bit-tech Shopping: Activision Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Tides of War (Xbox)

Rating: 8

Time with product: 1

Strengths: Good graphicsGreat gameplayWWII Setting

Weaknesses: Graphics a little bland

Summary: In Return to Castle Wolfenstein you play a soldier armed to the teeth in a good vs. evil plot. While the story is anything but original, it does keep you somewhat interested and find out what happens next. This game is a solid first person shooter, it is not bad nor is it outstanding. It would be "average" in that if you like fps you will enjoy this game, but don't go in expecting a HALO or Half-Life 2. The controls, music, and gameplay are what you would expect in a fps and this game has a pretty descent campaign that will last you well over 10 hours. The challenge is pretty good as well, at least when I was playing on normal mode. The only score I deduct from this game is the graphics, while not terrible, is kinda bland in that the XBOX is capable of much better graphics than displayed in this game. All in all, this is a solid fps and I recommend this title.

Rating: 10

Time with product:

Strengths: excellent graphics and gameplay

Weaknesses: stealth missions can get frustrating at times

Summary: This game is one of the top first person shooters out there and still hold its own against the many other shooter games that are out today. It has excellent graphics and a lot of detail is put in the surrounding environments and different stages you play in. Stages vary from a desert tomb in Egypt to the quiet and idyllic countryside in Europe. You have an assortment of weapons to fight with such as pistols, machine guns and sniper rifles. Your enemies will range from ordinary German soldiers and officers to experimental monsters and rotting zombies. Game play also varies from simple running and gunning to quiet stealth levels where you have to sneak a forward slowly and avoid detection or else you'll have to restart the entire mission. This game also has a great X box Live component where you can play as different classes of the military such as soldier or a medic and support your team online against another opposing group of players. The game story is also great and draws you in and holds your interest and makes you want to finish it all the way in one sitting. I highly recommend getting this game because of all of the great story and drama you will get out of it.

Rating: 8

Time with product: 5 Days

Strengths: Entertaining, smooth game play. Excellent graphics. Online multiplayer.

Weaknesses: Moves so fast may occasionally get nausious, weapon selection can be difficult with manay weapons.

Summary: Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a game that feels and looks like it was released much later than its 5/1/2003 release date. I have other similar games released within 6 months of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and none of them are as graphically or technically advanced.In the game you are a WWII American soldier sent on a mission to infiltrate an enemy experimentation program that is trying to develop super soldiers, with robotics and Dr.Frankenstein-like reanimation techniques. It is a great blending or history and fantasy that provides an interesting and entertaining game story.It is surprising how smooth this game plays. Especially since it moves so quickly. I have other FPS WWII games, and none of them have characters that move nearly as fast. You practically fly through this game. It can be sort of a problem sometimes, it occasionally makes me nauseous. This is especially so when the character moves when crouched. When you move the character when crouched the entire screen rocks back and forth. This combined with the quick movement always makes me nauseous, so I try to avoid that move as much as possible.I don?t really have to many dislikes about this game. One would be the occasional dizziness, another would be the method of weapon selection. It can be a little difficult when trying to do quickly. To choose a weapon you scroll up and down through a list by pressing either B or A. This works great when you only have 2 or 3 weapons to choose from, however, toward the end of the game when you carry almost every weapon it can be difficult to select the desired weapon quickly.The online multiplayer is a great feature of this game. There is new free content to download, plenty of maps and game types to choose from, and still a bunch of people to play with. The offline split-screen multiplayer seems to be lacking though. You can only play through a map that you have completed already, and only cooperatively. You also cannot save the multiplayer game.Overall this is a great game. It?s entertaining and imaginative, has plenty of maps, game play is fast and smooth, and graphic are wonderful. The few minor flaws hardly take any fun from this game. It?s a great game well worth the purchase.