Format: Xbox One
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Developer: MachineGames
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

id Tech 5-- John Carmack's final gift to the world as an employee of the company he helped co-found all those years ago-- shows itself well here; crumbling Nazi castles, shiny pristine U-boat torpedo bays, and pastel French countrysides are all represented with splendor. Or at least at first glance; nit-pickers will point to some decidedly "last-gen" textures and models that, in spots, illustrate that the series hasn't quite stepped into "eighth hardware generation" boots that fit so snugly on competing games, such as Killzone: Shadow Fall.

The Mick Gordon soundtrack is the same kind of new-age, light rock, pretentious baloney making its way through much of the Hollywood circuit at the moment, and is best forgotten. The rest of the game's audio is well done; setting aside for a minute whether voice acted dialog should even have a place in video games, the acting here is some of the best yet heard in a video game, with several of the cast members putting in A+ performances.

The New Order has plenty of fun-to-explore maps with secret areas, like a cut-down take on the original Wolfenstein 3d. It has a robust corner-looking mechanic, reminiscent of 2001's Return to Castle Wolfenstein. It has pseudo-stealth elements, like a simplified Splinter Cell. It has ambitious writing and fully motion captured and voice acted cut-scenes, like a Nazi-filled Alan Wake. It's always dangerous to piece together so many disparate design sensibilities from both the past and present, yet this Wolfenstein game does a great job of it.

The New Order's biggest problem is that it doesn't excel at any one thing; the writing tries to be sophisticated and dabbles its toes into complex questions, but isn't quite gutsy enough to go the full mile, causing the narrative to come off flat. Despite having one of the best first-person shooter guns of all time-- the laser gun-- the gunplay itself could use a bit more panache. The level design lets the player roam, but still feels constrained by the Half-Life school of map design. Quibbles aside, this new Wolfenstein is a meaty and substantial game, made all the more relevant by the dearth of quality single-player focused titles the genre features these days.