As expected, Return To Castle Wolfenstein was fairly short and I was able to finish it off this afternoon.

I left off starting a tank escort mission, and along the way I also had to make a detour to rescue a scientist who had come under fire, both of which were timed bits that you could fail if you didn’t help out quickly enough, but they weren’t too tough. I also ran into the flamethrower-using enemies for the first time here, and they’re annoying since you can’t let them get too close, but they can take a lot of damage.

I then had to track down a Nazi commander who went by the nickname ‘Deathshead’, going through some more urban ruins and a trainyard in order to reach his secret weapons facility, and then to a sub pen where he escaped. Along the way I encountered some legless, electric soldiers apparently called ‘lopers’, made as part of the Nazi’s plans. They’re tough since they bounce around a lot and do area damage, but tagging them with the flamethrower and running away works well. From about here on, the different types of weapons actually start being useful in more cases.

I discovered that Deathshead was off to his secret lab in Norway, and that’s where chapter 5 starts. It’s cold and foggy there, and sniping took care of a lot of barely-visible enemies. In the lab, things started getting science-fictiony again as I encountered more of those ‘loper’ soldiers, and a few prototypes of supersoldiers, with chain guns and rocket launchers. Upon reaching the inner part of the lab, I had to fight his main supersoldier, which was much tougher than the other ones seen along the way thanks to having much more health and an electric beam weapon. It was tough, but I managed to gradually wear him down after dumping all my rockets into him.

Chapter 6 began the actual return to the titular castle, but there was still a bit of a trip to get there. I started off by a dam that I had to cross, and then passed through a village, where I had to stealthily assassinate five key officers while there. After that, I reached a chateau where I didn’t have to be stealthy anymore, and bumped off the general staying there. After the chateau, I then headed to an area where they were trying to perform a ceremony, and had to kill two supersoldiers there. It took a few tries, but overall it was actually easier than the supersoldier at the end of the previous mission, thanks to having more room to maneuver.

Chapter 7 started with entering some caves right after finishing off the supersoldiers, and contained even more of them, but at least they were weaker versions. The caves led to more crypts, where I ran into the undead again. I was in trouble since I only had 13 health at this point, but it turns out that the flamethrower is very effective against them. The undead are tougher here though, as they often have to be killed twice.

And I finally arrived back at Castle Wolfenstein, now overrun with undead, and worked my way through it without too much trouble. Outside, the Nazi occultist managed to perform the ceremony and resurrect Heinrich I, who I guess is supposed to be the ultimate evil badass they were looking for. Or something. He turned out to be a pushover though, as all you have to do is keep your distance from him (he doesn’t even have any ranged attacks), and keep blasting him with the chain gun when it cools down.

And so ends Return To Castle Wolfenstein, on a rather anti-climactic note. Not the best shooter, but not the worst, and it didn’t take too much time (about seven and a half hours, according to the save-game timer) at least.

Somehow, I suspect that’s not a regulation SS uniform…:

I haven’t played a shooter in a while, so I dusted off Return To Castle Wolfenstein for a bit. Yeah, I’ve got a bunch of other games still ongoing, but this one is supposed to be fairly short, and I’m already through three chapters of seven total.

It starts out as a fairly traditional WWII-setting shooter, and I made my way through the castle guards in order to escape via a tram. Back in the village, I got sent to some nearby crypts to check something out, and that’s where you start encountering the supernatural elements in the form of zombies and skeletons. The Nazis are tied into it and up to no good, of course.

The crypts led into a church, where there were more undead and Nazi guards (often fighting each other), and female Nazi special ops agents in skintight catsuits. Which would be a lot hotter if they weren’t so good at killing me; one room had four or five of them in it, and they could take me down extremely quickly, as each hit from the rapid-fire Sten gun they had would knock off 10 health. At the end was the first boss fight, against the transformed version of the local commander Helga. It took a bunch of tries since she has this really annoying attack which sends out spectral skulls which blind you and knock off a lot of health, but persistence paid off.

After that was the third chapter, which starts out with a stealth section where I had to sneak into a base by hiding in the back of a truck. This part was annoying since it’s often not clear when an enemy has discovered you, so quicksaves could be ruined by being permanently stuck in a ten-seconds-from-alarm-activation state. The inside of the base was fairly uneventful, and led to the airfield, where I just had to wade through some waves of enemy soldiers (including some that parachuted in) to get to the launch facility, where I threw the appropriate switches and stole a prototype plane.

And apparently I’m now off to escort some tank in order to rescue a defecting scientist.

It’s not too bad so far, though it’s rather plain compared to most modern shooters. There’s some weapon variety, but I find myself sticking to pretty much one gun almost all the time (usually one of the machine guns).