Another looking back at 2024. This one I finished (again) on 11/3.  I thought that I had played this game a while back, but I either didn't write about it, or both the search capabilities of Blogger and Xbox stink.

Anyway, I started playing the New Colossus, when I realized that it was a sequel to The New Order, so I went back to this, only to realize that I had played it back in the XBOX 360 era... Since I was about a third of the way through the game, I thought I would just finish it so I could get the entire story fresh in my mind before I switched gears to play The New Order.

Plot summary from Wikipedia:

In July 1946, Blazkowicz and his comrades take part in an air raid against a fortress and weapons laboratory run by Deathshead but are captured and brought to a human experimentation laboratory. Blazkowicz escapes from the laboratory's emergency incinerator, although he is severely injured. He is admitted to a Polish psychiatric asylum where he remains in a catatonic state. In 1960, the Nazi regime orders the asylum to be "shut down" and executes Anya's parents when they resist. Blazkowicz awakens from his vegetative state and eliminates the extermination squad before escaping with Anya. Blazkowicz and Anya drive to her grandparents' farm, where they inform him that the Nazis had defeated the United States in 1948 and that the members of the ensuing anti-Nazi Resistance have been captured. Blazkowicz interrogates a captured officer from the asylum, learning that the top members of the Resistance are imprisoned in Berlin's Eisenwald Prison. Anya's grandparents smuggle her and Blazkowicz through a checkpoint in Stettin before they travel to Berlin. During the train ride, Blazkowicz encounters Frau Engel for the first time. When they arrive, Anya helps Blazkowicz break into Eisenwald Prison, where he rescues the person he spared fourteen years prior (Fergus or Wyatt) and finds that the Resistance movement is led by Caroline, who was left paralyzed due to an incident at Isenstadt in 2009's Wolfenstein.

The Resistance executes an attack on a Nazi research facility in London, bombing their operations base, and stealing secret documents and prototype stealth helicopters. The documents reveal the Nazis are relying on reverse-engineered technology derived from the Da'at Yichud, which created such inventions as energy weapons, computer artificial intelligence, and super concrete; however, it is revealed that someone is tampering with the super concrete's formula, making it susceptible to mold deterioration. The Resistance discovers a match with Set, who is imprisoned in Camp Belica. Blazkowicz agrees to go undercover inside Camp Belica and meets Set, who tells him that the Nazis have co-opted Da'at Yichud technology to mass-produce and control robots, and offers to help the Resistance in return for the destruction of the camp. Blazkowicz finds a battery for a device that controls Camp Belica's robots, which he and Set then use to incapacitate Engel, destroy the camp, and liberate its prisoners.

Set reveals that the Nazis' discovery of one of the Da'at Yichud caches, which included advanced technology centuries ahead of its time, allowed Germany to surpass the Allies in military might. Set agrees to assist the Resistance by revealing the location of one such cache but states that the Resistance requires a U-boat to access it.[19] Blazkowicz obtains a U-boat but discovers that it is the flagship of the Nazis' submarine fleet, and is equipped with a cannon designed to fire nuclear warheads, which requires keycodes from the Nazi lunar research facility to operate.[20] Blazkowicz uses the Spindly Torque—a Da'at Yichud spherical device capable of destroying super concrete—to steal the identity of a Nazi lunar scientist and infiltrate the Lunar Base. He succeeds at obtaining the keycodes, but upon returning to Earth, he discovers that Engel has mounted an assault on the Resistance base, capturing some of its members on behalf of Deathshead.

The Resistance use the Spindly Torque to break open Deathshead's compound. After liberating the compound's captives, Blazkowicz travels to the top of the tower, where Deathshead's workshop is located. Inside, Deathshead reveals to Blazkowicz that he possesses the preserved brain of the soldier Blazkowicz chose to die, putting it in a robot. The robot comes alive and assaults Blazkowicz, who defeats it, destroys the brain, and puts his friend to rest. Commandeering a larger robot mecha, Deathshead attacks Blazkowicz, who gets the upper hand and destroys the robot. He drags Deathshead out of the wreckage and attacks him, who pulls out and arms a grenade which kills himself and gravely wounds Blazkowicz. As he crawls towards a window, Blazkowicz mentally recites "The New Colossus" as he watches the Resistance survivors board a helicopter. Believing they have reached safety, Blazkowicz gives instructions to fire the nuclear cannon. After the credits, a helicopter is heard approaching.

Overall thoughts:

Obviously, I'd play this again...because I did! I really like this game and the story didn't feel repetitive. I had obviously forgotten some bits and pieces of the story over the years, and I feel like, from a story-telling perspective, that it was worth the replay. I wish I had remembered to take a nap every time I went to the safehouse because that seems to be the way to permanently incrementally increase your overall health.  The choice of who to save (Fergus or Wyatt) was the same across both attempts: Fergus.  I wonder what my choice would have been had I not associated Fergus with Simon Pegg😹 (the actual voice actor for Fergus is Gideon Emery).  As much as I liked the replay, I would not keep playing to unlock all the combat options.  I eventually got tired of trying to get the various dual-wield, slide, headshot kills (etc.), and opted for a straight up "don't disturb the horner's nest" approach (aka stealth), but if push comes to shove blow it all up.

My big "aha!" while playing this game is that my gaming style has changed a lot over the years.  I used to hate stealth games. I remember playing Splinter Cell and not liking having to sneak around (preferring a "blast everything" approach), but in this game I saw that my gaming style had totally shifted. Better to work in the shadows than be out in the open.

Overall Stats from the Xbox dashboard:

• Gamerscore: 400/1000
• Achievements: 19/50
• Commander kills: 43
• Steal Kills: 60
• Dual-Wielding Kills: 64
• Total Kills: 929
• Hours played: 16

Trailer