Introduction
What's this game?
Did you play Wolfenstein: The New Order? Did you watch my LP of it? If so, you have the basic premise. The Old Blood is a prequel to The New Order showcasing the events that led up to the assault on Deathshead's compound that served as the prologue for TNO. It takes place entirely in 1946 and opens with BJ Blazkowicz sneaking into Castle Wolfenstein with Agent One, a fellow OSA agent and apparently a good friend. As things go for BJ, shit hits the fan and, well, watch the videos. It isn't a full game by the way, but more of a standalone expansion. MachineGames put The Old Blood out a little over a year after TNO launched and it was only available via download for $20. All of that and MachineGames stating it was more an expansion than full fledged entry didn't stop game reviewers from harping on the length, the lack of variety in locations (it only takes place in a castle and then a village instead of being a world hopping adventure) and the minimal character development BJ undergoes in this game when compared to the surprising amount in TNO that quickly became some people's favorite part of the game. If you want all these complaints in one spot, here's Kotaku's review
Why are you playing this if it isn't as good as the first game
Because the guy from Kotaku is really bad at video games and can't enjoy things doesn't make the game bad. Most review sites ended up giving the game 3.5 stars or 70 out of 100. Some reviews contradicted each other, with the Kotaku review claiming the stealth sections were linear and that made it difficult to avoid getting caught and the Polygon review claiming they were too wide open and that led him to being caught too often. I think both failed to recognize that the formula for stealth sections was adjusted a bit to make it harder to just cap the commanders from a mile away with a pistol and call it a day. Look: the gameplay is generally as good as TNO, the guns are fun to use, almost every combat or stealth room is well designed and the gimmick weapon in the game is well utilized and has some great animations to it. By all accounts, this is a really good game.
Gimmick Weapon?
TNO had the LKW, the giant laser weapon. This game has...a three foot length of pipe. Well, I guess technically it has two pieces of pipes that BJ can thread together or hold separately depending on what he needs to do. It serves as your primary melee weapon, but can also open up doors, prop things open, hit buttons and serve as rock climbing equipment when needed. It also has some brutal animations that come along with stealth kills or as part of normal combat. For a time it serves as your only weapon so you can get familiar with the capabilities of the pipe, and like the LKW, it is useful to necessary throughout the game. Just like in TNO the majority of the games weapons can be dual wielded, which makes you move slower but provides more firepower. Unlike TNO where every weapon had some form of secondary fire function, only a few guns here have one and they are generally more down to earth than turning your sniper rifle into a laser gun. Also different from TNO is the ability to change the fire mode on either gun when dual wielding.
This game is fairly short, right?
Yes, about four hours if you are playing for the first time, less than that if you know what you are doing. I debated just bringing back the TNO thread to do this real quick, but I've elected to simply do another short game alongside this one (more on that when it happens). I'm also probably going to jump into the challenge mode in this game just to show that off.
Videos
Characters
Name:BJ Blazkowicz
Occupation: OSA Agent/Killing Machine
Rap Name: B-Cubed
BJ is the player character throughout the Wolfenstein series and is basically seen by everyone as a sentient pile of muscle and anger. In the New Order we saw he had far more emotional depth than his tough guy exterior would let on through a series of day dreams and inner monologues. That mostly flies out the window in The Old Blood as it is meant to be more of a throwback to the old Wolfenstein games to a degree. BJ still has mental conversations with himself revealing more about his family and childhood, but mostly focuses on the mission and killing Nazis
Name: Richard Wesley
Occupation: Welsh Secret Agent
Rap Name: Wes-One
Agent One is constantly called just Wesley in this game to the point where I thought it was his first name. His status as Agent One is a throwback to Return to Castle Wolfenstein and depending on how you read some game files the name Wesley may also be a holdover from that game. This is clearly a different guy, though because the original Agent One was electrocuted to death in a different Castle Wolfenstein in 1943. How many Agents named Wesley and castles called Wolfenstein are there in the world? Why does BJ always have to travel to one with the other?
Name: Rudi Jager
Occupation: Giant Fuck-All SS Dog Enthusiast
Rap Name: Old Rudi Bastard
Rudi is a high ranking SS officer and the main antagonist for the first half of The Old Blood. With Helga out of the castle he runs the place and that seemingly only consists of torturing people, feeding dogs and torturing people by feeding them to his dogs. He has an albino dog given to him by Hitler himself named Greta and if you say anything about that dog Rudi will fucking crush your skull in his hands. I mean, he doesn't do that in game, but look at that dude, he's bigger than BJ and BJ already looks like a lab experiment to see how much muscle a person could have before they couldn't move under their own weight.