Bad Game or One Bad Choice? Wolfenstein: Youngblood

Game reviews are a useful tool, and I’ll admit, I do read them before I purchase or play a game I’ve never heard of. That being said, I also apply critical thinking when reading reviews. I mean, c’mon, we’ve all seen a one star titled something like “Not Enough Tits”.

But when a game garners one star after one star after one star and the reasons stated seem valid enough, it does give me pause. It doesn’t necessarily discourge me completely, but if the game is full price, yeah…I might wait till it’s on sale. All that being said (I promise this rambling has a point), if the title with trash reviews is free with GamePass, I’ll usually give it a shot, reviews be damned. And sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised. Such was the case with Wolfenstein: Youngblood. See! Told ya I had a point. Thanks for sticking with me 🙂

Here’s some screenshots of the reviews for Youngblood.

Yikes! Not gonna lie, if I’d been a dev for this game I’d have considered seppuku. I didn’t capture the reviews based on bugs or microtransactions. Unfortunately that’s just gaming these days. But the reviews based on actual content, the consensus is that the protagonists are annoying, the bosses are bullet sponges, and the whole game ruins the franchise. But here’s the thing. I didn’t find any of that to be true. Well, not completely true anyway.

First let’s look at the other Wolfenstein games from the reboot starting 2014. In The New Order, The Old Blood and The New Colossus, you play as BJ Blaskowicz, the baddest bada$$ who ever engaged in bada$$ery. All three games are closed world, single player, and they all limit the skills and weapons the player can acquire. And they all are a hell of a lot violent mayhem-y fun. But they are far from perfect and occasionally the storylines veer off into absurdity.

Let’s take the most nebulous allegation first: Youngblood ruined the Wolfenstein franchise. That’s a bold assertion. Yes, it did stray from the formula of the other three games, but I found a lot of the changes added to the game. For instance, you’ve got a lot more control over the skill tree. Hell, the fact that you level up and earn points to spend to improve your character is big plus in Youngblood. You can also upgrade your weapons with money you collect. Not to mention, the game is semi-open world with side quests and other events to explore instead of a closed storyline. And the fast travel makes exploration super easy.

As for the bosses being bulletsponges…I mean c’mon. Name a video game where the boss isn’t tankier than f%&k? It’s true some of the bosses in the other Wolfenstein games do have a bit a puzzle element to them. You have to figure out how to weaken them before you can blast away at their now exposed bullet-sponginess. And there are some unique qualities to each boss in Youngblood. To me the big struggle in the boss battles was keeping Sophia alive while playing solo. She’s not the savviest of AIs. While I, as Jess, took cover and tried to evade the big attacks, Sophia would face-tank the whole fight and inevitably go down. WTF, Soph? Seriously, WTF?!

Speaking of Jess and Soph brings me to what I think is the central “problem” of the game. As many players stated in their reviews, the main characters are annoying. Okay, yes, I agree that their vernacular such as “tubular” and “cool, dude” does sound a bit absurd. But the fact that game takes place in 1981 makes their affected speech totally appropriate. I was alive way back then and folks—especially teenage girls—did speak that way. I’m guilty of it myself. Gross, I know. Like, gag me with a spoon (go ahead, Google that phrase. I’ll wait)

Not to get on my feminist high horse (I promise, I’m not) but I think what all the horrid reviews boil down to is the fact that the game’s fan base is predominantly male. Cis gender hetero males. I mean, c’mon, the other games had a difficulty setting called “Daddy, can I play?” And there’s nothing wrong with that. There are plenty of games that target a specific group of the population. And I think it’s okay that said fan base didn’t like the devs forcing them to play as teenage girls.

I’m definitely not dinging the franchise for offering female protagonists. But the twins are fraternal so why not make one male and one female like Assassin’s Creed Syndicate? I would have loved to see BJ, Jr. in action. The devs missed an opportunity to appeal to a wider audience while still taking care of the traditional male gamers who supported the franchise. I’m all for freedom of choice so let’s give gamers a real option here instead of erroring so far in the opposite direction.

I applaud the emergence of female main characters who aren’t dressed like harlots and who look like they workout and could actually whoop some a$$. But should everyone be forced to play as those characters? I don’t believe so. That’s no better than us OG gamer girls having only male characters to play. For a reeeeeally long time. There’s a time and a place to make big changes, but I don’t think a super macho franchise such Wolfenstein is the platform to start changing hearts and minds. But I’d like to hear from my readers on this. Do you like playing as the opposite gender or would you prefer more choice in the games you play?

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