RTCW – The esoteric shooter

Lately, I started gaming again and picked Return to Castle Wolfenstein. This is a really atmospheric shooter from 2001. Played in 1600 x 1200 (unfortunately you can’t choose wide screen formats) and with all graphics options set to the highest level, it still makes an impression.

In this game, the Nazis are experimenting with the occult and an american soldier has to stop them all alone. Sounds crazy, but it’s really fun to shoot all this terrifying Ubersoldaten and insane nazi henchmen. Only the evil Heinrich I. is a bit easy to kill.

I’m sure, if any of the rituals they use in this game would work, the Nazis would have summoned everything they could, so the game is pretty realistic in a way. Of course, this whole occult thing is plain bullshit and I hope no one took the game seriously… 😉

One could criticize, that while the game certainly doesn’t support the nazi ideology, it somehow “supports” esotericism in the same way X-Files does: the occult rituals turn out to be quite real, but no one should know and the army keeps their findings secret. It’s the same narrative that is used in conspiracy theories. However, the plot is clearly a satire and much too ridiculous to be taken literally. I don’t think it supports critical thinking but it doesn’t seem to support the opposite, either. And in the end it’s just fun to play.