Preview: Call of Duty: Finest Hour
Call of Duty is heading to consoles, courtesy of Spark, and PGC has the extensive preview with info from Activision’s presentation earlier this week.
Last updated: 09/03/2004
World War II first person shooters have been a staple throughout this generation of consoles, giving players the chance to experience some of the world’s most intense battles of World War II. Developed by Spark (which employs over thirty Medal of Honor series veterans, including the lead producer of MOH, MOH: Underground, and MOH: Frontline), Call of Duty: Finest Hour continues the tradition with squad-based vehicular and on-foot combat with the flavor of popular Hollywood WWII movies.
Spark has done their homework in a number of areas. They’ve gotten their hands on all of the weapons to study for reload and firing animations. They’ve visited many of the museums and battlefields throughout Europe. Plus, extensive interviews were done with historians and veterans who fought in these battles to get a comprehensive understanding of how certain situations would be handled, like under which circumstances you would get out of a tank in battle. Of course, with a concrete foundation, they can still take liberties where it will aid the gameplay experience.
The team is also doing a lot of work to ensure that this is the grandest presentation of battle that they’ve put on the market to date. They’re pushing the consoles hard, putting as many as 200 soldiers on-screen in some scenes. Rather than engaging in the painstaking process of doing the lip-synch animation frame-by-frame, the team sent their character models over to Jim Henson Interactive, where Spark CEO Craig Allen worked as Executive VP prior to starting the company. According to his partner and the game’s producer, Scott J. Langteau, the puppeteer veterans at Henson were able to lay down the animations in a matter of days, when it would have taken months for their in-house animators to do the same. The soundtrack is also rising to new heights, composed by the same person that wrote the score for the upcoming Pixar film, The Incredibles. The score was recorded just this week, performed by an eighty piece orchestra and a fifty person choir.
One of the biggest assets to the series is Finest Hour’s focus on multiple fronts. Gamers will no longer assume the role of one soldier; instead, players will experience the war against the Nazis from multiple campaigns. As the game progresses, the player will become a British PPA Commando raiding Northern Africa, a green Russian recruit thrust into Stalingrad, the commander of the 761st “Black Panther” Tank Battalion, and three other roles. The different characters drive the multi-faceted plot of personal and patriotic achievement.
The gameplay experience will be familiar for those who have played Call of Duty on PC. Finest Hour’s primary goal is to encompass the player in the sights, sounds and action of war. The player must not only comply with formations within a squad of hundreds, but also manage coordinated attacks, stealth operations and sabotage missions where you must protect your fellow computer-controlled soldiers. Victory will require skill with over thirty tools such as snipers, grenades, pistols, machine guns and other authentic German and allied weaponry. The game will also feature improved vehicular combat, allowing gamers to hop in and out of tanks at any time. About one-third of the game takes place in vehicle-heavy stages. Unlike the PS2 and Xbox versions of Finest Hour, which feature online competition, the GameCube game only features offline team and death-match modes in split-screen.
You can storm the Germans from all directions when Activision releases Call of Duty: Finest Hour in late 2004.
Daniel Bloodworth contributed to this preview.
Michael "TYP" Cole, Staff Writer, Trivia Manager
Topic: Preview: Call of Duty: Finest Hour (Read 1963 times)
