game box imageReview:
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Reviewer: Adrian Fahrer
Edited by: Mike Dixon (4/2/03)
Mac publisher: Aspyr Media ($39.99 est. retail price)


screenshot 1Dateline 1943, We’re deep in WWII, you are a U.S. Army Ranger who has just been dropped straight into the center of the Third Reich… what do you do? In Return to Castle Wolfenstein, you pick up whatever weapon is available and fight your way out to freedom. So whether you want to tackle the entire Nazi regime by yourself or join up with your fellow officers to go on a multiplayer blitzkrieg, prepare to fight of your life.



This was tested in both OS 9 and Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2). It worked flawlessly in OS 9 and while it crashed in Jaguar. Aspyr has assured me that with the ATI Radeon/Nvidia GeForce series video card that it does work fine. A nice feature that has been built into the installation of this game is an automatic search of Aspyr’s servers for any updates to the game that have been made since its release. Overall, the performance of this game was excellent. [Editor's note: as a beta tester of this game, I highly recommend that those considering buying this game do so only if you have a Mac with a 733 MHz G4 or faster and a 16 MB video card or better. Anything slower than this will cause the game to be sluggish at times and, sometimes, become unstable.]



screenshot 2Finally, we have the next game in the Wolfenstein series. Return to Castle Wolfenstein (RTCW) is a first-person shooter that sticks you into the persona of a U.S. soldier in the middle of World War II. Strategy and stealth are the keys to this game. To make your way to safety you have to choose your weapon carefully from the large arsenal of authentic weapons available and choose your shot even more carefully. The difficulty level begins fairly easy and steadily increases as you progress, adding in more of a maze like scenario to the game in the latter levels. A big plus of this game for all of us who still remember Wolfenstein 3D, is that most of the weapons, characters, and features have been kept from the old version and given a major revamp. It also gives you the option of playing an online match with/against people over a local area network (LAN) or the Internet.

The only disappointment in the game I found was the rendering of characters. The backgrounds and scenery have been so well done that the slightly polygonal characters stick out like sore thumbs, unless you are a couple yards away from them. [Editor's note: the better the video card you have, the better the characters will look.] Other than that, Return to Castle Wolfenstein is great.



screenshot 3No bugs to report. [Editor's note: be sure to utilize the automatic update feature in the game and get any updates to the game before beginning. This will ensure you have a smooth gaming experience.]



Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a wonderful update to 1992’s Wolfenstein 3D. While it takes up more than the ancestor's 836 kilobytes, it is definitely worth the hard drive space. The sound and graphics make for a very realistic and exciting game. So whether you choose difficulty levels like “Don’t Hurt Me Daddy” or “I Am Death Incarnate” you're in for a blast with Return to Castle Wolfenstein. [Editor's note: this game contains often extreme amounts of realistic blood and gore and it is suggested that only those ages 17 and up play this game.]

rated M, ages 17+

  • Mac OS 9.2 or later with virtual memory active; Mac OS X 10.1 or later
  • Power Mac G3 or G4 (iMac flat panel or later) or PowerBook G4 (Gigabit Ethernet or later)
  • 500 MHz processor or faster
  • 128 MB RAM available (256 MB RAM for Mac OS X)
  • Graphics Acceleration Required (ATI Radeon, Nvidia GeForce or later)
  • iBook G3 500 MHz
  • 384 MB RAM
  • 10 GB hard drive
  • Mac OS 9.2.2, Mac OS 10.2.1
  • Power Mac G4/733 MHz
  • 384 MB RAM
  • 32 MB video card
  • Wonderful backgrounds
  • Realistic sound effects
  • Nostalgic
  • Automatic updates
  • Character rendering doesn’t match background rendering as well (depending on your video card)
  • hardware intensive
  • recommended for adults only

5.0
(out of 5)