The Call of Duty motto is “No one fights alone.” and Finest Hour goes to great lengths to stress this theme. Practically every scene in the game is filled with storming soldiers, mortar shell explosions, smoke and debris in the air, flashes of light in the background, and warplanes flying overhead. The goal is to make the player feel that he is only a small part of what is happening. The game’s push for authenticity also means that it stays away from the “super soldier” gameplay of other games. If you rush into battle without your squadmates, you’re not going to last very long. Most missions put you into a group of several soldiers, all going for the same objectives. The other men have minds of their own, but generally they stick together and know where to go. You can walk up to them individually and give them orders, but it’s also possible to follow the group and provide backup support while they march towards the next objective. In one mission, you play as a Russian conscript who doesn’t even have a gun, so the trick to staying alive is to keep up with your partner and depend on him for protection. Unfortunately, the only teammates helping out on the GameCube version will be computer-controlled, as there is no split-screen multiplayer feature and obviously no online support on Nintendo’s console. Visually, the GameCube version is very much on par with its PS2 and Xbox counterparts; numerous people at Activision’s event remarked that the GameCube version looked as good or better than the Xbox version.

The game controls like many first-person shooters, with one joystick used for movement and the other for aiming. R fires and L looks down the sight (or through the scope, depending on the weapon). B serves as the action button to open doors, pick up items, etc. X crouches, then goes into prone position. Y stands up from prone position or a crouch, and jumps if you are already standing. (An onscreen position indicator helps you tell whether you are standing, crouching, or lying down.) Z fires secondary weapons on certain vehicles. Pressing up on the D-pad uses reserve health kits, and left and right on the D-pad can be used to lean while aiming. A compass onscreen shows your next objective, while health and ammo indicators stay hidden when their values are not changing.

Finest Hour is split into three major sections: Russian, British, and American campaigns. The Russian campaign takes place on the Eastern front, with pivotal battles in Stalingrad and Tetenskaya Airfield, among others. Because Russian soldiers were often recruited locally and thrown into battle with no formal training, the Battle of Stalingrad serves as the game’s tutorial and first level. The young conscript also meets a female sniper named Tanya, who is playable in later levels and is based on real women who fought for the Soviet Union. (Many of these women are still living today in Russia, and can be quite antagonistic towards young foreigners…) The British campaign takes place in North Africa, with one of the key characters being a commando in the PPA (Popski’s Private Army), a band of mercenaries from all over the world who operated independently in WWII against Rommel. One of the African levels has you playing as the gunner for a military Jeep, blasting a path through the desert on the way to a trapped group of allies. Finally, the American campaign takes place late in the war, as the Allies broke through Western Europe and into the edges of Germany itself. One of these levels chronicles the siege of Aachen, the ancient capital of the Holy Roman Empire and America’s first point of entry into Germany. You must protect a column of tanks storming through the city’s streets, often searching through houses for enemy soldiers shooting rocket launchers (Panzerschreck) through windows into the tanks below. You are also charged with protecting the squad’s M12 cannon, the only weapon powerful enough to penetrate the city’s fortified buildings.

Approximately 30% of the game involves driving or riding in vehicles, including a few different tank models and the aforementioned desert Jeep. In both tank and Jeep levels, there are numerous enemy tanks, trucks, and even planes trying to destroy you, along with enemy soldiers who carry rocket launchers more than capable of damaging your vehicle. The tanks are equipped with unlimited cannon and machine gun ammo, and of course, they will run right over foot soldiers. You can control tanks in a first- or third-person view, and there’s also an option to pop out of the top of the tank and shoot down the enemy with your trusty automatic. The latter option is used for quicker aiming when the tank becomes surrounded by rocket-equipped soldiers, but of course, you are more vulnerable when exposed like this. The Jeep has a mounted, high-power machine gun that can be a formidable weapon in the desert, but the gunner is completely dependent on his driver to keep the vehicle out of harm’s way and on even ground for good shots.

Call of Duty: Finest Hour is rated Teen for some blood and, of course, violence. The game ships later this fall, and we’ll be back with a full review at that time.

Last updated: 09/03/2004

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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 Scott J. Langteau, associate producer of MOH, and lead producer of 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.