Wolfenstein

Wolfenstein from 2009 puts players back in the role of agent B. J. Blazkowicz, fighting a Nazi occult program in the fictional city of Isenstadt, where German scientists are trying to harness a paranormal energy called Vril. The game combines a classic straightforward shooter with the ability to enter the Veil dimension, where you can slow down time, walk through invisible walls, or reveal hidden enemies and secret items, giving it a supernatural edge distinct from the typical war shooters of its era while also continuing the long history of the Wolfenstein brand.

The PC version launched alongside the consoles in August 2009 and offered the same campaign and the same Veil dimension as its Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 counterparts, with the same weapons and upgrades purchased with collected Vril energy. The main advantage was the precision of mouse and keyboard controls, which for a first-person shooter allow faster and more accurate aiming than a gamepad's analog stick, plus the option to set a higher screen resolution and more detailed textures on more powerful hardware.

The PC version was built on a modified id Tech 4 engine and offered support for custom keyboard shortcuts as well as a wider range of graphics settings than the console versions. The campaign, weapons, and Veil abilities stayed identical across all versions, and no platform received exclusive extra content. The difference was mainly in how the game was controlled and how smoothly it ran - on a powerful PC the game could scale detail and framerate beyond what the consoles of the time offered, while weaker rigs had to lower the settings to keep things running smoothly. Networked multiplayer on PC ran through its own servers with the same maps and modes as on consoles, just with support for more precise mouse control, which gave a noticeable edge in multiplayer duels compared to playing with a gamepad.

Why play it: For players with a more powerful PC, where the modified id Tech 4 engine allowed detail and framerate to scale beyond what the consoles of the time offered - in content, weapons, and abilities it's an identical game on every platform.