{"id":41819,"date":"2018-03-01T12:00:40","date_gmt":"2018-03-01T17:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=41819"},"modified":"2018-02-28T17:26:21","modified_gmt":"2018-02-28T22:26:21","slug":"wolfenstein-ii-part-5-tower-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=41819","title":{"rendered":"Wolfenstein II Part 5: Tower Defense"},"content":{"rendered":"

BJ Blakzowicz gets to the top of the Empire State building and meets the New York branch of the American resistance, which is every bit as important and successful as the Antarctic branch of Ben & Jerrys. Don’t get me wrong. I like these characters in terms of their overall design. Leader Grace Walker is an interesting re-imagining of the idea of a Black Liberation Army<\/a> leaderYes, it’s about a decade early for the BLA, but the Nazis invaded America so…<\/span>. Super Spesh is a fun bit of comic relief as an alien conspiracy nut in a world that’s already overflowing with crazy. But as vibrant as they are from a character design standpoint, it doesn’t change the fact that these two are stuck at the top of a crumbling irradiated ruin, surrounded by Nazi troops, and they don’t seem to have a plan to change any of that, much less “liberate the United States”. <\/p>\n

They do turn out to be useful laterWell, as useful as any of the other quest dispensers in the story. Obviously BJ does all the shooting.<\/span>, but wouldn’t this sequence be more interesting if these characters had something concrete that we needed? As it stands, our motivation is, “Caroline wanted to make contact with these people and none of us is capable of forming plans so let’s just do that and hope something good happens”. It’s not strictly wrong<\/em>, but it could be better. If the game wants to give us vague orders like, “Go here to make the plot happen” that’s fine. But if that’s all the more the writer cares about framing and motivation then they shouldn’t waste our time with so many non-interactive cutscenes. <\/p>\n

Grace, BJ, and Super Spesh.<\/div>
Grace, BJ, and Super Spesh.<\/div><\/p>\n

After BJ meets Grace and Super Spesh the Nazis attack. BJ must hold off waves of Nazis while the resistance escapes. The cutscene makes it look like Grace and Spesh live alone at the top of the tower, but then Grace starts shouting to “her people” and we realize there were actually a bunch of other people in the room that the cameraman has been ignoring. These people are resistance fighters living in a sea of Nazis but I guess none of them can fight for themselves. BJ has to hold off the Nazis while the entire group escapes. <\/p>\n

All of that is fine, but couldn’t the writer find the time to give us some of this context in the previous six minutes of cutscenes? “Hey Player Character, we’ve got a lot of people up here. Our fighters are all dead. The only folks we got left is my signals intel crew. They’re the best in the business, but they can’t do us any good if we can’t keep them alive.” Yes, you can sort of extrapolate that this must be the case based on what we see later, but we shouldn’t need to extrapolate answers to basic questions like, “Why should I care about these people?” Particularly after a long cutscene full of dialog.<\/p>\n

Instead of doing the business of the plot, we get a digression where Grace goes on a rant about how it doesn’t make any sense to compliment a brave person for having “balls”, since balls are soft and fragile. I don’t have a problem with this as a way of characterizing her, but I do have a problem with spending screen time on this instead of<\/em> giving us exposition and context. <\/p>\n

A lot of scenes in the game are like this, which makes the story feel self indulgent on the part of the writer. They obviously have a bunch of monologues and scenes they wanted to put in the game, and that stuff took priority over putting in a few lines of dialog to give us a sense of why we came here and what we’re getting out of it. <\/p>\n

Let’s compare the next defensive section to the defensive scenarios of Half-Life 2…<\/p>\n

Tower Defense<\/h3>\n

This resistance base is actually kinda cool, but you never get the chance to really look at it. You go right from a cutscene to the siege to another cutscene.<\/div>
This resistance base is actually kinda cool, but you never get the chance to really look at it. You go right from a cutscene to the siege to another cutscene.<\/div><\/p>\n

Note that whenever you need to defend a room in the Half-Life series, the designer always gives you time to familiarize yourself with the battlefield beforehand. Where will the enemies enter the room? Where are the good defensive positions? Where are the environmental hazardsLike exploding barrels.<\/span> so I can use them strategically instead of blundering into them? Where are the ammunition and health items located? Where are the useful bottlenecks? The dialog made it sound like I’m supposed to be covering everyone’s escape, but is there a specific choke point I’m supposed to hold or do I just need to hold off waves of dudes? <\/p>\n

If you don’t allow the player to map this out on their own, then they have to figure it out during the sound & fury of a gunfight while dying repeatedly. Letting them explore the space allows them to make plans and execute them instead of just shooting dudes chaotically. Unplanned chaos is what regular gameplay is like, and defensive scenarios are supposed to offer a contrast<\/i> to that.<\/p>\n

But this section doesn’t give the player this opportunity. The mooks start pouring in as soon as the cutscene ends, before the player has a chance to get their bearings. <\/p>\n

This isn’t an unreasonable thing to ask for! BJ clearly had the opportunity to explore this space before the fight. Presumably, he knows his way around by now. The player doesn’t. Giving them thirty seconds to explore the room before the siege begins would give them a chance to close the gap between what they know and what their character knows. <\/p>\n

I’ve seen a lot of people complain about this brutal difficulty spike on the forums and social media. I felt the same way on my first couple of attempts. Going strictly by player deathsAccording to my admittedly small sample size.<\/span>, this is one of the most brutal fights in the game, even though it’s just against the usual assortment of mooks. <\/p>\n

Maybe that’s deliberate. Maybe the designers really did intend this first-act gunfight to be overall more difficult than the final showdown on the Ausmerzer at the end, but I doubt it. What I think actually happened is that they tweaked this fight so that it provided a “tough but fair” challenge to the playtesters who already knew the layout<\/i>, which made it very frustrating for first-time players. The way it is now, you have to learn the layout under fire and maybe die a couple of times before you can make a plan and act on it.<\/p>\n

Pep Talk<\/h3>\n

Okay, I get what you're saying and you've made some really good points. But have you considered just changing your mind anyway?<\/div>
Okay, I get what you're saying and you've made some really good points. But have you considered just changing your mind anyway?<\/div><\/p>\n

After the Siege, BJ and Grace have a conversation that makes no sense. BJ talks about how they want to liberate America. Grace argues that white America is a lost cause because they’ve already settled into Nazi rule. Then BJ says some platitudes about freedom and suddenly Grace starts agreeing with him.<\/p>\n

This is wrong twice. One, what was<\/em> she fighting for if she already thought this was a lost cause? I thought we were teaming up with her because mumble mumble something about revolution<\/em>. But now she’s not even aligned with our cause? What was her plan then? <\/p>\n

Secondly, BJ never says anything to convince her. She spells out reasons why the citizens of the US are a lost cause, and BJ doesn’t say anything to counter this. But she changes her mind anyway because there’s a musical swell while he makes his dumb arguments and that makes this feel inspirational. <\/p>\n

This is one of those moments that really depends on trust in the storyteller<\/a>. This scene could totally work if I was engaged with the story, if I liked the characters, and if I was having fun in the cutscenes. A Wolfenstein game is a fine place for cheesy dialog, broad characters, and scenes that sell themselves on style more than substance. <\/p>\n

But by this point in the story I was getting restless in the cutscenes because they ran long while doing very little to entertain me, explain things, or move the plot forward. <\/p>\n

Texas<\/h3>\n

This is a really good moment, although I think I care because the previous Wolfenstein game did a good job at setting up this relationship.<\/div>
This is a really good moment, although I think I care because the previous Wolfenstein game did a good job at setting up this relationship.<\/div><\/p>\n

I don’t want to make it sound like the entire<\/em> plot is dross. The next section has a couple of really good scenes. There’s a running plot where BJ is convinced he’s dying. He won’t take off the power armor because he’s afraid it’s the only thing keeping him alive. Anya, his girlfriend from the first game, is six months pregnant and wondering why he’s suddenly so distant. There are a few cute moments with some of the side characters and it’s all broken by segments where BJ runs around the submarine, doing errands. It’s all fine, and some of it is pretty good.<\/p>\n

The plan is for BJ to sneak into the Nazi base at Area 52 in Roswell and nuke the place. He dresses up like a fireman, with the nuke stowed in the fire extinguisher he’s carrying around. He’s supposed to meet up with a contact in New Mexico. When he gets there, he ends up in a diner where he bumps into a Nazi officer. The Nazi orders a strawberry milkshake, and then begins questioning BJ and asking to see his papers. <\/p>\n