"Sgt. Starkey, forgotten war hero"

Review for Call of Duty: Finest Hour, as played on the Nintendo GameCube

Introduction
Call of Duty, a popular PC World War II shooter in LAN centres all over the country. Call of Duty, an epic shooter that stands out from the rest of the WWII shooters in it's field. Call of Duty, a game I wish I could get on my console.

No quotes like this would help you when it comes to the console variation of the series, Call of Duty: Finest Hour, in which you play as a British rifleman, an American footsoldier and a Russian sniper during World War II.

Gameplay - 4/10
Gameplay wise, this game is dull. And when I say dull, I mean dull. The game starts off quite well, black-and-white scenes of soldiers storming the fronts, etc. Then the actual game starts. When I first saw a lot of soldiers running around near me, and all of us 'working together', I instantly had the illusion that this game would play with at least a little bit of enjoyment. To see most of those people around me die within the next five minutes was quite annoying, as I suddenly felt left alone. That's the feeling that continually overshadows the theory of this game: you're meant to be a soldier in an army, but it continuously turns into the usual 'one man army' scenario.

The glitches are very un-enthusiastic, and seeing soldiers get stuck in doors is probably the most annoying of the many. Then there's the 'story-characters', the characters that have to stay alive for story scenes. Most notable of these is one Sgt. Starkey. At one point during one of the many frustrating missions, I turned around only to see him running behind me across a small field, and then suddenly get hit by about three rockets from surrounding tanks in the face, only to stand up again.

The missions also become quite frustrating quite fast, seeing as there are bearly any checkpoints. At first I thought "Oh, that's just to make it more realistic, at least I still get health-packs!". Within three seconds of thinking that to myself, I instantly got killed, and after retrying the mission again (from the beginning) was killed again. And again. And again. And it gets to the point where you think it's just not worth it. Then there are the vehicle parts. Or should I simply say: the tank parts. The game uses no other vehicles than different tanks, and no, dun-turrets don't count. The tanks can eventually be tamed, yet they still feel unnatural.

The weapons are where the game has some shine, they react quite realistically, yet I still failed to see how the Panzershrek appears in the most strangest of places, although that's technically not a weapon gripe, it's still a gripe regarding the weapons.

Story - 7/10
The story is just the usual WWII affair, except this time you get to witness the war from three different angles, and while I felt that the American and British campaigns seemed very similar, the female Russian sniper campaign was quite good, and proved an interesting point-of-view.

Graphics - 6/10
The game fails in this area because, well frankly, the graphics are quite uninspired. The problem is, the game came out around the same time as other graphical feats such as Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (at least in Australia that is), and compared to that, seems bland, and quite sad to tell the truth. I expected better. Low polygon counts plague this game, and when I got to the sewers mission (which I knew just HAD to happen), I almost cried. The characters also look quite out-of-place, and I couldn't tell if they were all one big joke, or if they were meant to look bad.

Sound - 8/10
The sound is where the game excels. Amazing orchestrated music that feels just right, creating the mood that this is serious, and not just some Medal of Honor rip-off. The explosions, gunshots, deaths, and shouting, all sound great. Except Sgt. Starkey's voice. That was sad.

Play Time/Replayability - 6/10
If you have the attention-span to play through the whole game, it'll last you around fourteen or so hours. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I got to the Russian sniper, and just thought "why bother?" It was then that I returned the game. Overall the game is actually quite short when I think back now, it was just the extremely frustrating parts that I had to play over and over again that made it seem long. And seriously, if you do somehow finish the whole game, I doubt you will want to play it again. Ever. The are no real rewards in sight, and that just brings the game down even more notches.

Final Recommendation
Definitely a rent, maybe not even that. Seriously, do you want to spend a weekend sitting around playing this? I would definitely recommend Rising Sun instead, and even that would still be a rent.

Final score (not average) - 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 06/12/05