Wolfenstein

[Norgy]

So far, so good. Cheesy enough. It's no "Dishonored", but I think that gem of a game can't be replicated.
I'll give a more thorough review after a few nights' play. Right now, my eyes and ears are tired from Nazi rock and writing shite articles.

[Syt]

According to steamdb the International (ROW) version if good for sale and playing in Switzerland and Austria now. However, they haven't switched the releaseoverride for these countries yet. So I could buy an international version and presumably preload it, but it would tell me that it's not released in my region yet. But it appears that in time this might change.

Commentaries in German forum are hilarious. Some are talking to consumer protection agencies, others tell people to stop whining, because the story doesn't matter anyways; then there's the usual "CENSORSHIP NAZIS!!!" and a few who actually point out a few facts (like that the German dubbing - including of the German speaking characters - is not so good, and that the replacement of anything Nazi with "The Regime" makes it a completely different and much more generic story).

[Tamas]

I never understood why it is good for Germany to pretend that Nazis didn't exist.

[Razgovory]

I never understood why it is good for Germany to pretend that Nazis didn't exist.

They don't.  We restricted their use of the Swastika cause we didn't trust them.

[Syt]

I never understood why it is good for Germany to pretend that Nazis didn't exist.

No week goes by without a documentary about WW2 or the Third Reich on German TV, so that assumption is wrong.

Depiction of swastikas etc. are forbidden, but art (TV, movies) get a special pass if they're not pro-Nazi propaganda, and the interpretation is very lenient (so Iron Sky is ok, for example). However, no publisher has gone to court claiming that games are also art and therefore exempt from the ban. It's understandable why they haven't in a few ways:
1. It's a financial risk. They would have to publish the game with swastikas, then wait to be dragged to court by German authorities.
2. "Now with Swastikas!" doesn't sound like a good PR campaign. (Which is probably also why no politician who values his career is picking up the cause. You wouldn't want to be a swastikapologist.)

Also, possession and use of games depicting swastika is not prohibited. In general, they may not be publicly sold and advertised, though. Importing is fine. The only media *really* illegal to possess, based on content, would probably be child pornography.

Bethesda putting down the Geo-Lock is them playing it safe:
1. Giving German law VERY wide berth, and making them unassailable (in the past a game was pulled because in on area, on a postcard or something, a swastika was still visible).
2. Protecting their investment in creating the German version which was developed parallel to the uncut one, by not allowing non-German versions to run in Germany/Austria/Switzerland, at least until they feel that most people who would buy the German version have done so.

[Syt]

Well, international version now playable in Austria and Switzerland. I will finish playing his on the weekend.

Oh, and the Steam page for the German version now has a diclaimer:

Notice: Denazified version! Historical, fascist references have been replaced by other no less atmospheric alternatives. Only available in German.

[Syt]

RPS is giving it a thumbs up:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/05/23/wolfenstein-the-new-order-review-pc/

[...]

Big is the word. Wolfenstein does everything big. Big action, big (if a little contrived) emotion, big violence, big guns, big shoulders. Even big, sad puppy-dog eyes in a big man's big, square head. It should have been chaos, anachronistic with itself – old world shooter values paired with modern age attempts at less vapid narratives and characterisation. Somehow, it works.

I think it works because, for all the oddness of being both a dumb as a box of hammers game and a Feel The Feels can we have an award now please game, Wolfenstein: The New Sequel knows itself very well. It borrows from BioShock and it borrows from Half-Life 2 (to put it mildly), but I don't believe it truly has aspirations to be more than Expensive B-Movie With A Heart. There's, oddly, an honesty to it – it's not like BioShock Infinite, where the fancy talk sat uncomfortably alongside the meatheaded mayhem. Yes, this takes itself and its magical robot Nazis entirely seriously, but that's not the same thing as believing itself to be capital-I Important.

What it wants, I think, is to be BIG, in every sense, and while there are a few tonal missteps, the checkpoint system was poorly-judged and a few too many moments where it mandates all-out assault instead of stealth (if that's your poison), it absolutely succeeds at it. When the dust and shouting and bits of flaming robot settled, I knew I'd had a great time, for a surprisingly long time, and I didn't feel that I needed to either analyse or defend why.

[Norgy]

I've enjoyed it, and I am not big on FPS games.
It's huge. The story is so-so, but fair enough. The enemies are fairly varied, and killing a Nazi robot feels quite rewarding. The Panzerhunds are particularly intimidating. I like that you can also try and complete missions through stealth alone.

The game's not really taxing my computer much, so I suppose the main hurdle is the huge download size. 43 gigs or so.

[Razgovory]

That's a lot of memory.

[Syt]

The standalone prequel Wolfenstein: Old Blood is coming out this week. 19.99. I'm looking forward to this. Wolfenstein: New Order was a really fun game.

[Razgovory]

Well, Wolfenstein the New game was actually really good.  Really a Half-life 2 with Nazis, which is fine.