Call of Duty: Finest Hour

Activision's Call of Duty was hailed as one of the best PC games of 2003, and rightly so. The bullets whizzing by your ear, the loud (and I mean LOUD) gunshots and explosions, and the frenetic battles all sucked you into the action and made you feel as if you were really kicking Nazi butt in World War II Europe. The only other WWII game that came close to the excitement of CoD was Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, and there's a good reason for that: developer Infinity Ward consisted mainly of ex-2015 employees who worked on MOH: AA, and their new found creative freedom enabled them to top their already impressive previous work.

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CoD was PC only, but given its resounding success, it was only a matter of time before it appeared on consoles. So rejoice, my console brothers and sisters, in a few short weeks you too will soon be dodging bullets and mowing down Nazis with giddy glee. Rather than simply port the PC version over to the Xbox and PS2, Activision partnered with developer Spark Unlimited to create a completely new and original game in the CoD franchise, Call of Duty: Finest Hour. The only similarities with the PC version are one level in Russia (and even then the objectives are completely different), and the fact that there are even more Medal of Honor expatriates on the team. Spark Unlimited is made up almost entirely of ex-EA employees who all worked on the Medal of Honor series; even MoH's award-winning music composer, Michael Giacchino, followed his comrades over to score Finest Hour (which is definitely good news). With that kind of heritage, it's not surprising that gamers are expecting a lot from this game.

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So far, it's looking like they will satisfy a lot of those expectations. Finest Hour will carry on the tradition of making you play multiple roles, but will focus more on the characters and their individual stories compared to the original CoD. Rather than play a single character throughout the entire game like every other FPS out there, in Finest Hour you will step into the combat boots of six different soldiers fighting for the Russian, British and American armies, including an American GI, British PPA Commando, and refreshingly new characters like a female Russian sniper and a tanker from the first African-American armored unit to see combat, the famous 761^st Black Panther Battalion. The tagline for the franchise is УNo one fights alone,Ф and by playing different soldiers, the developers want you to see how individuals working towards a common goal each made a difference in the greater war effort.

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The story unfolds as a series of vignettes spanning 1942 to 1945 that follows each individual character, starting with the Eastern front in Russia. Over the course of the game, you will meet some of the characters you will eventually play, and battle on the Southern front in North Africa, the Western front in Europe, and even right into the heart of Germany itself. Not surprisingly, the battles and locations are based on the real thing.

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One of the most fun parts about CoD was the ability to hop into a tank and blow Nazis to bits, but unfortunately, you only had a few opportunities to do so. Finest Hour will change that by adding a lot more vehicle combat; in fact, Spark estimates that about 30% of the game will be fought in vehicles, such as the trusty jeep and tanks like the famed Sherman and the deadly Russian T-34. When you drive a tank, you can change the view from first person (where you are looking out a worn and beaten port hole) or pull outside to a third person view. When you tire of blasting away with the main gun or running over Nazis, you can go УunbuttonedФ and pop out of the tank to shoot with your own weapon or a mounted machinegun. Sadly, you won't be able to drive a jeep, but will instead be responsible for manning the .50 caliber mounted machinegun Ц which quite frankly sounds like a hell of a lot more fun.

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When not in a vehicle, you will be armed with historically accurate weapons and face some intense firefights Ц and I mean intense. CoD is famous for presenting epic battles with a ridiculous number of characters on the screen, and Finest Hour is not looking to disappoint. Currently, the game can display two hundred soldiers fighting on the screen at the same time. Whether or not the final build will actually support that amount without lagging or dropping frames is another story, but even at half that number you can imagine how insane some of the battles could potentially become.

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Although Finest Hour is not a squad-based shooter like Tom Clancy games, you will fight alongside many intelligent NPC troops and have a limited ability to give them basic commands. For example, you will be able to coordinate your teammates to help you breach a door and clear a room, or tell them to move to different cover positions. The emphasis, though, is on your character and not strategic planning, so don't expect this feature to be a large part of the game.

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Spark has stated that they are focusing on making one of the best single player experiences ever, and so have said little about multiplayer. Rest assured, though, that multiplayer Axis versus Allies team deathmatches will be included. CoD supported up to 32 players on PC, so it would be reasonable to assume that up to 16 players could be supported over Xbox Live, but so far nothing official has been stated.

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Since vehicles will play a large role in the single-player campaign, it is strange to note that there will be no vehicles in multiplayer. Needless to say, this is very disappointing, considering how fun vehicle warfare can be (Battlefield 1942 or Star Wars Battlefront, anyone?). There is no doubt that the standard man-to-man multiplayer combat will be loads of fun, but throwing a tank or two into the mix would have been a big plus.

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