So I’ve just heard about Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. (yeah, I know, where have I been?)
Firstly:
It’s free? Is it really free? What’s the catch? Stand-alone multiplayer? Please tell me it’s not another America’s Army. Any guesses as to why they would offer such a thing?
Secondly:
Opinions? Any dopers been playing it? Is it worth the download? Look how cynical I am. The game is free and I still want to know if its worth it.
Most importantly:
Will it fill the FPS gaming void in my life for the next few months while I wait for HL2? Or, will I connect to a server and utter the dreaded one-syllable “Meh”.
What’s the straight dope?
**BTW, I played the RTCW and liked it. Well, let me rephrase that: I happily played through the rich single player game and subsequently never played it again.
Well, I played the public beta and it was pretty “meh”. The model animations were pretty poor and there were clipping issues. The guns didn’t really feel right and the sniper rifles were pretty ridiculous. That may all have changed in the latest version though.
As far as gameplay, it was okay but not really polished feeling. The single map I played requires some teamwork but a good enough player would be able to beat the enemy pretty easily. So yeah.
Yes, it’s really free. Enemy Territory was originally going to be an add-on to Return to Castle Wolfenstein. It ended up being a non-endorsed completely free stand-alone game.
It’s not an America’s Army. The game was made for love. Pure and simple. Free as in beer.
Secondly:
I love it. I played RTCW a lot, and Battlefield 1942 stole my affections, and then Desert Combat .3 and .35, and now Enemy Territory has me back.
Most importantly:
If you did not play and enjoy RTCW multiplayer, you will not enjoy Enemy Territory. You will complain as bernse and SouprChckn do, because it won’t be what you expect. It’s the most team-based FPS that I’ve played (including Battlefield) which has the potential to amuse or annoy you, depending on your preferred playing style.
I suspect you’ll say ‘meh’ if you never played multiplayer, but I may well be wrong. I’m [DCW]BazookaJoe on there, and yes, I only use the panzerfaust.
SouprChckn - you may say that a good enough player would be able to beat the enemy pretty easily, but I daresay that you haven’t played it very much. All six of the maps are reasonably well balanced, and while I consider myself a very skilled player in comparison to most (in that I regularly score at the top or in the top three on the server) it is definitely not easy to win.
In summary: it’s completely and totally free. It might not be your cup of tea. I can’t get enough of it.
I couldn’t get it to update the available servers list after I installed it. So tried for an hour, gave up, and deinstalled it.
BTW- it was intended as a for-profit venture the whole way. It was cancelled after basically being finished (not a good sign).
I set up a private server right before deinstalling it just to take a look- basically it is not different then the regular RTCW multiplayer. Which is why it was probably canceled as a stand alone commercial product.
Of course it’s basically not different. It was intended as an add-on to the existing game. There are some minor changes to gameplay, an additional class, several new maps – but as I said, if you didn’t enjoy RTCW multiplayer, you won’t enjoy this.
For me, playing by myself is of casual interest. Playing with a group of friends using TeamSpeak or Roger Wilco and joining the same team is of great interest.
Ino, thanks for the detailed review. I connected to a game last night and I thought it was pretty cool. I felt a little lost though. Could you give me a quick runthrough of how the game works?
Whats the deal with objectives? Experience points? Whats the overall flow of the game. It didn’t strike me as a pure CTF type game. Very interesting.
