WOLFENSTEIN 2: THE NEW COLOSSUS JACK SHEPHERD Wolfenstein 2: Better physics, great writing

works MachineGames Bethesda Soft- Nintendo Switch, PS 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows Rs 3,999 picks up after the events of the first game, quite literally joining BJ Blazkowitcz seconds after his final boss fight. He’s broken and battered, and you start the game in a pretty wrecked state, reflected in your health, which is set at a maximum of 50% in the early game. This means that the frantic enemy encounters are no joke for the first half, especially on harder difficulties. And so, the game pitches itself as an old school shooter from the off.

BJ’s efforts have made a dent in the Nazi’s regime, but there’s still a lot more to do, and you must team up with the resistance to try and overthrow the occupiers once and for all.

Not everyone in America has risen up against Nazi occupation. In fact, some of them are doing very well out of it indeed, and others praise and fawn over their captors, thanking them for rounding up and dispatching immigrants and generally making their own privileged lives more comfortable. The writing isn’t subtle; the marketing has made no bones about the parallels between the rise of the right in the fabricated world of and that of our own.

games have always been campy and ridiculous. This is a series which had you fighting a mecha-Hitler in the first entry, and it’s spiraled more and more into absurdity ever since. It has no right to be positioned as a serious satire on modern life, and yet, here we are, in 2017, with a game as one of the most political titles to be released this year.

The game isn’t afraid to hit the player with a full dose of dumb video game fun, and then temper it with a more serious edge at regular intervals. Part of the reason it gets away with it is the excellent character building, cultivating welldeveloped personas for its cast list and ensuring that the player feels compassion when things go south (which they have a habit of doing). BJ, a character who originally was nothing more than a meat-headed vessel for players to shoot pixelated Nazis, feels like a fully formed man, as we learn about his upbringing, his family, his thoughts on his failing body, and impending fatherhood. His partner Anya, heavily pregnant and trying her best to keep it together as the world falls apart and BJ with it, is arguably a stronger character than the hero in this instalment, and has one scene in particular that will have you punching the air in support of her unstoppable badassery.

The supporting cast pulls its weight too, with a diverse range of characters, old and new, fleshing out the story. There’s Grace, the hardened resistance leader, Super Spesh, who as well as taking down Nazi’s is also convinced that there are alien forces at work, and Sigrun, a reformed Nazi who finds herself helping the crew. All have their own voices, personalities, and comic relief between the darker moments.

For a pure shooter (you won’t find any puzzles here), the game isn’t afraid to slow the action down in spots, take your guns away and give you some time alone with BJ. Don’t get me wrong, the body count by the end is absurd, but these small moments of calm are a good way to absorb the wedge of story that has been created. There are also oodles of cutscenes, but thanks to the excellent writing these don’t feel like unnecessary filler. THE INDEPENDENT