Adding another 6-8 hours of Nazi killing excitement, The Old Blood trades in character development and much of a storyline for action. It's not a bad choice; although the development in The New Order ran surprisingly deep for an FPS, sidelining character stories in The Old Blood gives you a solid block of game play rather than cut scenes and minor fetch quests. It's a little unfortunate that, like The New Order, this game starts with a too-long quasi-tutorial sequence that wears out its welcome before allowing you to get into the meat of the game. Happily, once you get invested in carrying around an arsenal and filling enemies with lead, you'll largely forget the earlier tedium of avoiding and depowering Nazi mech suits but it's a stumble the franchise has made twice now and I hate having to say "Just stay with it and it'll get better, I promise".

The game play is essentially the same as The New Order albeit with "earlier" technology with a bit of steampunk feel to it. You have your usual silenced pistol, assault rifle, sniping tool, a fun twin-barrel mechanized shotgun and a new pistol that shoots explosive rounds for clearing out groups of grunts or hitting hard targets. An abbreviated perk system allows you to expand your health & healing, armor, weapon ammo capacity and that sort of thing. Often in the game you'll find yourself using a pair of pipes as a melee instrument, prying tool, climbing aid and more which feels a little gimmicky but not aggressively so. Some people have complained that there isn't much of a stealth aspect but if I wanted a linear stealth game with assault rifles, I'd be playing Metro or something similar. This is Wolfenstein and BJ Blazkowicz lives to kill Nazis, not creep around them. Enemy AI is usually pretty sharp with opponents flanking, using grenades liberally to pull you out from cover, sliding and leaning from cover while they chip away at your own with an onslaught of bullets. Later on the AI takes some hits when it throws new enemy types against you and the final boss fight wasn't anything great but, all in all, it was a solid ride.

Do I recommend the game? If you've played The New Order and enjoyed it then I recommend this one without reservation. If you haven't, I'd really recommend waiting for TNO to go on sale and pick that up first. It's a more rounded and longer, more comprehensive game whereas The Old Blood is made for people who ate the TNO main course and wanted dessert.

Adding another 6-8 hours of Nazi killing excitement, The Old Blood trades in character development and much of a storyline for action. It's not a bad choice; although the development in The New Order ran surprisingly deep for an FPS, sidelining character stories in The Old Blood gives you a solid block of game play rather than cut scenes and minor fetch quests. It's a little unfortunate that, like The New Order, this game starts with a too-long quasi-tutorial sequence that wears out its welcome before allowing you to get into the meat of the game. Happily, once you get invested in carrying around an arsenal and filling enemies with lead, you'll largely forget the earlier tedium of avoiding and depowering Nazi mech suits but it's a stumble the franchise has made twice now and I hate having to say "Just stay with it and it'll get better, I promise". The game play is essentially the same as The New Order albeit with "earlier" technology with a bit of steampunk feel to it. You have your usual silenced pistol, assault rifle, sniping tool, a fun twin-barrel mechanized shotgun and a new pistol that shoots explosive rounds for clearing out groups of grunts or hitting hard targets. An abbreviated perk system allows you to expand your health & healing, armor, weapon ammo capacity and that sort of thing. Often in the game you'll find yourself using a pair of pipes as a melee instrument, prying tool, climbing aid and more which feels a little gimmicky but not aggressively so. Some people have complained that there isn't much of a stealth aspect but if I wanted a linear stealth game with assault rifles, I'd be playing Metro or something similar. This is Wolfenstein and BJ Blazkowicz lives to kill Nazis, not creep around them. Enemy AI is usually pretty sharp with opponents flanking, using grenades liberally to pull you out from cover, sliding and leaning from cover while they chip away at your own with an onslaught of bullets. Later on the AI takes some hits when it throws new enemy types against you and the final boss fight wasn't anything great but, all in all, it was a solid ride. Do I recommend the game? If you've played The New Order and enjoyed it then I recommend this one without reservation. If you haven't, I'd really recommend waiting for TNO to go on sale and pick that up first. It's a more rounded and longer, more comprehensive game whereas The Old Blood is made for people who ate the TNO main course and wanted dessert.