Call of Duty: Finest Hour

The Good
Around the time this game was released I was just getting into the World War II/First-Person shooter genre and was hooked on MOH: Frontline and Rising Sun and was a little skeptical. After I started looking around about it's PC releases I was intrigued and set of to get this game and was a bit let down by the result, but before I get into that let's look a the positives first.

The first thing I noticed was the chaotic sense of war this game throws at you, from pinging bullets surrounding you, the massive amount of enemies and the exploding mortars exploding around you (By the way, I loved the blurred, busted ear drum effect when a mortar shell explodes next to you). The changing storyline was also a nice touch, giving you a different glimpses of a chaotic time through multiple viewpoints as opposed through a one-man army viewpoint that MOH gives you.

The graphics are also a nice touch, with dark and gloomy atmosphere with bullet holes and pot holes in the ground from mortar shots, the screaming of men and booming of guns in the distance. The game truly gives off a true presence of war, something MOH: Frontline doesn't quite have. In the first stage, I was blown away at the chaotic feeling of crossing in a row boat across a Russian river, mortar rounds exploding nearby causing my controller to shake like crazy, screaming soldiers and the distance view of fires and tracer fire. When I got on land, the insane amount of ammo and artillery thrown at everyone with enemies and allies alike being cut down in masses. I was completely blown away, however in Frontline with the opening day of D-Day, it does have that same sort of chaotic feeling that this game will give you.

The Bad
Well, there were a good bit of things that did bother me. One thing that really bothers me is that in older TV's the sound is completely messed up with the bass control, the sounds are almost completely static at time and it gets hard to hear your contacts nearby talking. It bothers me that there is no way of adjusting the audio on this, now it isn't a problem on newer TV's, but still it would have been a nice feature to be added. Additionally, the game can be very dark at times, causing you to have to adjust the brightness to see enemies in the background and your character moves so damn slow, it feels like I'm wading through molasses and there is no sort of sprint button.

Another problem I have is that allies can get in your way at times and ruin shots, especially if you have a perfect shot on an enemy that doesn't notice you and when you get ready to open fire, your ally jumps in front of you, shoots and misses and draws the attention of the enemies towards you. Attacking with the melee button is way inconsistent, sometimes I can be standing right in front of the enemy just smashing away with the enemy not even flinching. The game can also be very cheap at times, ganging up on you at the most impromptu times and seems like you can stand there a fire into a sea of enemies and not hit one, but they can all fire at once and each and every bullet can hit you at the exact same time. Which brings me to another problem that bothers me, when you get hit by an enemy bullet, you will actually be stopped in your tracks and seems like you are knocked back a few feet. The problem with this is that you are completely vulnerable and can't move, aim, fire or anything. This can be a major problem if you get caught off guard by a mass of enemies since they will alternate hitting you, basically just freezing you in your tracks, unable to do anything.

Some of the buttons can be moved around a bit as well, especially since the health button is on the up button on the d-pad and changing weapons is used through the right button on the d-pad. Many a times I have been trying to change weapons around and my thumb will slip, using up a health pack even though I can be at full capacity. Very irritating.

The Bottom Line
Well, COD: Finest Hour is a mixed bag, it does have give you a true sense of war and the alternating viewpoints definitely gave it an advantage over the Medal of Honor series, but the sluggish movement, collision detection and cheap AI does hinder the overall experience. Still, it isn't a bad game, but it certainly isn't the best in the series. At least worth a rent or worth a cheap buy if you can find it around $4-5.