barely escapes alive and suffers head trauma in the process, and spends the next fourteen years in an insane asylum. Unfortunately, the mission goes horribly wrong. Blazkowicz is sent on a secret mission to assassinate the man responsible for this: Wilhelm "Deathshead" Strasse. It is 1946, and the Allies are losing World War II thanks to a sudden technological leap made by the Nazi regime. 27.Wolfenstein: The New Order is the fourth entry note sixth if you also include Castle Wolfenstein and Beyond Castle Wolfenstein in the Wolfenstein series, developed by MachineGames, a studio founded by several key members of Starbreeze Studios (developers of The Darkness, Escape from Butcher Bay, and Assault on Dark Athena) who left in 2009. The New Colossus looks like it will have more stories to tell and amazing women to meet, and that’s all the inspiration I need to check it out. Fergus, man.) But I will always be struck and moved by a mainstream, masculine-skewing game that doesn’t talk down to women, that embraces them as part of the story - that makes them just as important, interesting and badass as their male cohorts. Of course it’s not, and there are other characters and parts I liked in The New Order beyond these two women. It’s reductive to say that all it takes to make me like a game is for a woman to have a backstory in it. And who would have thought that a game that looks like Wolfenstein on the outside would be the one to tell this woman’s story? How beautiful and fantastic it is to get the chance to learn her history in this intimate and vulnerable way, I thought. The revelation broke me into a billion pieces, and I realized, OK, I love Anya, too. At all.Īnd by the end of it, we find out that the diary actually belongs to Anya. These stories are brutal and heartbreaking, telling of Ramona’s life going undercover to work for the Nazis in an effort to kill them. (Especially because the dude had literally just been catatonic, so, like, come on.) Except here’s my favorite part of The New Order: You can collect diary entries from someone named Ramona throughout the game Anya says that Ramona is her cousin, and she reads them to B.J. during these dark and anxiety-ridden times, so, good on her.īut I still found Anya harder to love than Caroline, maybe because her story starts with B.J. Plus, Anya is somehow still able to get it on with B.J. She’s obviously brilliant, and her research paves the way for the rebels to make some breakthroughs. She helps out the resistance by handling all radio comms, which is no small gig. But Anya isn’t a damsel in distress, even if she plays the part of B.J.’s companion most of the time. begins only after their personal one blooms Anya was B.J.’s nurse at the psychiatric ward where he was first confined, after all. The same is true of Anya Oliwa, who has a more conventional role in The New Order’s cast. or any man - would never dare to question her. (Speaking of punching, she lost the use of her legs in a fight where she punched a 6-foot-4 Nazi.) Caroline is smart and fierce and dedicated, and B.J. But the real reason I liked her so much from the start was her unshakeable strength, her ease at commanding a crew of strong dudes while not seeming at all like she was punching above her weight class. I think I was predisposed to like Caroline because I thought of her as a relative my grandmother’s maiden name was Becker. The leader of the underground resistance against the Nazi regime is Caroline Becker, who comes back from a terrible, paralyzing injury to dish out commands to new recruit B.J. Blazkowicz.īest of all? The fantastic female cast, which looks to only get better with Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus. It’s a game populated with some vibrant personalities, few of whom have much in common with Action Hero B.J. Despite looking nothing at all like them, The New Order has something in common with many of my favorite games: a great story that feature some fantastic, inspiring characters. (Do I, a known fan of RPGs and provocative indies, even need to mention the gameplay?)īut The New Order resonated with me because it defies those expectations to go much deeper than its surface could suggest. Its star is a buff guy with a machine gun, while I like my heroes young and reedy its environments are often cold and unwelcoming, where I tend to prefer blue skies and smiling, numerous neighbors. On a superficial level, a game like Wolfenstein: The New Order - or its sequel, out later this week - shouldn’t do anything for me.
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