The music, unfortunately, isn’t very much – the longest “song” in the game is only about a minute long, and the music is often repeating infinitely, but it’s composed in such a way that it provides background audio and is never extremely loud or irritating. All of this is supplemented by an excellent soundscape of ambient noise, machinery, real alarm klaxons, powerful gunfire, and orchestrated music. The “photo-sourced” look has held up surprisingly well, and the Quake 3 Arena engine’s graphical muscle makes sure that everything is rendering believably as well, including what might be the best-looking flamethrower effect in the history of video gaming, that even the game’s own sequel couldn’t hope to one-up. The character models are excellent as well, using real faces and real German uniforms. Everything from Castle Wolfenstein itself, to the village of Wulfberg, to the V-Weapons Complex and the Uber-Soldat laboratories is absolutely spot-on in terms of atmosphere and texture work, and it’s not easy to get lost, even given the relative non-linearity of certain maps. Thankfully, outside of these two utter stinkers of missions, RTCW‘s level design is excellent. By the end of these sequences, though, it’s great to back to fighting the regular Nazis again. The “zombie” sections almost feel as if they go on for a bit too long, but the level design is still just as believable and well-made as the rest of the game, and the Half-Life-inspired scripted sequences break up the monotony. So at certain points during the game, you will find yourself going through old tombs and churches within Germany, where you will fight zombified knights, whose shields can deflect your bullets, and other zombies who can attack you at a distance with their ghostly skull projectiles. The central element of the game’s story, Operation Resurrection, has the SS Paranormal Division unearthing the remains of Heinrich the First, a “dark knight” from Germany’s storied past who possessed powers that could help Germany win the war. In true keeping with the Wolfenstein 3D style of including not only more “traditional” World War II stylings but also more fantastical elements, RTCW takes somewhat lengthy detours into the supernatural.
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