Call of Duty: Finest Hour

Written by Troy Matsumiya  on February 03, 2005

Review: Who knew this much fun could be so damn frustrating?

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Еbut fades down the stretch

Sounds great so far, doesn't it? Unfortunately, the developers were unable to maintain the intensity of the dramatic opening level. The various levels are fairly well designed, but there's nothing really УspecialФ about them; in other words, they're decent, but nothing we haven't seen before. Also, it is often difficult to determine what your objectives are, or even if you've completed them because a lot of the time there is no indication onscreen to tell you what's going on; instead, you have to pause the game in order to look up your objectives.

The graphics are average at best; they would have looked great two years ago, but don't come anywhere close to a Splinter Cell or Halo 2 today. Character animation is often twitchy, almost comically so, especially when people die. This is actually quite disappointing, considering Spark used Jim Henson's Creature Shop and their innovative Henson Digital Performance Studio technology specifically to provide realistic character animations.

It is also difficult to tell if you've killed an enemy or not since they go through the same animation whether they are killed or simply wounded. This really isn't a big deal since you can always play it safe and pump a few extra rounds into them just in case, but when the fighting gets crazy (and it will), it's one more distraction you don't need.

As smart as the AI is, it also shows flashes of pure stupidity as both enemies and allies will often stand out in the open, rush tanks on foot, or run straight towards a manned machinegun nest. Normally, having enemies rush up to you isn't a big deal, but I noticed some hit detection issues when shooting enemies at point blank range; of course, you can always use your melee attack if they get that close.

The sound effects may be loud, but they lack the realistic punch of MOH:AA and other WWII shooters. For example, the M1 Garand's distinctive ping as it ejects its magazine is barely audible, and the tanks sound like toys. I also noticed several audio bugs that should have been caught in QC.

Granted, all of these issues are fairly minor. What really hurts Finest Hour are the checkpoints Ц or more specifically, the lack thereof. Whoever was responsible for leaving out the checkpoints should be banished to a cold, damp foxhole. Perhaps the idea was that in a real war, there are no such things as checkpoints or game saves; but this isn't real life, it's a game Ц and having to play the same level over and over gets real annoying real quick.

Although most levels are quite short, Finest Hour is a challenging game, even on Easy. Most levels don't have checkpoints so if you die at any point, you will have to start all over from the beginning. One of the worst examples of this is when you have to defend a Russian warehouse from a German attack with your sniper rifle for 10 minutes. It may not sound like a long time but trust me, those will be the longest 10 minutes of your life Ц and once the clock winds down to zero, the level is still not over. Get killed and guess what? You've just wasted 10 minutes. Another level has you hunting German soldiers hidden in the sewers; after repeated attempts, it took me over half an hour to complete the level, and there were several times where I was one shot away from dying and restarting the whole damned thing again. On the few levels that actually have checkpoints, they are spaced too widely apart which again can mean playing the same long stretch over and over again. As well, checkpoint saves are only temporary, so if you get so fed up that you exit a level even after reaching a checkpoint, the next time you load the level you'll have to start all over from the beginning. Adding salt to the wound is the fact that you can't skip the in-game cutscenes which you will be forced to watch each time you restart. Not fun.

The lack of checkpoints turns what should have been a fun shooter into a repetitive exercise in frustration. It is a glaring shortfall and a very poor design decision. Yes, a game needs to be challenging, but you do it with good design, not by making people repeat the same levels ad nauseam.

Multiplayer

Fortunately, you can take out your frustrations on your friends by fighting in 16-player battles over System Link and Xbox Live. The multiplayer component was developed separately by Kuju Entertainment, who gave us four gamemodes: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and Search and Destroy, an objective game where one side has to blow up two objectives and the other side has to defend them. There are eight maps which appear to be modified versions of single-player levels; and similar to single-player, the multiplayer maps are decent, but a little uninspired.

Gameplay is a lot of fun, however, and reminds me of the many hours I wasted blasting my friends to bits in MOH:AA. You can change weapons every time you respawn, and can still pick up and use any weapon you find. Multiplayer ends up saving this game, since the lack of checkpoints pretty much kills any desire to replay the single-player campaign again. However, with so many other good multiplayer shooters out there, Finest Hour doesn't really offer anything unique beyond its WWII setting.