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Stunning graphics, smart AI, but not much innovative play

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 14
Date: April 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Remember that Simpsons episode where Homer is sucked into a higher (three-dimensional) reality and has his mind blown for a little while? If you still remember the old Wolfenstein 3D, that may very well be how you're going to feel once you fire up Return to Castle Wolfenstein (aka RTCW--I'm lazy). The graphics are stunning, including highly realistic textures, fog, lighting effects, and of course nearly photorealistic opponents. Environmental sound effects and wonderful--often hilarious--voice acting round off the illusion. All cut scenes are produced using the in-game engine, and I'd say the only way to make them look better would have been to use live actors. Facial animations are well executed, and once you get a good look at the femme fatale Elite guards, you will realize how well your enemies are built ... er, designed. Your Teutonic opposition largely speaks English with a strong accent (and unless you know German, you'll probably be thankful for this), but they do throw in the occasional catchy "Schweinhund!" and "Mein Gott!" as you tangle with them.

The AI is pretty darn smart--these certainly aren't your Daddy's Nazis anymore. Your adversaries will dodge bullets (some are very athletic at that), seek cover, and call for reinforcements or retreat if the going gets rough. Don't expect the old grenade-around-the-door-post trick to work, either. Instead of waiting until it goes off in their faces, the hostiles will back off if they can, or even kick it right back at ya. What a waste.

As far as your arsenal (that Morrissey sure is a punster, ain't he?) is concerned, you'll be wielding an array of conventional as well as experimental weaponry, all of which are exquisitely animated and sound very rich and satisfying. Since the story takes place during WW II, none of your shooters are too kooky or exotic. Instead, great care has been taken to deliver the most realistic implementation of a fairly conventional weapon, the flamethrower. The sadist in you will appreciate the sight of your howling victims vainly trying to beat out their burning uniforms (this never works, by the way). Which reminds me: you don't have to be Joseph Liebermann to come to the conclusion that this game does perhaps not belong into the hands of little game enthusiasts. RTCW is surprisingly sparing in the display of blood and gore, but the death animations are still pretty gruesome. What is missing in spraying guts is made up for by anguished screams and wails.

Visually, RTCW is breathtaking, IF you've got a beefy Mac. I played this game on a Dual 1 GHz Mirror Drive G4 with 512 MB RAM and 64 MB VRAM (ATI), and have seen the occasional frame rate hiccup with all graphics and sounds settings cranked up. There's no shame in that--it's safe to say that RTCW is among the most demanding titles out there right now. If you want to run this on an older or less powerful machine, some tweaking (most likely sacrificing some of the eye candy for performance) is going to be required.

Game play in the single-player campaign is, as a matter of fact, surprisingly easy even at the "I'm Death Incarnate" setting. If you're willing to accept a health drop to 25 % or so as satisfyingly realistic, there are few situations that you won't be able to resolve with brute force. It's a different story in some of the stealth-based scenarios, where any detection by enemy forces means the mission's scrubbed. That said, the level design is superb throughout except maybe for the predictable and oddly Super Mario-esque final boss encounter.

The problem is that there's really not much to come back for in the single-player game. Once you've played through it, the surprise factor (which plunks you in some downright scary situations at times) is gone and that's pretty much it. However, if you're a multi-player enthusiast, RTCW is well worth your money.

Unlike with many games these days, the multi-player component of RTCW is not an afterthought to the single-player game, tacked on with maybe a handful of extra maps, but a separate, dedicated application which features a fundamentally different mode of play. You get to either head into battle as a soldier with your favorite firearm, wield and defuse powerful explosives as an engineer, coordinate the attack and call in supportive (and devastating) air strikes, or do the good thing and keep your buddies alive and in the action as a medic (helping them forego the lengthy re-spawn cooldown). I haven't played too many online games of RTCW, so my observations here may not be all that representative, but I can tell you, I didn't see too many medics out there ... engineers are indispensable on some maps because you can't get at the enemy without blasting through some door or wall, but other than that, it seemed to me that everybody wants to be a gun-toting soldier, respawning wait time be damned. So in many online games, the nicely thought-out specialization system does not come to bear, but if you have some good people to play with who are willing to take on the different available roles, it should make for a very interesting play style.

In summary: if you're passionate about multi-player games, RTCW will most likely keep you very happy for a long time. On the other hand, if you don't care much for the multi-player aspect and don't have money to burn, you may want to pass on this one. It looks fantastic, but in terms of game play, there's nothing revolutionary in the single-player campaign. You'll basically be throwing your money at (admittedly serious) eye candy. Maybe you won't mind. Otherwise, save up for Unreal II.

Amazing...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: May 03, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I first saw this game in action on my friend's PC, and this game really made an awesome first impression. Afterwards, I found that this game was scheduled to hit the Mac in February. So, I preordered it on Jan. 16. On February 1, it was delayed a month. March 1, delayed another month. April, delayed another month. Thank god it finally came. It was worth the wait. First off, with even a low-end 3D card, the graphics ROCK. Gameplay is intense, especially in the quiet levels of the catacombs, but even nastier are the X-Labs. Think Alien with nazis and dark knights thrown in. Now, about the difficulty of this game: if you are like me, and usually play FPSs (first-person shooters) on normal or medium difficulty levels, PLAY THIS GAME ON EASY FIRST. At first, the game is pretty easy, then, as soon as you hop into the catacombs, this game starts to get HARD. The guns are awesome, my personal fav. being the Paratroop rifle. You can utilize the knife, luger, Colt 1911, MP40, Thompson, silenced Sten, Mauser, Snoop sniper rifle, Paratroop rifle, "Potato smasher" grenades, Frag grenades, Panzerfausts, the awesome Venom chaingun, and the very thoroughly done flamethrower. The absolute best part of this game is how the gameplay varies alot, from infiltration to escape, to raid, to rescue, to spying. This game is an absolute MUST-HAVE for any Mac gamer!

WOW!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: August 19, 2002
Author: Amazon User

To start out this game rocks.

Rating System- 1 Bad- 5 Great

The GRAPHICS 5-Great landscapes and the enemies are lifelike.

THE SOUND 4- Guns sound real , but sometimes its hard to hear what the guards are saying. Also the music is repeated a lot.

REPLAY VALUE 5- This has the most replay value out of any game I played (a large part of this is the mulitplayer is so fun!). The Single Player has easy, medium, and hard.

NOTE: Single player is very hard even on easy. It has taken me almost three months to complete it in easy.

The MULTIPLAYER IS GREAT!
Their are four classes you can be.
1.The soldier- Can have all the weopons i.e. Flamethrower, sniper rifle and the venom gun(chain gun).
2. The Engineer- The demolitions crew. Has dynamite and blows up walls, doors,etc. He also has the most grenades.

3. The Medic- Revives fallen teamates also hands out med packs. The Medics Health regenerates over time.
4. Lieutenate- Calls in air strikes and hands out ammo packs.

This is a great game that has come to the Mac.
I have to say Thanks to Aspyr for making it.
Please don't wait. Get it now.

An excellent game with great replayability

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: October 27, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Return to Castle Wolfenstein is, in a word, excellent. The single-player campaign is adequately long, but action-packed and thoroughly wonderful; there are quite a few changes of scenery, and the underlying plot is entertaining. There have been a few complaints about the occult nature of the story, but I didn't find this offputting at all.

Multiplayer is where this game really shines. The maps included with the game are incredible (especially the famous mp_beach), and these can be suplemented by hundreds of custom-made maps available online at sites like . Objective-oriented, team-based gameplay as it has been implemented in RtCW is something you simply can't miss out on. Also, take note that the bonus maps included in the non-Mac "Game of the Year Edition" can be found online as well ... don't despair that our PC friends are gaining the upper hand on us!

And of course, the graphics are wonderful, as you can tell from any screenshot. This comes with a hit in performance on anything but the newest Macs, though: on the highest graphical setting, the game slowed down noticably at graphically-intense moments of the game (i.e. large, open areas with lots of enemies) on my 800 Mhz G4, 512 MB RAM iMac (with a GeForce 4 MX card).

So if you think you've got the machine to handle it, you will not likely be dissappointed with this game!

Return to Wolfenstein - As Good as the Original

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: July 29, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game is great. *There is finaly a game where heavy weapons are complemented by fairly good enemy AI, and great multiplayer options. *The game is set during WWll. The Nazi's are trying to breed a horde of undead to defeat the Allies. You face various Nazi minions: SS, paratroopers, and elite forces. Aside from the living you face waves of zombies. *The game is visually stuning, from explosions and smoke to ancient catacombs and bomb-blighted villages of rubble and steal. *You employ many effective weapons each with their own advantages. You can also man static-mounted, heavy machine guns, the same weapon which blasted US forces on Normandy (think "Saving Private Ryan"), as well as anti-tank rockets and flamethrowers. *Appart from most first-person-shooters, you interact with other personalities which range from underground resistance groups, to allied tanks. *Multiplayer is awesome. Instead of the typical Ramboesque gungho armed rampages in most online games, Wolfenstein's multiplayer requiers strategy. You can choose from medics and other specialty units to soliders and officers. Medics cure fallen or hurt teamates, while an explosive materials expert might blow down walls. The diffrent classes of players ads ton's of strategy. In multiplayer you can even use the mounted machineguns found in the solo game. Be forewarned, a 56 k modem brings about death with serious lag*(*lag is when your internet connection strugles to keep up with the game). I would definetly recomed DSL. Over all it is a great game.

Great FPS Low Firepower

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: April 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is a great first person shooter for OS X if you own a G4 iMac or other lower end G4 machine. Haven't tried it on anything lower than my G4 667 powerbook, but the Powerbook seemed to have all the Processing power this game needs. This is a really good translation of the old third person game Castle Wolfenstein, and a much improved rendition over the original Wolfenstein 3D.

All in all, great bad guys, great single player and great network play without having to have the latest/greatest Mac to push it. Tons of fun.

A Blowout!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: July 30, 2002
Author: Amazon User

No wonder this received the game of the year award. It is the game of the year. Tops all other shooters by far, adding realistic textures and advanced rendering. It is possibly the best 1st person shooter of all time because it is very realistic. I found myself playing online for hours. The multiplayer play is amazing, and has objectives, rather than just capture the flag. Real life combat, great graphics, ez gameplay, great single player mode too, what more can i say. If you are a fan of 1st Person Shooters for Computers but you own a mac, GET THIS NOW!~!!!!

Hope you don't mind some creepy crawlers.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: September 07, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Great action game except for unrealistic monsters. This game could have been the best if Aspyr Media would have stuck to realism and omitted the dumb gouls. I do recommend it, it has many scenes, the weapons are great also. The multiplayer is very good and my modem does not seem to slow down the action as in other internet games.

VIRTUAL MEMORY PROBLEM

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: June 29, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game is an awesome game but it has some problems. When I first got this game the SP (singleplayer) worked perfectly, but when I went to MP (multiplayer) my screen turned yellow and stayed that way until I restarted my computer. FOR ALL OF YOU THAT ARE HAVING THIS PROBLEM OR THINKING ABOUT GETTING THIS GAME THIS IS WHAT YOU DO: set virtual memory to at least 300MB. Also if the nazi's helmets in MP are a brite white set the lighting to vertex(low) and then when the main RTCW screen comes up change it back. THIS GAME IS AWESOME! GET IT NOW!

Great Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: November 08, 2003
Author: Amazon User

If you don't already own this game, you should. This is definately a classic game. The anticipation was so high for this game when it first released [because it was the follow up to one of THE best shooters ever]. The game followed through well...excellent graphics, great AI for single player, online play is excellent. There are many weapons, maps, etc. Online play is more than just runnin around and shooting...instead you have objectives and people on your team have jobs to complete such as Medics, Soldier, and Engineer. As I said before, this game is a CLASSIC...a MUST OWN! I am giving it 4 instead of 5 stars because its getting to be an old game but its still great...

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