Operation: Arctic Wolf Special Edition

Operation Arctic Wolf is one of two Wolfendoom mapsets that people actually like, the other being the Rheingold one, and here it's easy to see why. Laz managed to kick ass with the dehacked work, allowing for loads of shootable things, which not only includes enemies, but coffee mugs, water coolers, explosive fire extinguishers, barrels, canisters, all this makes the whole experience feel not just WolfenDoom-y, but Duke 3D like. the setting is admirable too, what else can you expect from a title like that, having Blaskowicz streamline through very nice-looking Arctic landscapes.

...or so you'd think.

you're probably wondering, why the 1 star. simple. the gameplay is atrocious. now, I'm basing this off of NightFright's ZDoom compatibility pk3 for this wad, so this review may be a bit off. anyways, you're already expecting hitscanner-heavy combat when you play just about anything involving Wolfendoom, but this takes things to a whole unholy level. it's a problem when the basic enemies are difficult to even kill, and by that, I mean the SS. for much of the beginning of the game. and these SS have far too much health than they should. they can even survive a rocket to the face at times. combine this with a lack of good supplies, little health and BARELY any armor, and lack of worthwhile weapons to plow through the SS, and you're already making things worse. see, from MAP09 up to MAP17, you're best choices of weapons are dual pistols and the shotgun replacement (which only fires slightly faster), and a good amount of enemies are gonna be those SS troopers. combine that with a few boss enemies in the dam level (MAP15-16), and it's just grinding. as far as weapons go, the SSG replacement is supposed to be really overpowered, but of course you get it so late when it could have really been used, while the other weapons are...pretty standard. the boss enemies tend to either be souped-up hitscan, flamethrower (similar to arachnotron) or rocket (the most common, similar to the mancubus and somehow also firing translucent rockets which are difficult to see). with the hitscanner-heavy combat, open fields are unbearable to survive in, some of the enemies are just out of autoaim reach too. and the main bosses are fought in rather tight spaces, having a shit-ton of health as well.

that's not leaving out the other reason Arctic Wolf is so bad. Laz did great with the dehacked work, but not only is the gameplay bad, so are the level layouts. the second and third maps (MAP10-11) are back to back canyons which are boring to look at and FILLED with SS's, a true grindfest. MAP13 is gonna have you key hunting and backtracking loads of times, and the next map does the same thing. keys are often hidden in very conspicuous places, and progressing to the next door will take minutes. also switches where you gotta backtrack are just as annoying. levels will take much longer than you'd be expecting, maybe it's fine for explorers, but trying to find where you need to go next is always important, and not always obvious here. might as well break out the automap markers on this one. the worst part is most of Laz's other Wolfendoom maps have similar design patterns focused around loads of backtracking in large areas.

so yes, Arctic Wolf, lauded for Dehacked work and premise, atrocious gameplay-wise and layout-wise.