Game #1333: New Super Mario Bros. 2

 New is a bit of a strong word.... 

 So, what's new in New Super Mario Bros. 2? I dunno. New Super Mario Bros. on the DS was Mario's return to 2-D platforming, using new 3-D graphics but playing in 2-D. It felt new. Then New Super Mario Bros. Wii did the same thing, but added new power ups, and Yoshis, and, best of all, multiplayer. This one.... Er...

 Multiplayer? Gone, it is a handheld aftear all, propeller helmet? Gone. At leas the Mini and Giant mushrooms are back, I guess. The only new Power up is the Gold Fireflower which makes your fireballs explode on impact and give you coins on enemy kills. It only lasts for a single stage. There's also a new emphasis on collecting coins because.... I don't know, just because. There's a new coin rush mode too, and the game keeps a tally of your collected coins, and they all amount to.... a new Press Start splash screen. Yeah....

 I know that it's been tradition since Mario World, but I hated the secret exits, I found them to be too well hidden, like 'get a guide' kind of hidden most of the time. In this day and age, I found it annoying instead of fun. They also kept the whole "can only save after beating a castle or a tower' gimmick which is just baffling. This is a handheld game, let me save anywhere on the world map, for crying out loud. This limitation doesn't add challenge, it's just annoying.

 It's just Mario. That's all this game is, a perfectly acceptable 2-D Mario game. It doesn't do anything new, but there's nothing particularly bad about it, it's just.... Mario.

6.0

Game #1332: Wolfenstein 2 - The New Colossus

 Weird science.

 The Wolfenstein remake was pretty darn good, so of course a sequel was coming, enter Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.

 It picks up immediately after the previous game, with Blascovitch on his death bed... only to be rescued at the last minute, albeit left badly crippled, but don't worry, he gets better. The story follows the two timelines gimmick from the previous game, and you can pick whichever timeline you preferred, which nets you a different NPC ally as well as a unique weapon on each.

 The story, boy, the story is such a weird mess. How can you make a game about killing nazis overly woke? No, really, they... it's a mess. Now William, suddenly, is the son of a racist that beat him up for kissing a black girl even though... he married a jewish woman. And y'know, William's past is bleak, really bleak, but his father is such obvious pandering to the people that think they are fighting racism that it took me off the game. He even uses the N word. And then there are lines in which William has to say "WHITE" nazies. I mean... of course they are and were white? Why? Because pandering. You've got this badass black woman leader but she's so incredibly unlikeable, she smokes next to her baby and has the most abrasive personality they could get her. To the point that you feel glad when another character grabs her by the throat, she even calls another character 'white boy', dismissively, a few times. Insufferable. They also added Engel's daughter, and she's fat, and much like William, she's also victim to her mother's upbringing, but this parallel goes absolutely nowhere. The character herself is a bit of a walking fat joke, which is off-putting since they went after a woke tone for the plot.

 And leaving that aside, since not everyone will cringe from the overtly woke tone, then there's how the game wants you to take the plot seriously... but then has all these idiotic jokes in it. Engel's daughter, Sigrun's plight is sometimes portrayed in a way that it seems as if they want you to laugh at her? Which is incredible, since she gets the most interesting character arc, growing out of the nazi mindset she was forced into. Then there's William's wife, who is now pregnant, going into bullet-fights while pregnant. How does that make any sense? She is a liability. She is carrying children in her womb. It makes absolutely no sense. Then there's another character who happens to be dropping acid all the time, and I'm supposed to believe he survives every time he makes it out of the base? Don't even let me get started on the cringe party scene. While the previous entry also had a bit of humor that didn't gel very well with the new serious tone.... it wasn't THIS bad. And the subtitles disappear or go out of sync every now and then, so you can't even trust those.

 And then there's the gameplay.... I'll get the best thing about it out of the way first, the new dual wielding mechanic is glorious. You can have Will carry any weapon on either hand, so you can go guns akimbo in all sorts of ways, like having a shotgun on the left hand and the assault rifle on the right one. It's amazing, and it's such a small little addition, but it works so well. That said... the game is brutal. It doesn't even feel fair, throughout the first 2/3rds of the game your total life points cap at 50 instead of 100, you get murdered in SECONDS and the HP and Armor upgrades from the first game are nowhere to be seen, compounding with this is how worthless the damage indicator is, quite a few times you'll only realize you are taking damage if you notice the HP going down.

 Most of the game I was left frustrated than anything else, fighting spongy enemies that can take what feels way more punishment that I could deal. It was not a fun experience. And the story was such a mess too... I don't know what happened with this one, considering the previous games were so great.

 4.0

Game #1331: Wolfenstein New Order - Wolfenstein The Old Blood

 Double the nazis

 Much like Doom, another classic first person shooter got remade with a more modern taste in mind, and bundled in this two-pack are the first two remakes: Wolfenstein: The New Order and Wolfenstein: The Old Blood.

 The New Order is REALLY good. The game is very cinematic, since in-between shootouts you get quite a few cutscenes, and this game is very gritty and edgy... but also 90s dumb, which is why the main protagonist, BJ Blazcowicz kept all his HUGE muscles after spending 14 months as a vegetable. And the plot and the characters are very weird mix of 90s humor, like a character with a dented head that can only say Max Hass, as well as gratuitous sex scenes, but mixed with a very, very bleak setting in which Germany won the second world war. I gotta say, I didn't expect to, but I really fell in love with the supporting cast. Your allies are a likeable bunch, and the villains are disgusting and deadly, so watching them fall is all the sweeter.

 Gameplay is very fast-paced, albeit not as much as Doom. You can peak behind cover while holding down L1, and stealth is a valid approach to various encounters. The weaponry feels very powerful, so watching enemies explode into pools of blood is very satisfying. Fulfilling certain challenges("KIll X amount of enemies while peeking under cover", "Stealth Kill X amount of commanders") grants you permanent buffs, which is a great way to encourage you to try different stuff and reward you for it.

 The Old Blood does away with most of cinematic elements, most but not all, and has more emphasis on the shooting. It plays basically the same, but stealth is more necessary than before, for certain sections at least, but you also get new weapons to slaughter your enemies with. It's a bit harder than before, some enemy waves can feel endless, and the final boss is very cheap, but it's still a good game, even if not as memorable as the original.

 Wolfenstein is another knockout for Bethesda, no doubt about it. Both games are REALLY good, having very satisfying gameplay, and in the case of the first one, a very interesting plot too. It's so good I'm playing The New Colossus right now!

 8.5