The times that have been handled with The Old Blood have been fast. Just a few weeks ago it was announced through a teaser on social networks and this week has already arrived for PC and new generation consoles. First it was not clear if it was a
zombie mode for The New Order, but finally the hare jumped. A prequel that tells us the events before the game that appeared a few months ago. 19.99 euros for almost 40 gigas of installation and about five hours of play. The result, as happened with the original game,
has several lights and shadows. It’s a standalone expansion, so you do not need the original game version to be able to enjoy yourself.
The game puts us at the controls of Blazkowicz , whose main mission is to try to enter the heart of the Nazis. As an infiltrator, he has to get together with his partner a series of documents that they can not find, something that ends up taking them directly to
Wolfenstein Castle.. Throughout the eight chapters -without counting the prologue- we will advance in our mission not only with Blazkowicz, but also interspersing the protagonism with another character who will have to move around the city while looking for a
person vital to the war against the German army . The relationships between characters, some dialogues and a couple of specific moments of the plot have their substance, although it is ahead that the most important thing here is what we play and not what they tell us, which ends up diluting as we go.
Weapons are one of the virtues of the game. Some you can add a zoom that make a sniper in a jiffy.
And it is precisely in its playable proposal , the basis of this expansion, where we find the greatest virtues and also the biggest flaws of the game. We are facing a classic first person shooter, with a linear advance and not too large spaces in which to move.
There are few times when we can get lost, more by mistake than by something else, although it is true that we will have a series of pickups and extras that can make something more enjoyable our passage through The Old Blood. Especially because there are certain contextual documents that are interesting to read calmly.
As classic FPS we can carry a large amount of weapons. Pistol with silencer, shotgun, assault rifle, heavy machine guns or our favorites: dual weapons.
Shooting with two assault rifles at once is pure adrenaline, especially when dozens of enemies appear on screen, something that happens often. Because the development throughout the eight chapters has many similarities to each other. Places in which stealth is vital and cliffhangers in which Nazis do not stop coming out that we have to massacre.
To all this is added the compulsory collection of ammunition distributed by the stage and also elements to gain vitality or armoring. Without regeneration of life by means, it is one of the most interesting points of the game without a doubt.
These enemies have to die by stealth, since in the face to face they are lethal. And stealth ends up becoming heavy.
The shootings are fun and work well. Usually when we have several enemies in front of us we are somewhat unguarded, having to watch for several entries and move with agility through different areas. This, the variety of weapons, the frenetic pace of the shootings and some extra additions, such as flammable and explosive objects, make it so that when there is a scuffle
of this caliber, it is enjoyed. Although unfortunately neither is the constant of The Old Blood nor is all the polish that we would like, especially in the matter of enemy
AI that returns to make theirs with certain behaviors sometimes suicidal, sometimes incomprehensible. Although in fact, the problem of AI shines more strongly in another of the sections of the game: stealth.
We will encounter several moments where stealthIt is vital for our interests. Areas where there are robotic soldiers that we have to disconnect without being detected to execute them, other areas where there are generals that can warn by radio at least that they see something strange and that complicates our lives … The problem is that they are very boring and monotonous phases.
The patterns are always the same, so trial-error is the order of the day. In addition, mechanics such as waiting for the armored soldier to turn, going to
cut the light and execute it, simply, is not fun to perform. Neither offers an interesting challenge nor the actions to be performed are anything that contributes something relevant to the player. During these sections we can also climb with a pipe that can be split in two to go up certain walls,
Supersoldaten, Nazi terror that will give us real war.
Between these moments, an area where we have to go eliminating dogs while they are sleeping and more advanced stages where the enemy AI may not detect us despite being on our side and, on the contrary, sees us in the distance shooting all the alarms ,
they make the game lose whole as a whole due to this irregular development. Especially the tedium weighs in the first hour and a half, where the first chapters are really uninspired. Later we will have more shootings, the presence of some final boss, some area of shots on
rails and certain gadgets of size that are not bad … and the presence of zombies, that by their way of assaulting us vary somewhat the playable proposal in the final section , although nobody expects big surprises.
