According to history, World War II lasted six years, 1939 to 1945. However, in the world of videogames this war has never ended and is still being fought in living rooms across the globe with wireless controllers being the weapon of choice. The Call of Duty and Medal of Honor franchises raised the bar for war-related games and opened the door for countless other WWII titles that have come and gone quicker than an exploding grenade. Hoping to win this war once and for all, Midway Games has jumped into the WWII arena with Hour of Victory. Does this game wave the flag of victory or will it make you want to surrender to the enemy?

gameplay

You’ve got to give Hour of Victory credit, because it understands that it can’t go toe-to-toe with Call of Duty and Medal of Honor. Instead of trying to accurately relive historical events, it focuses on action…and killing numerous Nazis. All the basic rules and controls of a FPS are enabled, meaning that right trigger to fire and left trigger to toss a grenade work the same in this game as in all other WWII games. At the beginning of each mission you select one of three soldiers: Ross, Taggert, or Bull. The three characters are the typical military stereotypes, but each have their own use, as you will see when fighting through levels.

Ross is the commando, who is strong as an ox and can take a lot more damage than the other two soldiers. His shooting skills are not as focused; he’s more of a kill-anything-that-moves type of guy who is the best choice when you have to go up against a swarm of Nazis. During gameplay, you will notice that there are some features that only a specific soldier can perform. When you are playing as Ross there will be heavy obstacles blocking areas that only he can push or pull out of the way to venture into that hidden zone. If you are playing as one of the other guys, you are going to have to find another way around. Ross’ weakness is that he is big and slow; if he’s surrounded and can’t find cover in time, he’s out of the game.

If you want to kill the enemy in a more quiet and strategic fashion, then Taggert is your man. His specialty is picking locks to sneak into places the enemy won’t expect and taking them out. Taggert can either approach from behind to slice the enemy’s throat or if the situation gets hotter, he can handle a gun with no problem. He moves faster than the other two soldiers, but he’s not as durable as Ross and can be killed quicker if he gets caught in the line of fire.

Then there is Bull, (hey, with a name like that shouldn’t he be the strong commando?) who is the best sniper that has ever held a rifle. During missions you will come across ropes hanging from the sides of buildings that only he can climb. It is because of this that he can snipe out targets from higher ground. Other than the sniping and climbing, Bull and Taggert are pretty much the same guy and can take the same amount of damage quickly. As the levels get tougher, Ross is the only guy you need to go into battle because he can take and dish out more firepower.

The missions follow the basic checklist for a WWII shooter, mainly featuring ground battles that take place on war ravaged streets, underground Nazi strongholds, and massive buildings such as libraries and museums. To mix things up there are a couple of tank missions, but there is nothing new about these that you haven’t played before. And of course, as with all WWII games, there is the scenario where you take control of a gun turret and blow countless holes into the legion of Nazis who keep coming at you like ants.

Don’t expect much from the AI, with the exception of a few enemies who will duck for cover, most will simply run out in the open making themselves an easy kill. Hour of Victory uses the Unreal 3 engine and most of the environments look and play smoothly, but there are some design issues in the game that should have been rethought. One such issue is the way you revive yourself when you’ve taken one too many hits. Instead of getting out of the way and avoiding any more shots like every other game, here you must literally stand still and wait about ten seconds for your status to revive. This is fine if you are in a hidden position in the first place, but if you are in an open field in a heavy gunfight and the screen turns blood red (indicating you are about to meet your maker), and you can’t run for cover fast enough and then stand still for ten seconds, you’re dead.

Hour of Duty is not a bad game, however, it does not offer anything new that you haven’t played before. It would have been interesting if they mixed up the gameplay more to sort of play around with the genre. For example, what if the Nazis have discovered a superior technology that gives them the ability to do things unheard of in the 1940’s? It is a fact that Hitler was obsessed with creating super soldiers for his military. This could have been the niche that separated this from the other WWII shooters, especially if you could also harness these powers to fight the Nazis back Matrix style. One major incentive to play this game is that it gives away achievement points like the world is coming to an end. For those of you who want to earn an easy chunk of points to push up your status on Xbox Live, this game will set you up very nicely.

graphics

While the visuals are not on the level of Call of Duty or Medal of Honor, they are decent and pace well with the Unreal engine. The problem is that the graphics are not consistent, because some levels look as if the designers put a lot of work into them and other areas look generic and flat. There are also some noticeable glitches, such as enemy soldiers and even your teammates, getting stuck in walls and doing a weird jogging in place dance.

sound

The audio quality is your basic cut and paste job for a war game, but very effective. Explosions, gunshots, tanks moving across gravel, and Nazi’s screaming threatening demands echo all around you. The music soundtrack is very cinematic, sounding like cross a between and old World War II movie and any Jerry Bruckheimer flick.

replay value

The basic campaign can be knocked off in one weekend, making this game a great rental. There are multiple difficulty sessions that you can replay, but with the exception of cranking out more quick and easy achievement points, there is no real reason to go back. The multiplayer portion offers Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and Devastation, which is basically capture the flag, but with a bomb. None of these online features add anything new to the arena and there were some noticeable lag issues. That being said, with the right crowd you could have a couple of hours of fun, especially in the Team Deathmatch mode.

bottom line

Hour of Victory definitely does not re-invent the wheel in any way, but does offer some easy thrills for the casual gamer who has never gone to war with Call of Duty or Medal of Honor. Its main benefit is that the action never slows down, ensuring that you will never be bored trying to find a key to open a door or solve some crazy puzzle. As long as you have an enormous amount of ammo in your guns there will be plenty of baddies to kill, and sometimes that simple formula is the quick fix we all need after a long day.

Review by: Johnny McNair
Posted: 07/17/2007

Gameplay:	7.5
Graphics:	6.5
Sound:	7.0
Replay Value:	6.5
Bottom Line:	7.0