The reboot of wolfenstein (The new order) was a pretty fun game nazi blasting at it's best running along blasting away duel wielding shotguns and machineguns blowing armor off mechanized nazis like confetti and then glueing to yourself was a fun time. It's story with an alternate 1960's where the reich won the war and dominated Europe and the US with their superior tech was fun too.
Now the sequel has just come out and it takes things from Europe to the US to retake the country from Nazi occupation. With the lead character William J. "Terror Billy" Blazkowicz putting the boot to nazi's and nazi sympathizers with equal relish.
The game has the same mechanics for the most part with a sprinkling of new stuff. You get a selection of upgradeable weapons all dual wieldable and I can't remember if you could do this in the previous game but you can mix and match so wield an auto shotgun with an machine gun or pistol or the special gun. Each gun is individually triggered either with the two triggers on a game pad or mouse buttons.
It also has some dual hand weapons usually limited use things like the laser cannon or heavy machine gun or the flame thrower which are usually much more powerful but give you limited mobility.
Then there's the old faithful the hatchet which can be used for melee or stealth kills or if you have multiple thrown to stealth kill from a distance.
Gameplay is usually broken down like this. Each level will have multiple sections which have one or two commanders. You try to stealth your way to these commanders and take them out as they have the ability to call in reinforcements and make the fight that much harder. Often there are some sneak able pathways hidden routes especially later in the game when you pick up some of the mobility upgrades or contraptions as the game calls them. It's an oddly old school shooter set levels very little rpg like mechanics a couple of weapon upgrades and some little motion upgrades limited cover mechanics.
Enemies range from squishy grunts to more heavily armored troopers to the supersoldier metal encased ironman mk1 looking enemies who usually duel wield the heavy weapons and have a rocket charge attack. There are also things like dogs who a can sniff you out through stealth or robot dogs later in the game. Then there are a few hulking mechanized walkers that offer a serious challenge.
Some of these you can stealth kill the supersoldiers if you sneak up on them you can cut their fuel lines leaving a trail of fuel you can then ignite later.
It feels like the difficulty has been ramped a little over the previous game in that you die quickly and often even on moderate settings. Especially when you fail to stealth kill the commanders first and a never ending stream of enemies harass you till you hunt them down. Some section I would go in with full health and armor and get shredded in seconds by trying the frontal assault method. This can make the game a little frustrating at times which is a bit of a shame as it has some really awesome set pieces. Even from the beginning where a broken and injured Blazkowicz has to make his way through a submarine in a wheelchair fighting off Nazi invaders as he goes. To riding one of the flamethrowing mechanize dogs through the streets of New Orleans toasting Nazi's left and right.
There's also an element of dark humor sprinkled throughout the cut scenes like the beginning where the submarine is filled with microwave traps that vaporize enemies passing through them. There is a whole section where you are talking with another character and in the background clueless nazis keep walking through this trap some running others looking around on tip toeing all of them exploding messily.
It makes for an odd mix the fairly unforgiving stealth which one trooper spots you and immediately all the others and the commanders know and attack with the difficulty such that even wearing some sort of alien super suit with health overcharged (health can go above max to 200 but slowly ticks down) and full armor you can get completely shredded in moments but with some really fun set pieces and a pretty good story with some great moments. It also covers some interesting ground with the american white population having fallen in with the nazis and appointed the KKK to rule with minorities pushed out or killed and becoming some of the only real resistance in the US.
I also like that when the right wing nut jobs got all upset buy the "kill nazi's" promotions rather than back away and placate Bethesda and the swedish developers doubled down and basically just said "Fuck Nazi's".
I enjoyed the game even with it's frustrations the set pieces were really good and the action is old school shooter crazyness racing along blasting nazi's with dual weild automatic shotguns.
It also has a great metal version of "we're not going to take it" over the end credits.