The story isn't up to much and only serves as wallpaper to the main action in the game, and it's wallpaper that's sagging in parts at that. Most of the mission objectives are interesting enough, involving tasks such as secret document theft, acting as a tank escort tasked with taking out anti-tank troops or even plain ol' dignitary assassination. Reasonably interesting missions such as these and better than average voice acting don't go far in saving what is otherwise a pretty unremarkable back-story. The intro video reveals that long ago Heinrich I was banished, magically sealed beneath the earth. Of course, the vicious Nazis couldn't resist bringing this man of evil back into our world and so the World War II backdrop to Return to Castle Wolfenstein gets an injection of the occult. And it doesn't work. While the German soldiers, regulars and specialists alike, exhibit excellent AI by ducking behind cover, rolling away from your shots and even *gasp* openings doors and climbing ladders, the zombies are slow and dense as tradition dictates. The only way for the developers to make them challenging adversaries was to make them tougher than humans, so for the few missions where you have to fight zombies it's just a case of slowly walking backwards and pumping ridiculous amounts of gunfire into each of them. Yawn. There are actually mercifully few zombie missions in the game, fewer than I expected, but aside from being full foes they lend an overly ridiculous feel to the game. Female German special forces troops in thigh boots and black leather is one thing, undead minions is another. They just don't fit and it almost feels as if they were tacked on as a good excuse for harder enemies near the end and a big boss character (I'm sure you can guess who that is).

Weak storyline and zombies aside, what Wolfenstein does do well it does very well. For one, the action may offer nothing new but it's too much fun to pass up anyway. Maybe it's the satisfying and varied weapons, maybe the high quality enemy AI, but on the whole the action in Return to Castle Wolfenstein offers straight forward, wall-to-wall action similar to that of games like Quake 2, Kingpin and SiN. The old Secret Area concept also makes a welcome return and while it's unlikely that you'll want to go back to find all the secret areas you missed, finding a hidden stash of health and ammo when you're running low is always nice. Wolfenstein is also gorgeous, so much so you'll have to remind yourself to blink at times. It has some of the best looking explosions since the last game by Rage (they know their digital pyrotechnics, those lads) and the models, environments and textures are often impressively detailed. Best of all, the lads at Gray Matter have outdone themselves with the flame thrower which looks simply amazing, finally outclassing the flamethrower effects from Kingpin (no surprise there as a number of the Gray Matter guys worked on that game too). The little pilot light flickers left and right when you turn around and flame licks over roasted enemies convincingly, gruesome sight though it may be. The price of such visual finery is high though - this is one of the first games where I've had to turn many graphical settings down to "medium" just so it would run smoothly on my PC.