Monday, December 07, 2009

Wolfenstein 2009 Review

In the pantheon of computer games, the Wolfenstein franchise is one of the longest running and most prolific, stretching back almost 30 years to 1981 when it debuted on the Apple II. And it was Wolfenstein 3D which put legendary developer id software on the map in 1992 and revolutionized the first-person shooter genre. But like an aging porn star, Wolfenstein's best years are behind it and recent exposure represents only a fraction of what it was in the beginning.

I first became acquainted with the id Tech 4 engine in November 2002 when a leaked alpha of Doom 3 hit the internet. As the first game to feature entirely dynamic per-pixel lighting, the graphics were astounding for such an early build. Unfortunately, the new technology also made it the Crysis of its day as it chugged on my 3GHz Pentium 4, 512MB RAM and 128MB GeForce 4 Ti 4400 graphics card. Doom 3 hit store shelves nearly two years later and the id Tech 4 engine was still a sight to behold. Sadly, the game did not live up to the promise of the graphics, and interest quickly waned.

In 2005, Quake 4 arrived and the id Tech 4 engine had been optimized for dual-core processors. One year later, Prey used a modified version of the same engine and in 2007 Quake Wars introduced the much-hyped MegaTexture technology. As before, the implementation was impressive but the game play left a lot to be desired.

With a public display of id Tech 5 in 2007, I was somewhat surprised when I read that the new Wolfenstein was being built on the obsolete id Tech 4 engine. However, reports were that the engine had been completely overhauled and that it incorporated such new effects as depth of field, soft shadows, post processing, and Havok physics (in lieu of hardware-based PhysX effects).

I had previously completed the Return to Castle Wolfenstein installment when it came out in 2001 but unlike some other games from that era, it did not make a memorable impression. Despite that, I was still looking forward to the current one, even if the trailers seemed to indicate the id Tech 4 engine was getting a little long in the tooth.

The opening cinematic of Wolfenstein is perhaps the most dazzling part even if the main protagonist looks remarkably like Max Payne. Alas, once the cut scenes are over it's clear that no matter the laundry list of enhancements, the id Tech 4 engine can't compete with today's Unreal 3 engine or Crytek's Cryengine. Some of the World War II aspects make it seem like a Brother's In Arm's: Hells Highway knock-off while the supernatural focus and graphics are highly reminiscent of last year's Legendary.

It's also immediately evident that development priority favored the console design and the PC version is a casualty of this. For instance, there's no Anti-Aliasing and the graphics options are pretty sparse. However, I've regrettably seen worse console ports recently such as Red Faction: Guerrilla.

What Wolfenstein does have going for it is a solid single player campaign with satisfying game play. The constant traversing of the three main city maps get a bit tedious (and confusing) at times but fortunately Wolfenstein features a map compass that keeps you pointed in the right direction if you wander off course. Adding to the overall enjoyment are weapons that can be upgraded with such things as more ammunition, better accuracy, silencer and my personal favorite-- a sniper scope. Also amusing are various enemy traps throughout the game. In one mission, it's possible to turn on a huge fan that sucks nearby Nazis into its spinning blades. And yet another enables the player to gleefully disengage a hydraulic lift, dropping a 22-ton Panzer tank on unsuspecting troops. Grenades and explosive barrels are also quite effective at thinning out the Third Reich but the enemy AI remains spotty. Sometimes, they'll flee the grenades but other times remain more motionless than mannequins.

There's also some mystic mumbo-jumbo about black suns and crystals but I deliberately didn't pay too much attention to it. Suffice it to say, as the game progresses you're empowered with several abilities that let you see through walls, slow time, and shoot through enemy shields. Conversely, Hitler's henchmen also possess similar powers so they keep getting meaner and uglier-- first a big slug and then a giant spider. The finale was lamentably anti-climatic and felt rushed, as if the developers were hurrying to wrap things up. However, a neat statistics tab kept a running total of such things as the body count and time played. When I finished Wolfenstein, the total time was a relatively short ten hours and I'd found 63% of the Nazi intelligence reports, 44% of the gold, and just 9% of the tomes. Total kills numbered 1,470 and that was joyfully broken down into such grisly subcategories as Dismembered (141), Burned (108), Dissolved (28) and Electrocuted (2). Furthermore, 797 breakable items were destroyed and the most used weapon was the MP43.

The only truly unpleasant thing about Wolfenstein is the nagging feeling that it could have been so much better. The low-tech engine makes it feel more like a budget offering than the Triple-A title it should have been. There's also been some internet scuttlebutt surrounding the design and reception of the game. It goes without saying that deciding to build Wolfenstein on a five year-old game engine instead of developing it alongside Rage on the id Tech 5 platform was financially motivated. Sure, it might have added another 12 months to the development cycle but it would have taken Wolfenstein to the next level. Instead, there was a conscious decision to cut corners on the budget and it seems that spilled over into the advertising as well. There was virtually no effort made to promote it and even on launch day there was little to no publicity. Some insiders speculate that Wolfenstein, which was published by Activision, was abandoned after id sold out to ZeniMax in June because ZeniMax and Activision are direct competitors. Interestingly, an anonymous source orchestrated some free exposure for Wolfenstein via a leaked multiplayer beta just a couple weeks before its release. Public conjecture is that it may have come from someone at Endrant, the studio responsible for developing the multiplayer portion of the game. And while it was probably well-intentioned, it conceivably did more harm than good by showcasing what a mess the multiplayer maps were and how outdated the graphics were. If Wolfenstein were a movie, it would have declined early screenings in hopes of a big opening payday before poor reviews had time to spread. Instead, the multiplayer leak fueled negative forum chatter and further damaged the game's chance at success.

Endeavoring to bolster flagging sales, Raven Software Designer Manveer Heir offered to personally reimburse anyone who purchased Wolfenstein in August provided it outsold Madden NFL 10. To no one's surprise, Madden absolutely crushed Wolfenstein by selling nearly twenty-times as many copies (1.9 million to 106 thousand). When Wolfenstein failed to reach internal sales goals, an estimated 35-40 employees at Raven were given their walking papers and an undisclosed amount at Endrant met a similar fate.

However, hoping to spur new customers is an official single-player demo uploaded at the end of October to FilePlanet and a version 1.1 patch said to fix a host of problems, none of which I thankfully encountered.

Personally, I would have delayed development and built Wolfenstein on a cutting-edge game engine rather than pushing it out the door on an outdated platform. Hard-core gamers are a notoriously fickle bunch and they don't spend $400 on a new video card so it can double as a case heater. They want a game that will take advantage of that technology and spit it out on screen. But sometimes game companies are run as poorly as car companies and the end result is that the consumer is the loser. Here's hoping that Rage and Doom 4 don't tread down the same dead-end road as Wolfenstein.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Windows 7 Progress Report

I've just finished up nearly three months with an activated retail copy of Windows 7 Ultimate and I wanted to report my findings. I've become an unusually early adopter of Win7 as I previously waited until SP1 to upgrade to XP and I completely bypassed installing Vista altogether. All agreed, seven years with XP is quite a good track record but it was undeniably getting a little outdated. XP lacked support for newer technologies such as DirectX 10 and the 64-bit Edition, launched in early 2005, never caught on. Disappointingly, even the 64-bit edition of Vista SP2 was a better alternative than XP 64.

During the spring and summer, I previewed both the Release Candidate and the Retail Version of Windows 7 but those reviews lacked the real-world experience of living with it as my daily OS. Granted, it was difficult dropping XP cold-turkey as using Win7 was like moving into a new house where I didn't know where anything was. Several times, I found myself stumbling across what would have otherwise been simple tasks in XP, such as setting folder views or managing documents. For instance, I discovered the hard way that there is no Documents and Settings folder in Win7. Instead, all the data is housed in the C:\Users folder.

I also had to choose a mail client as one is not included with Win7. Since I liked the Windows Mail app in Vista, I downloaded the newer Windows Live Mail from the Windows Live Essentials bundle. And while I was at it, I also grabbed the Windows Live Photo Gallery in hopes that I wouldn't have to install a third-party app like ACDSee. I was also pleasantly surprised at the native support for burning ISO images-- it even burned a dual-layer DVD with no problems. However, the interface is a little rudimentary as it doesn't let you choose a recording speed or display the time remaining. But overall, it performed competently burning all sorts of music and movies. I've also enjoyed the new and improved Disk Defragger utility which, unlike the cumbersome one that shipped with Vista, actually displays the progress and works so well I can kiss Diskeeper goodbye.

Regrettably, I resigned myself to using the 32-bit version of Win7 even though I prefer the superior 64-bit Edition. For instance, I tapped an unused 2GB jump drive and recruited it for ReadyBoost duties. With a total of 6GB ram, I shaved an additional ten seconds off my boot time in Win7 64. And some products, such as the Cinebench 64-bit client, performed noticeably faster in benchmarks. However, other 64-bit programs such as SiSoft Sandra, Microsoft Security Essentials, and Internet Explorer 8 all experienced issues. Since, I wanted the most stable experience possible, I sacrificed a little speed and stayed with the 32-bit version. So far, the only program that wouldn't run on Windows 7 is the video editing software that came with my 60GB Panasonic HDD camcorder and the only issue was a fluctuating volume that I traced to the microphone and disabled in the sound properties.

In gaming, Windows 7 is a winner right out of the box and that's a good omen considering the poor track record of its predecessors. In 2001, XP debuted with no support for the proprietary Glide API. Not only did such a decision turn my $275 Voodoo 5 5500 video card into a fancy paperweight overnight, but it also single-handedly sunk 3dfx as a company. And in 2006, Vista's highly-touted DirectX 10 premiered to performance that was 50% slower than XP and graphic enhancements only an optometrist could spot. Unbelievably, the Resident Evil 5 benchmark actually ran better on Win7 in DX10 than it ran on XP in DX9. And I've run through many hours of Batman: Arkham Asylum, Need for Speed: Shift and Wolfenstein with no problems whatsoever. Furthermore, DiRT 2's DirectX 11 Hardware Tessellation looks stunning and I'm eager to try it out when it becomes available in December. I just hope that unlike DX10, there are some tangible advantages to DX11 for end-users and just not developers.

Prior to Windows 7, it would have been impossible for me to imagine a new OS that could so quickly and completely replace XP. Granted, it's not perfect, some tasks are still slightly slower than XP, and it uses (in my opinion) too much memory, but I feel that's justified by the new technology. And lest I forget, there were similar stumbling blocks on the upgrade path to XP. If you're in the market for a new PC, you can't go wrong with Windows 7.

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