Games

One of the most revered franchises in videogame history returns for another slice of Nazi-fighting fun, five years after the previous offering. Set in an alternate universe where the Nazis won World War II and now seek complete global domination, Wolfenstein: The New Order reunites joypad-wielders with series hero B.J. Blazkowicz, freshly roused (in the 1960s) from a coma in a Polish asylum. Soon, you're hot-footing it across Europe, trying to help the Resistance halt Nazi expansion.

The strengths here are the well-paced chapter-based plot that puts many other first-person shooters to shame by actually being interesting, and inevitably, the gunplay. Wolfenstein: TNO is insatiably bloodthirsty and all the better for it, but there's more to its mechanics than just tapping R1, with a level of stealth and tactics on offer to give you the upper-hand in the fire-fights. Some levels can feel a bit repetitive, though.

Sonically, this sounds good on a cinema setup, with considerable weight given to the artillery, although dialogue is sometimes hard to discern. And graphically it's quite pretty, though not a reference-grade next-gen experience (we played the PS4 version). Perhaps its main problem is the strength of the first-person-shooter competition – other titles trade narrative flair for out-and-out slickness.

Wolfenstein: The New Order, Bethesda, Xbox 360/Xbox One/PS3/PS4/PC, £50 Approx
HCC VERDICT: 4/5