Return to Castle Wolfenstein

Its official my marriage is in trouble. Not because of any massive argument or any problems we are having, but because I just can’t leave my computer alone.

"Why can’t you leave your computer alone Mike!?" I hear you all cry!

Well let me tell you.

A few weeks ago I bought the much awaited Return to Castle Wolfenstein. This is a remake of what was perhaps the first game in this genre.

(here comes the history lesson)

Back in the olden days when the PC was nothing more than a glorified calculator, and having a PC at home was the domain of the rich or the geeky. An American software company called ID Software plucked a new gaming style from thin air and the game Wolfenstein 3D was born.

This was the first game to have what we now call "first person perspective" that means you play the game as if through the eyes of the character you are playing in the game. You can only see what is effectively your character hands, usually holding some kind of weapon to maim, wound or kill your enemy with.

The original Wolfenstein was a very grand affair as well as at the time of its release it looked unlike any game seen on the PC before.

(Okay that’s the end of the history lesson and back to this game.)

This version of Wolfenstein is the latest, bang up to date version with a new story line, superb graphics and a multi player section, which will keep you, amused for weeks.

The single player game is a series of mission which aren’t all shoot everything that moves, some require tack and thought as detection will end the mission. So stealth is needed as well as a fast trigger finger. In the single player you play BJ Blazkowicz a US ranger in World War II who in the first mission must escape from Castle Wolfenstein, this involves killing everything in sight and collecting the dead soldiers weapons before killing more soldiers.

The place where this game excels though is the multi player section of the game. If you have an internet connection you can play other users from around the world as is the norm these days, but the quality of this internet game play is superb.

In previous multi player games you play as a single player and the highest score wins, with this multi player you are part of a team and it’s the team that must win not just the individual. Also the multi player gives the player a choice of team, function and weapon.

The Function mode lets you be one of four jobs within the team.
A Soldier - has lots of ammo but his main function is to kill the enemy.
A Medic - whos job is to resurrect the dead and heal the injured.
An Engineer - who can plant bombs or defuse enemy bombs
A Lieutenant - who can order air strikes or supply the other troops with ammo.

As I said you need to play as a team to win.

The multi player version in my mind is one of the best I have played for sometime although my wife doesn’t seem to be amused by me playing it all the time.

The game needs a pretty powerful machine to work and it will require things like DirectX 8 to be installed as well. The minimum specification for the game is: Pentium 400Mhz or higher, 3D accelerated graphics card with 16Mbytes of Video Ram. 128 Megabytes of Machine RAM, 800Mbytes of Hard drive space plus 300Mbytes for a Swap file and a Quad speed CD-ROM. The multi player requires a TCP/IP connection but if your reading this then your connected to the Internet so you have that! This is the minimum spec as recommended by Activision but it doesn’t play to well an a Pentium II - 450 with 256Mbytes Ram so you’d probably need something faster!

So how much does this game cost. Well I bought this on line at a famous online store for £24.99 but I’m sure your local shops will charge you more for the privilage of purchase.

If you only buy one game every, buy this, play it on-line and end up with a disgruntle wife.

Page created on: 23/02/2002 / Last Updated: 25/03/2006 22:50:25