Lets discuss Wolfenstein: TNO (Spoilers inside spoiler tags)

[NuclearKangaroo]

Hmmm, I see, you are right about that, it does seem kind of weird. Could it be related to selling it in certain markets (germany basicly pretends it never happened with the censorship of the swastikas, the Nazis in TNO are called The Regiment), being the reason why Hitler in both Sniper Elite games (2 and 3) is only present in DLCs? I have no idea but you do have a point with that.

The Germans actually do allow swastikas in media art (American movies about Nazis don't have to change anything, and the Germans even have a few movies about Hitler), but unfortunately, due to a ruling in the early 90s, video games are classified as toys and not art. Although I'm pretty sure the Wolfenstein games were banned in Germany anyway up until The New Order. Not like we can blame Germany for being a bit touchy about Nazism.

I suppose you have a point. I hadn't considered that gameplay wise, there'd be nothing to do with him. That and assassinating him too early into World War 2 would have been a really, really bad idea >.>;; Since Hitler was a pretty colossal moron, and if he had died, Himmler would have taken over (that's the exact reason the British didn't assassinate him, if memory serves).

Yes I was involved in a very interesting discussion once at university about what if you could use a time machine and kill Adolf Hitler very young or just prevent his birth and the general consensus was it would of been a bad idea simply because of the political and social situation in Germany would of given rise to either a fascist far right movement (basically the Nazi's under a different banner) anyway or a Communist regime under the control of Stalin which would of created a much bigger threat than the Nazi's under Hitler. Simply put we were lucky that Hitler built his empire on pure charisma and dominated the truly dangerous people like Himmler and Joseph Goebbels to the extent they let him make some ludicrous mistakes which allowed the Allies to basically beat a much superior force.

The thing most people don't realize is that Hitler was an extremely charismatic moron surrounded by very competent people and who got really lucky early in his career. The Nazi war machine started to lose momentum once Der Fuehrer decided to make decisions personally, against the advice of his generals. Cracked has a pretty good article about it here: http://www.cracked.com/article_18389_the-5-most-widely-believed-wwii-facts-that-are-bullshit.html Basically, the Soviets were a much bigger threat than the Nazis, and Hitler wasn't nearly as bright as most people think he was.

living in venezuela i know what it is to have a charismatic moron as president, the previous one, the current one is just a moron, and thankfully most people can see that, unfortunately at this point the party has control over all branches of the government so getting rid of the asshole is quite the challenge

it gives you a glimpse of how exactly all those terrible regimes in history managed to stay in power, they still need a couple million of fools that keep believing their lies

 

[KaZuYa]

The point about Stalin and the fact the Germans would of never beaten them is utterly untrue in that article. The Germans had beaten them, they got within 10 miles of Moscow. It was poor logistics and timing which cost the Germans and the fact the British were arming them with munitions and tanks turned the tide, and if the V3 program had been fully implemented and Hitler had been more accommodating to the Jewish scientists they would of had nukes and the means to deliver them unopposed.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

The point about Stalin and the fact the Germans would of never beaten them is utterly untrue in that article. The Germans had beaten them, they got within 10 miles of Moscow. It was poor logistics and timing which cost the Germans and the fact the British were arming them with munitions and tanks turned the tide, and if the V3 program had been fully implemented and Hitler had been more accommodating to the Jewish scientists they would of had nukes and the means to deliver them unopposed.

you know war doesnt work like that, its not like once you capture the opponent's capital they go "welp thats it, take the keys to the rest of the country"

i mean if that was the case, the second sino-japanese war wouldnt have last 8 flippin' years

(warning, a few disturbing images, its WW2 afterall)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Japanese_War_(1937-1945)

since within the first year the japanese had already captured the chinese capital, nanking

in the end, it was VERY unlikely that germany couldve made their way through 11 time zones of angry russians, they were lucky to have done it so well in the first place, stalin had just done his purges, and most of the top soviet general were a bunch of clueless yes men, some of which ironically were executed anyways despite being loyal to the party, simply because the soviets needed a escape goat for their initial failures to defend the country

 

[Dragonlayer]

The point about Stalin and the fact the Germans would of never beaten them is utterly untrue in that article. The Germans had beaten them, they got within 10 miles of Moscow. It was poor logistics and timing which cost the Germans and the fact the British were arming them with munitions and tanks turned the tide, and if the V3 program had been fully implemented and Hitler had been more accommodating to the Jewish scientists they would of had nukes and the means to deliver them unopposed.

Even if Moscow had fallen, it would still not mean that the USSR would be out of the battle.
V3 and V4 are nice but can not win a war.
Neither can just a nuke, especially 1-2 smaller ones dropped in the late 40s (earliest possible for Germany). Japan was already getting bombed by the US... and the USSR had anihilated their army in the West and were preparing for a "Rape of Japan" that would make even the battle for China look like a picnic...

Through simple conventional means, Germany probably wouldn't have been able to conquer the Soviet Union. BUT had they not been directed by Nazi racial ideas and invaded in order to liberate the locals from Communism, or at least play up that angle as much as possible, the USSR would almost certainly have been riven by civil war. Add to that the "super-weapons" like jets and V missiles being used more intelligently (e.g. V2s targeted at enemy troop concentrations/military targets, ME262s used as interceptors rather then fighter-bombers), the Germans would most likely have been able to hold onto a huge chunk of Western Russia and ensure the Reich's defense through eastern buffers. I mean, people were lining up in droves to give food and whatever help they could to the advancing Wehrmact in the first months of Barbarossa - until they realized the Nazis were even worse then Stalin.

Basically, Nazi Germany lost the war because of the Nazis. Of course, this leads us to the question: "Would Germany have started such a war without Nazi leadership?"

Hmmm....

 

[Dragonlayer]

On topic, I'm pretty much in agreement with the OP: only up to Chapter 6 so far but loving every moment of it!

However, in keeping with one of the earlier posts I have to say that the absence of multiplier is a bummer, especially considering how great the weapons feel. I mean, it's great that their full efforts were directed into single-player and God-Emperor knows its been a while since I played a single-player campaign that lasted more then six hours but Return to Castle Wolfenstein's multiplier was great!

 

[Fsyco]

The point about Stalin and the fact the Germans would of never beaten them is utterly untrue in that article. The Germans had beaten them, they got within 10 miles of Moscow. It was poor logistics and timing which cost the Germans and the fact the British were arming them with munitions and tanks turned the tide, and if the V3 program had been fully implemented and Hitler had been more accommodating to the Jewish scientists they would of had nukes and the means to deliver them unopposed.

Actually, the Germans pretty severely underestimated how much the Russians could deploy. Even if they had reached Moscow, they were still never going to survive that winter anyway against Russian resistance. And, as has been pointed out earlier, reaching Moscow doesn't mean you win at Russia. Hell, Napolean got to Moscow and still got his ass whooped. Plus Germany is sandwiched in the middle of Europe, which means they had to fight a war on two fronts and had a harder time with logistics and maintaining supplies. Germany was running out of stuff faster than they could replace their stuff, and Russia had bulk on their side. The Germans had better stuff, but the Russians had a whole lot more of it. Also entirely not helping is the fact that Hitler was used to trench warfare, and thus had no freaking clue how tank warfare worked, and thought bolt-action rifles and SMGs would suit everyone fine, even when his researchers had come up with the first assault rifles.

Speaking of Hitler's mistakes, the Germans also had a major problem with big, inefficient projects that required a ton of manpower, like those giant railcar cannons and that whole Holocaust thing.

Also, the Germans were way farther from developing a nuke than you think. I believe the phrasing used at the time was 'mother never pregnant, baby never born'. I vaguely remember hearing something about how the scientists deliberately sabotaged the project, but that might not be accurate.

On topic, I'm pretty much in agreement with the OP: only up to Chapter 6 so far but loving every moment of it!

However, in keeping with one of the earlier posts I have to say that the absence of multiplier is a bummer, especially considering how great the weapons feel. I mean, it's great that their full efforts were directed into single-player and God-Emperor knows its been a while since I played a single-player campaign that lasted more then six hours but Return to Castle Wolfenstein's multiplier was great!

I don't remember Return to Castle Wolfenstein having a Score Multiplier o: Unless you meant Multiplayer.

Personally, I'm glad it has no multiplayer. I'm really sick of all these multiplayer focused games getting released with these awful, 5 hour single player campaigns tacked on. I prefer story and structure over dealing with twats and connection issues. It's kind of nice seeing the reverse of the classic 'singleplayer focused series suddenly becomes multiplayer or co-op focused' trend (Dead Space, FEAR, etc).

 

[Dalisclock]

Hitler had been more accommodating to the Jewish scientists they would of had nukes and the means to deliver them unopposed.

And this is why the Nazis will never win the war without either future/space weapons or a time machine. Because the Nazis don't believe in doing anything with the "inferior races" other then extermination. Hell, they had people in the Ukraine(I believe) volunteer to fight for the Nazis because they hated Stalin so much. Since they were Slavs, the Nazis just killed them or put them in concentration camps. One of the reasons it's so difficult for the Nazis to win is because, frankly, there aren't that many "Pure Aryan" types in Germany and when your ideology is based on Pure Racism, this kind of becomes a major manpower issue. It becomes really, really hard to get people to fight for you willingly when you've already told them they aren't really human and you'll throw them in a conentration camp the moment your use to them is finished.

So the whole "Allowing Jewish Scientists to help build a Nazi Bomb" will never happen, because it depends entirely on Nazis ignoring their cherished racism on one hand and assuming said Jewish scientists would actually be working at full speed to build said bomb, instead of say, moving a few decimal points around so the bomb never actually works.

"Oh, Mein Fuhrer, I can't imagine why this test failed. I'm sure it's because of my inferior brain. Just find me another 20 kilos of Uranium and we'll try again".

 

[Dalisclock]

The Germans had beaten them, they got within 10 miles of Moscow.

Ask Napoleon how well that worked for him. He took Moscow and it got him nothing, mostly because the Russians torched it rather then let the french have it.

 

[josemlopes]

On topic, I'm pretty much in agreement with the OP: only up to Chapter 6 so far but loving every moment of it!

However, in keeping with one of the earlier posts I have to say that the absence of multiplier is a bummer, especially considering how great the weapons feel. I mean, it's great that their full efforts were directed into single-player and God-Emperor knows its been a while since I played a single-player campaign that lasted more then six hours but Return to Castle Wolfenstein's multiplier was great!

I honestly dont know how a multiplayer would work with this game, it could be great as the weapons and action feel awesome as it could be complete crap because the gameplay is completely balanced for a singleplayer experience.

Either way I would have liked to see something like a horde mode with some few levels that would be extremely focused on replayability to extend the lenght of the game more. As it is the game does a nice job of making sure the player finish it multiple times with the timelines and interesting collectibles (and I know for sure that I will be replaying the last 5 chapters multiple times) but the action is so good that I would like to just pick a level and have an infite amount of enemies to rampage around, something like the survival mode in Max Payne 2 (wasted more time there then in the main story).

All in all they would only need to release mod tools.

 

[SajuukKhar]

I am left wondering how in the hell Arthur Kenneth Blaze né Blazkowicz is going to be born in this timeline.

Dammit BJ, you forgot to father the father of Commander Keen(full name William Joseph Blazkowicz II)

He certainly did not forget *nudge nudge*

Anya is like 40 though.

And nothing ever indicates she is, i mean, Metro 2033 Last Light showed that the ranger chick was in one ending, if they really wanted Anya to be, they would have suggested it in some way.

 

[josemlopes]

I am left wondering how in the hell Arthur Kenneth Blaze né Blazkowicz is going to be born in this timeline.

Dammit BJ, you forgot to father the father of Commander Keen(full name William Joseph Blazkowicz II)

He certainly did not forget *nudge nudge*

Anya is like 40 though.

And nothing ever indicates she is, i mean, Metro 2033 Last Light showed that the ranger chick was in one ending, if they really wanted Anya to be, they would have suggested it in some way.

To be honest isnt that just an easter egg, this way its just a way of connecting the dots for anyone interested in trivia

 

[SajuukKhar]

To be honest isnt that just an easter egg, this way its just a way of connecting the dots for anyone interested in trivia

Not really, the Wolfenstien "rpg" game had BJ fight a demon from hell called "the harbinger", which him blast off one of its legs and one of its arms, with the harbinger claiming it would haunt his great-great grandson.

and the harbinger looks exactly like the cyber demon.... minus a robotic leg an arm.

BJ being the grandfather of Commander Keen, and the great great grandfather of Doomguy, is slightly tied into the story of why the cyberdemon hunted the doomguy.

 

[Dragonlayer]

The point about Stalin and the fact the Germans would of never beaten them is utterly untrue in that article. The Germans had beaten them, they got within 10 miles of Moscow. It was poor logistics and timing which cost the Germans and the fact the British were arming them with munitions and tanks turned the tide, and if the V3 program had been fully implemented and Hitler had been more accommodating to the Jewish scientists they would of had nukes and the means to deliver them unopposed.

Actually, the Germans pretty severely underestimated how much the Russians could deploy. Even if they had reached Moscow, they were still never going to survive that winter anyway against Russian resistance. And, as has been pointed out earlier, reaching Moscow doesn't mean you win at Russia. Hell, Napolean got to Moscow and still got his ass whooped. Plus Germany is sandwiched in the middle of Europe, which means they had to fight a war on two fronts and had a harder time with logistics and maintaining supplies. Germany was running out of stuff faster than they could replace their stuff, and Russia had bulk on their side. The Germans had better stuff, but the Russians had a whole lot more of it. Also entirely not helping is the fact that Hitler was used to trench warfare, and thus had no freaking clue how tank warfare worked, and thought bolt-action rifles and SMGs would suit everyone fine, even when his researchers had come up with the first assault rifles.

Speaking of Hitler's mistakes, the Germans also had a major problem with big, inefficient projects that required a ton of manpower, like those giant railcar cannons and that whole Holocaust thing.

Also, the Germans were way farther from developing a nuke than you think. I believe the phrasing used at the time was 'mother never pregnant, baby never born'. I vaguely remember hearing something about how the scientists deliberately sabotaged the project, but that might not be accurate.

On topic, I'm pretty much in agreement with the OP: only up to Chapter 6 so far but loving every moment of it!

However, in keeping with one of the earlier posts I have to say that the absence of multiplier is a bummer, especially considering how great the weapons feel. I mean, it's great that their full efforts were directed into single-player and God-Emperor knows its been a while since I played a single-player campaign that lasted more then six hours but Return to Castle Wolfenstein's multiplier was great!

I don't remember Return to Castle Wolfenstein having a Score Multiplier o: Unless you meant Multiplayer.

Personally, I'm glad it has no multiplayer. I'm really sick of all these multiplayer focused games getting released with these awful, 5 hour single player campaigns tacked on. I prefer story and structure over dealing with twats and connection issues. It's kind of nice seeing the reverse of the classic 'singleplayer focused series suddenly becomes multiplayer or co-op focused' trend (Dead Space, FEAR, etc).

Whoops, my bad! I was wondering why the spellcheck kept changing those but I wasn't paying enough attention it seems.

Don't get me wrong: I'll take fleshed out single-player campaign over the hot online shooter any day. I'm just slightly bummed out because the series's previous shot at multiplayer was uber-fun and strikingly well balanced. Plus I'd love the chance to play as one of those hulking mechs....

 

[Dragonlayer]

On topic, I'm pretty much in agreement with the OP: only up to Chapter 6 so far but loving every moment of it!

However, in keeping with one of the earlier posts I have to say that the absence of multiplier is a bummer, especially considering how great the weapons feel. I mean, it's great that their full efforts were directed into single-player and God-Emperor knows its been a while since I played a single-player campaign that lasted more then six hours but Return to Castle Wolfenstein's multiplier was great!

I honestly dont know how a multiplayer would work with this game, it could be great as the weapons and action feel awesome as it could be complete crap because the gameplay is completely balanced for a singleplayer experience.

Either way I would have liked to see something like a horde mode with some few levels that would be extremely focused on replayability to extend the lenght of the game more. As it is the game does a nice job of making sure the player finish it multiple times with the timelines and interesting collectibles (and I know for sure that I will be replaying the last 5 chapters multiple times) but the action is so good that I would like to just pick a level and have an infite amount of enemies to rampage around, something like the survival mode in Max Payne 2 (wasted more time there then in the main story).

All in all they would only need to release mod tools.

Good point, and to my knowledge the developers have no experience with online gaming so it would have been a big gamble. But still....

Now that would be ideal: last stand mode against the Nazi legions. Did you ever play Rogue Trooper? I think a New Order version of that game's co-op multiplayer mode - a semi-independent campaign where players could sneak/slaughter their way through missions with numerous objectives - could have worked quite well.

Oh and your talk of timelines reminds me: are there significant diversions in each line or does it just determine how you get past locked doors? No spoilers please!

 

[josemlopes]

Oh and your talk of timelines reminds me: are there significant diversions in each line or does it just determine how you get past locked doors? No spoilers please!

Gameplay wise its mostly the doors and paths but if you are into the characters there is a lot more then just a skin replacement (both Wyatt and Fergus come with an additional character to the resistence).

 

[Fsyco]

Whoops, my bad! I was wondering why the spellcheck kept changing those but I wasn't paying enough attention it seems.

Don't get me wrong: I'll take fleshed out single-player campaign over the hot online shooter any day. I'm just slightly bummed out because the series's previous shot at multiplayer was uber-fun and strikingly well balanced. Plus I'd love the chance to play as one of those hulking mechs....

Wouldn't that basically just be Titanfall but with Nazis?

I suppose I can sympathize. I love the hell out of Unreal Tournament 2004, and I almost exclusively played that game by myself with bots. That was hella fun. I wonder if there's any MP games with the 'Assault' maps from UT2k4.

In your next post you mentioned the Rogue Trooper game. Is it any good? I've read some of the comics and it seems pretty cool, but I've heard...mixed feelings about the game. And alot of Rebellion's other games, too. What would you say it's like?

 

[Torque2100]

Well I just beat the game and I have to say I found the ending a bit underwhelming. I really was expecting there to be some kind of time travel shenanigans. Like maybe BJ's visions are of our timeline in which he marries Anya and at the end of the game you go back in time and stop the Nazis from finding the Das'Yachim's secrets or something. The actual ending, while it wasn't bad, was just meh. It felt like they could have done more with it.

I have a sneaking suspicion that some variation on the Time Travel ending was the original ending, but Bethesda saw how big this game was going to be and ordered it changed so they could milk more sequels out of it.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Oh and your talk of timelines reminds me: are there significant diversions in each line or does it just determine how you get past locked doors? No spoilers please!

Gameplay wise its mostly the doors and paths but if you are into the characters there is a lot more then just a skin replacement (both Wyatt and Fergus come with an additional character to the resistence).

Ah, superb - I was slightly worried that the timeline differences were inconsequential and it was all just a personal preference choice: "Do you Scottish Mcscott or Private Expendable von Green?". Ironically enough, I opted to save the later, so there goes my initial assessment of his value to the plot.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Whoops, my bad! I was wondering why the spellcheck kept changing those but I wasn't paying enough attention it seems.

Don't get me wrong: I'll take fleshed out single-player campaign over the hot online shooter any day. I'm just slightly bummed out because the series's previous shot at multiplayer was uber-fun and strikingly well balanced. Plus I'd love the chance to play as one of those hulking mechs....

Wouldn't that basically just be Titanfall but with Nazis?

I suppose I can sympathize. I love the hell out of Unreal Tournament 2004, and I almost exclusively played that game by myself with bots. That was hella fun. I wonder if there's any MP games with the 'Assault' maps from UT2k4.

In your next post you mentioned the Rogue Trooper game. Is it any good? I've read some of the comics and it seems pretty cool, but I've heard...mixed feelings about the game. And alot of Rebellion's other games, too. What would you say it's like?

Would that be such a bad thing though? Titanfal looks cool. Nazi robots look cool. Following that train of logic....

I wasted so much high-school time with, well, tournaments in Unreal Tournament, especially with the "Assault" mode. Granted we only had a demo and thus one map, but it was great!

I enjoyed it: it's a very competent third person shooter with some stealth mechanics but nothing revolutionary. The biggest gameplay gimmick is the use of Rogue's deceased squadmates in battle, so for example you can set up your rifle as a automated turret under Gunnar's control to suppress the enemy while you go around the flank. I'm not sure how faithful it is to the comics because I've only read a few myself, but the dude is blue and the air is poisonous so that's good enough for me!