Wolfenstein: The New Order puts you back in the shoes of B.J. Blaskowicz, Nazi-killer extraordinaire, for another adventure. The game was developed by a new team at Bethesda, MachineGames, and uses the id Tech 5 engine that debuted in RAGE. The Wolfenstein franchise needed something big, and id Software has been struggling a bit and needed a win. The New Order really had a lot to prove.

And it certainly has.

For those who are unfamiliar with the franchise, Wolfenstein takes place during an alternate World War II, where The Third Reich's research into the supernatural and advanced technology pays off. Where other WWII games strive for realism, Wolfenstein has always basked in its absurdity-- Wolfenstein 3D had you fighting Mecha-Hitler, for example.

The New Order is no exception. From the very beginning, the game is over-the-top in its action, lovingly paying homage to the roots of the series. But it's not without heart-- the storyline is good enough, nothing spectacular, but used as a mechanism to tie the different areas together and set you up with reasons to cause mayhem, but the characters in the story feel very real, with real motivations, and real emotions.

The game opens in 1946, but due to some events that I won't spoil, you'll soon be in the 1960s in an even *more* alternate reality where the Nazis won the war, and now rule the world. You'll go to many different amazing places, including a secret underwater compound, and one that's so awesome I don't even want to mention it here.

Graphically, The New Order has all the benefits and downfalls of the id Tech 5 engine we saw in RAGE. Facial detail is fantastic, and characters' eyes are almost hit the uncanny valley in a few situations. For the most part, the world looks very nice as well, but when you get up close to a wall, for example, you can see where id Tech 5's megatextures start to be a drawback, lacking in detail. Making very fast movements close up to a wall will also cause some major pop-in issues where the wall is blurry for a half a second or so before the texture finishes rendering. These are minor problems, though, that you'll rarely ever see. Overall, the game is quite pretty.

The soundtrack is a standout feature for me. Many famous songs were re-recorded in German. Have you ever wondered what would happen if Germany won WWII and The Beatles had to start recording their songs in German? You can now find out.

But lets get to the meat of the game-- how does it play? Almost perfectly. The gunplay is some of the best I can remember, and for a game like this, it really needs to be. It strikes a balance between making you feel like an absolute badass and giving you a sense of danger. Yes, you can dual-wield assault rifles with rocket-launcher attachments and take out tons of enemies, but you aren't invincible. You'll need to run and grab some health or hide occasionally, and you need to be smart.

One new addition to The New Order is stealth. You can go through and kill everything as loudly and explosively as you like, or you can sneak around the levels, knifing enemies from behind or using silenced weapons to take them down without being seen. This is generally smart to do, at least at first, because you can take out commanders before they sound the alarm and call for reinforcements. You can't use stealth in every situation, but you can theoretically get through most of the game without ever being seen.

The one downside to the gameplay that I've found is the health, armor, and ammo pickups. You can't just walk over them, you have to hit E to grab them. This makes for a lot of major battles after which you end up spending a minute cleaning up loot. It's a minor inconvenience, but it definitely takes you out of the game.

The difficulty curve is pretty steady for the most part, but I found that sometimes there are outliers where things seem unreasonably tricky for a battle or two before returning to the curve you're used to. I guess this is normal. It's both frustrating and exciting, but it's "Nintendo-hard," not bullshit-hard. You can see what you're doing wrong and correct for it, which just makes you feel more awesome.

Something you would expect to find in a modern shooter that is absent here is multiplayer. Unless they release a multiplayer add-on, you're on your own. I don't count this as a strike against the game by any means. Single-player has been lacking in many first-person shooters over the past few years, and I'm glad to see it get the full attention it deserves.

You can tell MachineGames has great respect for the source material. The difficulty options are the same as they've always been, ranging from "Can I Play Daddy?" to "I Am Death Incarnate." There are TONS of collectibles and secrets, just as you'd expect from a Wolfenstein game, and some of them let you unlock new play modes, including a new Über difficulty. The game still taunts you for your cowardice when you exit the game. It really feels like a Wolfenstein game.

Really, The New Order feels like the "classic" style shooter with 2014 sensibilities. With realistic and cover-based shooters becoming the norm these days, it's refreshing to see a run-and-gun, badass shooter that can compete.

Wolfenstein: The New Order is a game of balance. The carnage, mayhem, and B-movie sensibilities balanced with believable, well-written characters that you care about; The classic shooter playstyle and fanservice for the old Wolfenstein fans balanced with enough modern shooter tendencies to pull in a new fanbase; Feeling like a total Übermensch while mowing down everything in your path balanced with a sense of danger and urgency. The balance never feels off.

Without spoiling the ending, it is written with an opening for more games, or as a good bookend to the series. I suppose whether we get more games will depend on its popularity. I, for one, hope for more. I already want to jump back in.