Metareview: Wolfenstein: The New Order

Video game villains don't get much more classic than the occult-loving Nazis of the Wolfenstein series - they've been goose-stepping and zeig heil-ing for more than 30 years. Unfortunately, the gameplay of the latest game in the series, Wolfenstein: The New Order, is anything but classic. From our three-star review:

"It's almost as if there's a tug of war going between the big dumb shooter and the attempt to be subversive, with the result being a game that's not really slick enough to be an action classic, and not dramatic enough to draw you in."

We're not the only ones sending the Nazis packing, though. March on past the break to see what other soldiers thought of Wolfenstein.

• Polygon (90/100): "The New Order's got all the workings of a classic shooter. But in their trip back to the well, Machine Games has brought all of its talents to bear. The New Order is held together, even rocketed beyond the basic sum of its smart levels and effective mechanics by its characters."

• GameSpot (80/100): "The game is both a celebration of the Wolfenstein series and what feels like a fitting send-off for it. The New Order could be the last hurrah of William "BJ" Blazkowicz, an outing which, for all its excess and bombast, is far from mindless."

• GamesRadar (80/100): "Wolfenstein: The New Order is a great example of oldschool design revitalized by modern concepts. Yes, it's cheesy, dumb, and over-the-top, but it manages to reign in these aspects by following them up with great action, memorable set-pieces, and characters that mostly evolve beyond your typical meathead grunts."

• Game Informer (80/100): "Wolfenstein: The New Order is a positive step forward for the series after the last dud. Machine Games presents a competent shooter with more polish and a better array of characters, but ultimately the game feels more comfortable recompiling established conventions than it does striving for innovation."

• The Escapist (70/100): "While it brings a few enhancements from modern gaming into the mix, MachineGames' crack of the Wolfenstein whip is unapologetic in its embrace of the cliched and the simplistic. Since this is Wolfenstein, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Guns, explosions, Nazis, and robots. Pretty much all you need, right?"

[Image: Bethesda]