Call of Duty: Finest Hour

"Their Finest Hour Won The War."

Call of Duty 2 Finest Hour consists of the tag line that the world didn't stop the German armies dead in their tracks by themselves to secure victory during World War 2. It was the brother in arms and comradeship between soldiers from various backgrounds and nationalities that managed to unite together to fight a common enemy. Finest Hour physically puts you into the boots of various soldiers as you battle through some of the most brutal conflicts during World War 2. This is their stories, and the beginning of yours, to relieve history.

Gameplay (810): Combat control has always play an important role within the Call of Duty series and this one isn't that difficult from the rest. Moving your character with the analog stick and rotating the camera from angle to angle to gain a better view of your surroundings is nicely customized and easy to get use to after awhile. Shooting with your various weapons such as sniper rifles, sub machine guns, and rifles, each of them has a distant feel and use during combat. Interesting enough, there is no hand guns aviable that can be used in this game. Regardless, enemies shoot back realistically and take cover when their fired on. Some have a nice graphic animation when their shot in the shoulder, stomach, or even head. Playing through a battlefield can be chaotic and keep you on your toes at all times, which, I thought was a nice feature. I wanted to have the sense that I was always under pressure and as if it was in real life during a fire fight. Finally, the ability to drive tanks and other vehicles is also featured within this game though not how you would expect in terms of controls. Likewise, unlike in Call of Duty 3, you are required to pick up health packs that are scattered around in the game in order to recover health rather than just taking cover and allow it to recover naturally. Dying in this game appears to be more easier than one would expect, even on easy settings. Your life meter is incredible low and the fact that you can be killed with 2-5 shots from the enemy causes an instant restart of the mission. As such, moving and working together with your AI partners is the only way to achieve success in missions though they aren't that smart to begin with. Some of them just stand and wait on you to engage the enemy single handily while being outnumbered as the rest of your members follow a few moments later. Other times, they run into a hail of bullets or stand exposed while shooting, causing you to either recover them with an additional health pack from your limited supply. In terms of gameplay, it is arguably the best within the Call of Duty series, and I've enjoyed playing through the various missions on the Eastern, Western, and North Africa, campaigns. However, there are various flaws that are undeniable noticable. For one, control of tanks seems cumbersome and difficult to use, I felt that the PS2 controller cannot handle the aspect of a steering wheel of a vehicle, no matter how much you try to put various button assignments on it. Partner AI isn't the best in the world within this game, and the forced ability to constantly use health packs to avoid mission failure is the only aspects that plague this game entirely.

Campaign (9/10): Yes, apparently you take the roles within various soldiers of different nationalities into combat and experience how they won the war while working together as one. From the beginning of Stalingrad as you watch thousands of your comrades die in mere minutes due to the constant barrage of German machine gun fire, to the outskirts of the North Africa front of where you battle Germany's elite African corp, each campaign has a series of objectives that need to be completed. Some are optional while others can grant an instant mission failure if you don't complete it in time. You start out as a fellow Aleksandr Sokolov during Stalingrad and meet up with Tanya Pavelonva, a skilled sniper, who's only mind is to kill as many Germans as possible. Together, you work together harassing the enemy, including repelling an attack on an important factory that builds the T-34's. After shooting as many Germans as you can with your sniper rifle and steady aim, you jump into the boots of Nikolai Badanov. His mission is recapture the ruins of the Red Square at the train station in Stalingrad Train Station. After dispatching much of the German resistance, Nikolai and his companions find various German documents that they deliver to their superiors. In the American campaigns, it mostly focuses on the capture of Aachen. Taking control of Chuck Walker, you fend of German troops and resistance around Bastogne and near the Rhine river. It is rumored that the one that captures the bridge can cross the Rhine river into the heart of Germany and end the war within a matter of months. In terms of the overall campaigns, each of them is nicely historically detailed and laid out. My only compliant is that some of them can feel confusing and not really descriptive in terms of the overall objective missions. A longer longevity of the missions could have also helped this game out in more ways than one. It shouldn't take you no more than 10-20 hours to complete the entire campaign.

Graphics (9/10):Possibly one of the best looking Call of Duty games to date, everything looks amazing and extremely detailed. The various explosions and gunfire in the distance is nicely detailed. A small explosion sends soldiers flying into the air. Tank, and enemy aircraft, drop their loads onto buildings which collapse and crumble instantly. Even the cinematic intros and facial expressions with your comrades in arms is life like in every way. I believe that weapon detail is also pretty high and amazing to look at. For instance, during one of the missions I was playing, I was equipped with a sniper rifle, but wrapped on top of the scope, was a small rag that had dirt and small blood stains on it! Bullets slamming and whizzing by you seems almost realistic as they leave small impact craters around you. Some of them even ricochet off the surrounding environments. Enemies have their various movements and fire back at you from cover. A nice graphic animation of where their shot is also a huge plus in my book. Shooting them in the shoulders would cause them to drop their weapons and stagger a bit and if you shot at their knees, they stumble to the ground and even fire back while laying down. Possibly one of the most amazing features that I have seen in this game, graphically, was when you shoot an enemy solider, who was firing their weapon, the weapon continues to fire as if the enemy was still holding the trigger, until he fell down dead. The only problem that I had with the graphics was that some of the areas looked extremely dark in lightening and gritty.

Sound (10/10): I recommend that you absolutely turn the volume up in this game, it is truly an amazing to hear these soldiers shout out commands and orders, realistically, during battle. The cinematic intro narrations of each character that you play is a nice feature also. It gives you useful and interesting background information of how this war effected their lives personally and emotionally and why they decided to fight. Machine gun fire and explosions all around you appears to be the most comforting thing to listen to during battle. It really gets you into that war torn environment and see how these young men and women fight to with everything they had including the sacrifice of their life's to secure victory. Everything from gun fire, explosions from aircraft and tanks, and the moans and cries of your enemy soldiers before they expire, is nicely detailed. Never once did I found anything seem generic in terms of sound in this game. Truly a high mark within the Call of Duty series.

Replay Value and Closing Comments: There is an online mode though I have yet to actually tap into it fully to see how many are still online because I lack an PS2 internet adapter. The Call of Duty 2 version does hold up to 16 people online compared to the X-Box's own, 32 users, at the same time. In terms of replay value, I felt that I was deeply satisfied of every aspect of this game. The campaigns are definitely worth playing and can last you a long time in terms of replay value. If your not into that, online is still the way to go and I'm sure there is some small group of users that still play this game online for you to find an active game. Call of Duty 2 Finest Hour perhaps is the finest hour within the series as well. It was everything I could ever hope for and more despite a few flaws.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/06/08

Game Release: Call of Duty: Finest Hour (US, 11/16/04)