulder piece or plug to stun them. When stunned, their armor plate must be meleed off and the exposed heart shot. They have the highest TTK (time to kill) of any enemy which makes the arena with three of them one of the best in the game. The player must choose whether to kill Commanders first or to risk being exposed to the rain of fire from Soldiers while taking out a Super Soldier.

    The final enemies are the Shamblers. They are slow zombies who will charge quickly and melee if LoS is held for too long. They die in one shot to the head and can transform from Soldiers if their head is intact after death.

    The most common enemy composition is Soldiers, Heavy Soldiers, and Commanders patrolling a set region of the arena. The optimal way of dealing with arenas is to stealth past the LoS of Soldiers and Heavy Soldiers to the Commanders. The player can stealth kill Soldiers on the way while concentrating on finding the Commanders. Once found, the player should quickly dispense of them with the silenced pistol and then fight the set enemies in the arena. Heavy Soldiers should be shot in the back in order to detonate their tanks or shot up close with dual wielded shotguns. Soldiers should be shot in the head with an AR or bolt action from cover.

    Without killing enemies in this order the player will be barraged with extensively respawning soldiers. Super Soldiers cannot be killed silently and killing Soldiers in the open alerts Commander if their bodies are found. Commanders must always be the first priority unless the player seeks to constantly seek out armor shards and health packs. When done properly, the player conquers an arena and can overcharge on some armor while hoping it is not wasted on a cutscene.

    Given the weapon choice, enemy composition, and health/armor system, the player has enjoyable decisions and approaches to take. His movement speed is high and his hip fire is accurate. He can select a few weapons to take foes out with but does not have to much improvisation as he will always seek the Commander and whatever enemy is closest to him. Although Super Soldiers do pose a different threat, if one has enough shotgun ammo to dual wield with then they are easily disposed of.

    The Old Blood does not soar to the heights of other old school shooters. The tension filled multi-tiered levels and perfect movement of Quake forced the player to bounce like an acrobat while shooting as much firepower at the opposing force as possible. DOOM's varied arsenal proved an outstanding matchup against the perfectly differentiated units the player faced. While The Old Blood lacks the rugged design of old school shooters, it is still a fun game. Its existence provides hope to those who enjoy shooters that developers may go beyond aping what used to work while delivering small chunks of gameplay and cutscenes. Until then charlatans in the game's media will continue to fondle themselves profusely because they can press "E" over an enemy's body to pick up 5 armor.

3/5 (Play Machine Games' Quake episode instead)