Do people like the feel of the weapons and shooting in Wolfenstein The New Order?

[Zhukov]

This is probably going to come across as one of those How Dare People Like Popular Thing That I'd Don't Like As Much threads. I'll try not to be obnoxious about it.

Okay, so I wasn't hugely impressed by TNO. Didn't hate it, mind. Just never managed to board the hype train.

It had some cool stuff in it. For example, a really good protagonist. They actually got me to feel for a bland yankee meathead man by making him sympathetically exhausted and burnt out. It was a great touch.

Recently had another go at it after seeing the sequel announcement and I was struck by how dinky and feeble the weapons felt. Like, unbelievably so. Every gun feels like it would barely pass for a starting pistol in a more weighty shooter.

This made me curious. Did those of you who enjoyed the game actually like the shooting in TNO, or did you tolerate it in order to get to aspects of the game you enjoyed more?

 

[Saelune]

I enjoyed the feel of shooting in Wolfenstein, though I think the enjoyment was more for hitting your enemies than shooting the gun itself. I dont blame anyone who doesnt enjoy it though, since gunfeel is actually really important in a shooter. (I found that out playing Call of Duty 3 and Black Ops 1, where the guns felt like shit to shoot)

 

[Casual Shinji]

I did have an issue with the shooting. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but I do remember certainly liking Modern Warfare and Half-Life 2 better in that regard.

I wouldn't say it felt dinky and feeble, but there was a sense that especially the shotgun was too... swift? I don't know, it seemed like in between the gun firing and the person getting hit something was missing.

It might also have something to do with the sound, since TNO had a pretty shitty soundmix.

I quite like the stealthier moments though.

 

[American Tanker]

I thought the shooting in Wolfenstein: The New Order was badass. The guns all felt like they had some real power to them, and dual-wielding guns that are supposed to be used with two hands is insane.

Even better, though, was the weapons' alt-fire capabilities. The pistol comes standard with burst-fire, but you can find a removable suppressor for it that also makes it single-shot semi-auto. The assault rifle gets an under-barrel rocket launcher that fires from a revolving cylinder. The shotgun gets ricochet shrapnel shot. The marksman rifle gets a full-auto laser rifle mode. Even the humble laser cutter you get early in the Berlin Prison level gets an upgrade if you know where to look that turns it into a nice little laser pistol; of course, then you get to the London Nautica and find the monstrous Laserkraftwerk, which immediately renders it obsolete.

And speaking of the LKW, holy crap it gets a ton of upgrades. That scope upgrade in particular that give it the ability to practically OHK even heavy enemies like the robot you encounter in the Nautica hangar where you steal those Nazi helicopters.

And then we get to hauling around those heavy turret guns... "More dakka" doesn't even describe it. A quad-barrel rotary version of the infamous MG42? A rapid fire laser cannon? And even worse is that they are quickly reloaded as soon as you put them back on a turret. The game also gets really generous with recharge stations for your energy weapons past a certain point, and the LKW gets a recharging battery(though it takes a while; still better to top up at rechargers) so you never really have to worry about running out of ammo; just spam lasers at everything that moves.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I liked it a lot, don't remember anything suspect about the feel of the gunplay.

 

[wings012]

It's been too long but I remember being mostly satisfied as people gibbed and bled in awesome ways. Also being able to slide into a crowd while unloading dual shotguns is pretty hilarious.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I liked some of the guns but not others.

The assault rifles feel fine to shoot, not exactly amazing by themselves, but the way that the enemies react to being shot with them feels really good and goes a long way to making them feel more powerful, especially when you dual wield them. I especially like the under-barrel grenade launcher on them since you can have one rifle set to the grenade launcher, one set to automatic fire and have the best of both worlds all the time without needing to switch weapons.

The automatic shotguns feel fantastic, especially dual wielding them and just walking down a hallway slaughtering anyone stupid enough to pop up in front of you.

The sniper rifle feels pretty dinky, and dual wielding it feels kind of stupid and pointless a lot of the time. All the laser weapons feel a little anemic, but you can't really fault them for that since they're lasers.

So it's about a 50/50 split on whether I liked the weapons or not. The ones that I liked though, I really liked.

 

[DaCosta]

I hated Wolfenstein.

I didn't have a problem with the guns though. My issue with the shooting has more to do with how I don't think that enemies with hitscan weapons fit in with fast paced run n' gun gameplay, and focusing on stealth wasn't exactly much more fun.

This is a problem I have with the Wolfenstein series as a whole. It's why I think the classic Doom is better than the classic Wolfenstein, and the recent Doom is better than the recent Wolfenstein. Well, that and a consistent tone.

 

[stroopwafel]

Totally agree about the guns lacking weight. You could dual wield machine guns in this game and it still felt like they were made of flimsy cardboard. I guess it shows how difficult it is to program shooting mechanics that give satisfying feedback to the player. Say what you will about the Call of Doodle and Battlefield games they really perfected satisfying shooting mechanics. Fortunately Wolfenstein compensates by being a fun adventure even if the enemy variety is a bit limited. Still I don't think the gunplay is necessarily bad it just lacks oomph. Espescially compared to popular FPS games. But those don't have the superior SP.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

Yeah, they were a little... weightless. The shotguns especially, for something that would gib giant holes in people and tear apart robots with ease, they didn't feel like they had any kickback. About the only weapon that felt like it had and heft to it was the Laser Rifle, everything else just was kinda... plinky. Which, admittedly, made it hilarious when I'd turn around and 'pew pew' at a guy with my toy rifle and both his arms would explode off in showers of gore. Such a weird disconnect between the weight of the guns and the impact they had on what you were shooting at.

Then again, given BJ is built like 10 Hercules compressed into a single man and can apparently survive both a grenade to the face and being nuked, him carrying weapons around like they're made of Styrofoam is at least accurate. Sure, not as fun to fire with, but hey, what kinda piddly God feels such mortal things like 'recoil'?

 

[laggyteabag]

INB4 B-Cell saying that TNO was a worthless game with no merit, Return to Castle Wolfenstein was much better, and the story was poo poo. PS: DOOM is the best game of all time. My friend.

OT: Yeah, the guns did feel a little light, but them again, it would have been hard to convey a feeling of weightyness as you are sprinting across the floor at top speed, shooting nazis with a heavy shotgun in each hand. I can't really remember the game too well, though. Maybe it needs a replay.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

I do agree with you there. As great as the game is, the weapons were all a bit 'meh' to use. Yes, the Nazis fell apart satisfyingly with grace when you shot them. Yes, the guns looked kinda sweet when duel-weilding - especially those shotguns - but the actual feel of the guns themselves? Not so. It doesn't help that they look like plastic toys too. And the pistol I grew to despise greatly due to my reliance on stealth tactics.
I think people sometimes confuse how the guns react with the world, with how they feel to fire. An easy confusion to make I guess when there's a lot of different types of feedback to distinguish from.
All they needed was a few minor adjustments to controller vibration, animation and probably some other elements I'm not well educated in.
Often it's simple little things that make a huge difference.

 

[PapaGreg096]

The guns were okay but it kinda the sucks that most fun weapon to use(double barrel shotgun) got shafted after the 1st level.

 

[Zhukov]

I guess it shows how difficult it is to program shooting mechanics that give satisfying feedback to the player.

I've always wondered why that is.

I mean, surely they could just look at how other games have done it? You'd think it would only take a few games getting it right before it caught on.

But if the answers in this thread are anything to go on then it's at least somewhat subjective.

 

[Zhukov]

I thought the shooting in Wolfenstein: The New Order was badass. The guns all felt like they had some real power to them, and dual-wielding guns that are supposed to be used with two hands is insane.

I liked the punchiness of the weapons and gunplay in TNO as well, and in some ways the chaos of that opening scene reminded me of games like Killzone 2 and 3. You're probably mostly a PC gamer but if you ever get a chance to, play or at least watch someone else play KZ2 on a good surround system. The MAWLR fight in 3 is also impressive in that regard.

It's still one of the best series in terms of meaty sounding weapons and overall sound design in addition to visual attention to detail. The weapons buck and sway when firing in such detail it makes what's been shown in The New Colossus look like it's still missing something, especially in terms of animation and sound.

Maybe it's also an art style difference, but the PS3 Killzone's to me kinda set a new watermark in this aspect of shooters.

 

[KissingSunlight]

I know I mentioned this before. Maybe, I was the only one with this glitch. Anytime I moved with the rail gun, it turned into a knife. It was annoying as hell. I got killed a lot. Until I figured out I had to stand still and used the gun, instead of running and gunning with it.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I love that game. Shooting was extremely satisfying for me.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

Hmm. Interesting. Thinking back on it, I guess I didn't love the shooting too much. Sometimes it was awesome, like tearing things up with the chaingun and gibbing enemies with the Lazerkraftwerk was so much fun after a few upgrades. I even liked picking bad guys off in stealth sections with the silenced pistol and throwing knives.

But in many areas it did feel too weightless. The shotgun was hit or miss, it either blasted off a head or tinkled meaninglessly off the target. And I never could get the machine guns to work well, it somehow felt like I was shooting a confetti gun. I dunno, like in other games a machine gun can feel like a stream of metal and death that shreds any foe in my direct line of sight, but in TNO it seemed more like a less efficient shotgun, like every few shots would go all in the same spot, then the next few bullets hit 10 inches to the side, then the next few were 8 inches high, and so on. I either nailed 5 headshots on one guy or I somehow emptied a clip and hit nothing but his armpits. It was annoying.

But the setting, characters, and tone were really the strongest parts of the game anyway.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

There aren't many games that do the weight of guns well, in my opinion. Well okay there are a lot, but very few in comparison to games where the guns feel like toys. Entire Call of Duty series, for one. Rainbow 6 Vegas series is excellent with that, but relative to Wolfenstein, it's a bit opposite.

In R6 Vegas, the guns have great weight, sound, and feel, especially rifles in semi-auto mode. However, the enemy reactions are a bit too instant rag-doll drop to the floor, kind of disappointing, although kind of realistic, if you died instantly without any pain reactions (a la Red Dead Redemption, GTA 4/5).

But in Wolfenstein, the guns don't have great weight (though it's not all too bad), but the way enemies fly and spurt blood and generally get mowed down is extremely satisfying. This is what makes dual-wielding assault rifles so badass, because you really tear the place up. So, a combination of the two would be pretty good.