Product Description

In Call of Duty: Finest Hour players will be able to experience the cinematic intensity and the chaos of battle as never before--through the eyes of ordinary soldiers fighting together as a squad through the epic moments of World War II. Featuring an immersive story line, players will take on Nazi forces through a variety of squad-based missions set among WWII's legendary battlefields of Europe and beyond. Additionally, players will be able to experience the war from multiple perspectives, fighting as soldiers from an alliance of countries as they battle the Nazi regime and attempt to turn the tide of war.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2633 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: ACTIVISION
• Released on: 2004-12-03
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platform: Xbox

Customer Reviews

Medal of Honour...for masochists
Call of Duty: Finest Hour is indistinguishable from Medal of Honour: Frontline...except stuck permanently on an unfeasibly difficult setting. The gameplay, the visuals, the missions and even the load screens and cut scenes are virtually the same. The compass showing objectives is also borrowed unashamedly from MOH. So it brings very little new to the table. So it's a bog standard shoot 'em up with a well realised WWII setting. There's very little strategy, and the stories are really immaterial, and really you just get from one end of the map to the other shooting Germans on the way.

You can, in Call of Duty, play as first a Russian, then a British and then American soldier. So there is a little more variety - you fight in a wider range of theatres and specific historical battles (including Stalingrad, desert warfare with Popski's Private Army, Remagen Bridge, the Bulge and Aachen - though with little variety - no bad weather, no night missions) and each time you play as different characters, including, interestingly, a leader in an exclusively black (as in African-American) tank group. There was, in the missions involving Chuck Walker and Benny Church, a feel that you're part of a small unit of characters with some familiarity and continuity.

Kit-wise you get to use a large range of firearms and other toys from all sides including Panzerschrecks, gammon bombs, teller mines, Brens, BARs etc. but curiously no bazooka or PIAT. You get also to operate a T34 and a Sherman and ride shotgun in a jeep. The controls are OK if you accept that you're playing on a console; FPS games like Call of Duty really need a mouse for manouvreability, using the thumbstick on the Xbox gamepad makes turning to face - and aiming at - enemies either excruciatingly slow or uncontrollably fast. The other controls are simple and effective though - for shooting, throwing grenades, changing weapons and changing stance. However...the way health packs work is crazy: you have a health bar at the side of the screen - and you pick health packs up along the way (and there are ridiculously few) which you have to pro-actively apply to keep your health up. These are NOT applied automatically when your helth bar runs down. Consequently, you can have up to 4 health packs sitting idle in your rucksack and yet still get killed if your health bar runs out. The game is so intense, and you're so busy that having to constantly keep half an eye on your health whilst fighting again seems really gratuitously hard. There are also far more enemy soldiers on screen than in MOH - and the fire is consequently withering at times. The result is that you're just too busy trying to survive and succeed to really spend time appreciating the graphics or exploring too much. There are undoutedly some nice touches here (like when everything happens briefly in slow motion when you catch a particularly nasty hit, or the great grenade effects), but really you've seen it all before. Enemy AI is OK, friendly AI is good too and your comrades are a genuine boon to fight along side you. There are problems in enclosed spaces however, when you can't get out of the way of stick grenades because your buddies are blocking your exit, but generally it's acceptable.

The maps are actually pretty small but well rendered, and the missions quite short. However, they *seem* to be impossibly big and long because of the sheer uncompromising difficulty of the game, bordering on frustratingly unfair - by virtue of health and save points being very few and far between, not to mention constantly respawning enemy in the places you've already cleared. This leads inevitably to much repetition - you will end up getting 80% of the way to a checkpoint many, many times before you finally succeed. There are 'checkpoints' and 'save points'. A save point occurs at the successful completion of each mission, and this is where you restart next time you play. Checkpoints occur at some places on a map during a mission (if you're lucky!) and, if you get killed in the mission, then this is where you restart from. BUT...unless you subsequently complete the mission in this game session, your checkpoints are not saved. So next time you switch on your Xbox, you're right back to the start of the mission again! Consequently you MUST complete a mission in a session...your progress will not be saved unless you do...and so you can't just dip into this game and play for 15 minutes...if you're playing then you're there for the duration!

Let me give you an example of how hard this game is; in a latter mission, 'Into the Heartland' you begin the mission at one (Allied occupied) end of the Remagen bridge. You have to make your way over the bridge...starting with very little health. You fight your way desperately across the infested bridge (finding a couple of health packs on the way). If you reach the German end of the bridge, you're faced with a broadside of machine gun nests pouring fire down the bridge. If you manage to neutralize these, you then have to fight your way to the top of one of the large towers at the German end of the bridge. This is intense, close-up fighting as you make your way through the labyrinth inside the tower (proliferation of health packs in the labyrinth varies from zero to barely enough). Then *if* you finally reach the top of the tower you have to climb up a step ladder through a small hatch to take out four Germans (where you're very exposed and absolutely peppered) on the roof. If you manage to take these enemy out, THEN you have to man an AA gun and fight off endless waves of Stukas coming from all directions and strafing you mercilessly. From start to finish, this level can take you up to 40 minutes of constant hard work - constantly short of health. At no point is there a checkpoint!!!!! If you get killed, you have to start all over again. Challenging is one thing, but this game really does seem gratuitously and unfairly hard, leading to huge frustration and huge, pointless repetition. You will not really 'enjoy' playing this game - you'll just be 'relieved'...and you will constantly feel like packing it in.

Jank
Bit disappointed with this title, seems like game designers are churning out war games all day and not coming up with anything that sticks.
Graphics of the game are pretty tame, the sound does make up for this game a lot though.
The game starts of like most war game of this time as a large epic with loads of stuff going on you cant really take in all at once without having a headache.
Controls got some getting used to, the viewing distance is great as with most Xbox titles but because of the lighting and texturing can sometimes have you squinting at the screen.
Kills are satisfying but not gory if you like that sort of thing, the weapons are modelled will with good physics all round.
I would say controlling the vehicles in the game can have you throwing your 30 pound controller to the floor while Germans shoot the living crap out of you and you men. AI in the game is rather good for the enemy but your own men act like they have just smoked some wacky backy before battle, you will find them running in front of your fire, walking in front of tanks and being slaughtered while storming small buildings.
Bought it, sold it, wont play again.
You might be interested in the Conflict series, or maybe MOH, this is not special.
6/10
Dissected by Killa

Don't listen to the bad stuff!
I did a lot of research into this game before i finally plucked up the courage to purchase it. My method is to read as many reviews as i can then take my choice from there and i have to say what i read was pretty disheartening from other reviewers. Despite this i bought it anyway and i can't emphasise enough, DONT BELIEVE ALL YOU READ!. This is simply a stunning game. With the release of other titles such as the magnificent Halo 2 some people expect the same standard of gameplay with other releases and even though Call of Duty isn't up to scratch with Halo 2 the presentation is second to none. Comparisons will inevitably be compared to the pc version (Which i played extensively) but as a standalone i think it stands out very well. Graphically i found it jaw dropping to see everything that's going on around you and the way it differs to the Medal of Honour series is from being alone in battle throughout to actually watching hundreds of your allies surging into battle alongside you, it's pure mayhem from start to finish.

Yes it has it's faults, it's pretty short and the friendly AI is shoddy to say the least but stick the dificulty on hard from the start and you will add a few more hours to your well earned cash. If you are looking for something explosive to immerse yourself into instead of shooting covenant this game comes HIGHLY recommended.

Into the fray!!!!!!!!!!