Discussing Call of Duty: Finest Hour is frustrating... and bizzare. It's gunplay is a weird hybrid of old school FPS and modern FPS. It looks great and sounds even better, but suffers from some severe jank at times. It's a game that presents WW2 in a captivating fashion, but it's terrible AI and poor scripting frequently take you out of the experience.
Call of Duty: Finest Hour is the "console" version of the original CoD. It's a product of a bygone era when consoles received unique versions of PC exclusives. It's an era I miss, simply because we got to see games shape themselves to suit the unique home console experience. It's a philosophy that would be seem outdated today, but it is something I appreciate looking back on. There was more misses then hits, and a hell of a lot of "in-betweens".
Finest Hour therefore finds itself in this spot. Visually speaking, this is still a good looking game nearly 20 years later. But you have to unearth this game from it's dark default state to actually appreciate what you're seeing.
Compared to the PC original, Spark Unlimited seems to have opted for a more Hollywood approach to it's story telling. Every act is bookended with a documentary style video, and between levels we're introduced to soliders that give their lifestory before we're thrusted into action. Sometimes before that starts, you're treated to an in-game cutscene. Facial animations and voice acting here are impressive, at times. But the soundtrack is even better. Giacchino's score outshines the game, adding some much needed gravitas to the what-would-be duller moments. It features an equal mixture of harrowing and bombastic composition. The final level, in particular has a standout track. With such nice presentation, I found myself getting into the story a bit at times. But that was short lived.
People can act stupid. Very stupid at times. But if you're in a World War of all things, my wager is that you'd be sharp. In Finest Hour, you're encouraged to work with your AI buddies (or inferiors, depending on your ranking), but they are dumb. The privates you have with you swing into battle like their invincible bullet sponges and get themselves gunned down. Tough luck, because they're the only people that can shoot at the enemy and deal some damage. Meanwhile, as you're in the midst of that 10-20 enemy ambush, you can witness your Cpl. melee fighting an enemy while getting shot at by 5 of them. Or how about you wanna move up the stairs but Cpl. Forgettable is blocking the way? Get ready to melee punch him 5-10 times so he can get back to his well-assigned pathing. Sometimes he may even forget he's supposed to follow you, in which cases he conviniently despawns and spawns right behind you. The enemies can do that sometimes as well. Whomever it may be, their pathing will be certainely well-assigned, because they are only going that way. Enemies be damned.
You do the same? Well then on Hard difficulty you're gunned down in seconds. My recommendation: Play this thing on Normal. Or at the very least, play it on Hard until you realise how broken the game can be, and then play on Normal so it feels like Easy. I played it on Hard however, it was at parts challenging but a lot of time was spent figuring how to progress so I could stand back and watch the AI kill a bunch of enemies for me. If you looked at my gameplay, you'd be wondering if I was playing a homebrew of Arma on the PS2. Well, my cautioun is really due to the terrible balance in this game. Checkpoints are sparse, with only one per level (only one level has 2), so get ready for major backtracking so you can experience the terrible gunplay on display since Sgt. Dehart wanted to go Rambo and ultimately found himself killed. Again, and again.
The guns here control weird, despite feeling unqiue from one another. Not that it matters, as I was fighting the unreliable lock on and awfully slow camera to actually land my shots. That's not to mention the weird scopes. Like the sniper rifle, which could fit like 5 heads onto it's one reticle. I found myself disappointed with these tiny things, because they seem like simple things that could be improved upon. But when you top this all off unreliable hit markers too, I was just left annoyed. This lack of polish to gunplay is Finest Hour's achilles heel, and is what is holding it back from being a truly good game.
Call of Duty: Finest Hour is fine. You're gonna be done with it in 6-9 hours. I enjoyed my time with it, when it actually was working. The thing that sucks though, is that there is a lot of potential here. When I started the Soviet campaign and was greeted with what looks like the Gates of Hell, I was excited to see what I was in store for. But instead, the terrible controls and AI really made it all come crashing down. This could've been CoD's Finest Hour, if it spent a little more time in bootcamp. I give this game a very cautious reccomendation, if you can deal with the negatives.
Call of Duty: Finest Hour is the "console" version of the original CoD. It's a product of a bygone era when consoles received unique versions of PC exclusives. It's an era I miss, simply because we got to see games shape themselves to suit the unique home console experience. It's a philosophy that would be seem outdated today, but it is something I appreciate looking back on. There was more misses then hits, and a hell of a lot of "in-betweens".
Finest Hour therefore finds itself in this spot. Visually speaking, this is still a good looking game nearly 20 years later. But you have to unearth this game from it's dark default state to actually appreciate what you're seeing.
Compared to the PC original, Spark Unlimited seems to have opted for a more Hollywood approach to it's story telling. Every act is bookended with a documentary style video, and between levels we're introduced to soliders that give their lifestory before we're thrusted into action. Sometimes before that starts, you're treated to an in-game cutscene. Facial animations and voice acting here are impressive, at times. But the soundtrack is even better. Giacchino's score outshines the game, adding some much needed gravitas to the what-would-be duller moments. It features an equal mixture of harrowing and bombastic composition. The final level, in particular has a standout track. With such nice presentation, I found myself getting into the story a bit at times. But that was short lived.
People can act stupid. Very stupid at times. But if you're in a World War of all things, my wager is that you'd be sharp. In Finest Hour, you're encouraged to work with your AI buddies (or inferiors, depending on your ranking), but they are dumb. The privates you have with you swing into battle like their invincible bullet sponges and get themselves gunned down. Tough luck, because they're the only people that can shoot at the enemy and deal some damage. Meanwhile, as you're in the midst of that 10-20 enemy ambush, you can witness your Cpl. melee fighting an enemy while getting shot at by 5 of them. Or how about you wanna move up the stairs but Cpl. Forgettable is blocking the way? Get ready to melee punch him 5-10 times so he can get back to his well-assigned pathing. Sometimes he may even forget he's supposed to follow you, in which cases he conviniently despawns and spawns right behind you. The enemies can do that sometimes as well. Whomever it may be, their pathing will be certainely well-assigned, because they are only going that way. Enemies be damned.
You do the same? Well then on Hard difficulty you're gunned down in seconds. My recommendation: Play this thing on Normal. Or at the very least, play it on Hard until you realise how broken the game can be, and then play on Normal so it feels like Easy. I played it on Hard however, it was at parts challenging but a lot of time was spent figuring how to progress so I could stand back and watch the AI kill a bunch of enemies for me. If you looked at my gameplay, you'd be wondering if I was playing a homebrew of Arma on the PS2. Well, my cautioun is really due to the terrible balance in this game. Checkpoints are sparse, with only one per level (only one level has 2), so get ready for major backtracking so you can experience the terrible gunplay on display since Sgt. Dehart wanted to go Rambo and ultimately found himself killed. Again, and again.
The guns here control weird, despite feeling unqiue from one another. Not that it matters, as I was fighting the unreliable lock on and awfully slow camera to actually land my shots. That's not to mention the weird scopes. Like the sniper rifle, which could fit like 5 heads onto it's one reticle. I found myself disappointed with these tiny things, because they seem like simple things that could be improved upon. But when you top this all off unreliable hit markers too, I was just left annoyed. This lack of polish to gunplay is Finest Hour's achilles heel, and is what is holding it back from being a truly good game.
Call of Duty: Finest Hour is fine. You're gonna be done with it in 6-9 hours. I enjoyed my time with it, when it actually was working. The thing that sucks though, is that there is a lot of potential here. When I started the Soviet campaign and was greeted with what looks like the Gates of Hell, I was excited to see what I was in store for. But instead, the terrible controls and AI really made it all come crashing down. This could've been CoD's Finest Hour, if it spent a little more time in bootcamp. I give this game a very cautious reccomendation, if you can deal with the negatives.
Mad How big Call of Duty got starting with this gunplay? It's considerably worse than Doom Wolfenstein Quake from around the same time period. Gunplay-wise, and the slow-motion effects were plain aggravating. Additionally, the game likes to be so fucking dark that it's hard to see where to go. Did all the achievements for this on retro achievements was very easy, however this is just not a decent game in terms of gunplay or design.
its aight
This review contains spoilers
This game falls short of what it's predesessor has done.
The Story is that you follow a number of different soldiers as they fight through battles during World War 2. Same concept as the first game, but with moments of other protagonists sometimes appearing to another one, and this game didn't need to do any different than what it did.
The Characters are better than the last game, perticularly in the protagonists. They give you their backstory before the first level that you play as them for, and it's good to see different types of personalities fighting the same war. The downside is that most of the characters you don't play as are as bland as the first game. The only exceptions for me was the soldier that you follow in the very first mission of the game, he was good for what little time he had, but nothing great.
The Graphics are worse than the first game. It's slightly more pixelated, and less slightly less detailed, especially the character models. Also why do some soldiers give tasks to ones with a higher rank than them?
The Gameplay has you first person shooting, across World War 2 battles. This is the same type of great gameplay from the first game, with some changes, and some ingame cutscenes to try and give more to the characters despite what little there is. But nearly all of the changes added to this game are for the worse. Like there is no timer now on the bombs. Destroyed vehicles disappear from the scene. The Checkpoints suck. Your allies don't show up on your compass. The Friendly AI isn't as good as the first game's. The Enemy AI is awful in some moments. The props on the screen "including the red X that tells you when you hit an enemy" all feel to cartoony for a serious toned war game. Although I like the idea of using medic kits on fellow soldiers, it's pointless when the soldiers you care about the most will live regardless, leaving only the ones that have no lines to be helped. Even the final minute of the campaign where the last enemies are above a ladder that you can't get to without being shot up, having to fight off stukas without warning, and not being warned which direction the they are coming from doesn't work gameplay wise when they could come from any direction this time. The Multiplayer is mostly the same as the first game's, but with the same problems as the campaign gameplay, and I don't like why the text saying who killed and has been killed is now near the middle of the screen instead of off to the side.
The Music is the best thing in the game. It's not as awesome as the first game's, but it is still of similar quality. Michael Giacchino really puts his effort into even side adventures that a lot of people wouldn't even see. But the sound effects of some of the guns don't have the same shocking impact of the first game.
Call of Duty: Finest Hour is not a Finest Hour to it's predesessor.
The Story is that you follow a number of different soldiers as they fight through battles during World War 2. Same concept as the first game, but with moments of other protagonists sometimes appearing to another one, and this game didn't need to do any different than what it did.
The Characters are better than the last game, perticularly in the protagonists. They give you their backstory before the first level that you play as them for, and it's good to see different types of personalities fighting the same war. The downside is that most of the characters you don't play as are as bland as the first game. The only exceptions for me was the soldier that you follow in the very first mission of the game, he was good for what little time he had, but nothing great.
The Graphics are worse than the first game. It's slightly more pixelated, and less slightly less detailed, especially the character models. Also why do some soldiers give tasks to ones with a higher rank than them?
The Gameplay has you first person shooting, across World War 2 battles. This is the same type of great gameplay from the first game, with some changes, and some ingame cutscenes to try and give more to the characters despite what little there is. But nearly all of the changes added to this game are for the worse. Like there is no timer now on the bombs. Destroyed vehicles disappear from the scene. The Checkpoints suck. Your allies don't show up on your compass. The Friendly AI isn't as good as the first game's. The Enemy AI is awful in some moments. The props on the screen "including the red X that tells you when you hit an enemy" all feel to cartoony for a serious toned war game. Although I like the idea of using medic kits on fellow soldiers, it's pointless when the soldiers you care about the most will live regardless, leaving only the ones that have no lines to be helped. Even the final minute of the campaign where the last enemies are above a ladder that you can't get to without being shot up, having to fight off stukas without warning, and not being warned which direction the they are coming from doesn't work gameplay wise when they could come from any direction this time. The Multiplayer is mostly the same as the first game's, but with the same problems as the campaign gameplay, and I don't like why the text saying who killed and has been killed is now near the middle of the screen instead of off to the side.
The Music is the best thing in the game. It's not as awesome as the first game's, but it is still of similar quality. Michael Giacchino really puts his effort into even side adventures that a lot of people wouldn't even see. But the sound effects of some of the guns don't have the same shocking impact of the first game.
Call of Duty: Finest Hour is not a Finest Hour to it's predesessor.
It's REALLY good
yea its just ok.
Zerei boa parte dos call of duty com meu pai, não tenho opnião separada desses jogos mais antigos da epoca, porque eu zerei a maioria com literais 9 anos, eu nasci em 2003, então tipo, muito zika mas não tenho opnião para separar eles entre sí, agora os mais novos do MW1 (vulgo COd 4) pra frente eu ja consigo opinar melhor.
Vou copiar e colar esse pra todos os jogos que eu sinto a mesma coisa, uma nostalgia que não consigo definir direito.
Vou copiar e colar esse pra todos os jogos que eu sinto a mesma coisa, uma nostalgia que não consigo definir direito.
One of the classic COD game and it hits
This is psychological torture. There's no other way of describing it. None of its aspects work at all. The gameplay is slow, but really, really slow, you feel like a worm, your guns don't shoot fast, the movement feels sluggish and jumping is merely a detail. The gunplay is just bad, aiming is terrible with an horribly implemented aim assist and the shooting lacks any feedback at all, and you'll get constantly swarmed by enemies with perfect aim all the time to an absurd degree and you'll die a lot of times, because the only way to regain health is via scarce medkits. This is not hard, it's unfair. "But if I die, I'll just respawn at the last checkpoint, right?", you may ask. No, not at all, there aren't any savepoints in this game. I mean, there will occassionally be one or two in certain missions, but for the most time there won't be any, meaning that you'll restart the mission aaaall over again.
And I wouldn't mind that if the missions were good, but they're not. It's just: "Defend this position", "Escort this ally", "Assault this place", "Drive a tank" or "Kill all the enemies/tanks/planes/whatever". It's just lazy and uninspired. And this brings me to my next point. This is the most nothing game I've ever played. It's literally about nothing, you just go from mission to mission with almost no plot or characters. This may very well be the videogame equivalent of the WW2 documentary you could find zapping on the TV after dinner. No, in fact when you finish a campaing they do drop you some bits that are just a narration of the actual events of WW2 over real footage. THIS IS A FRICKIN' HISTORY CHANNEL DOCUMENTARY!!!!!. And you could argue that World at War did the same thing, and while it's technically true, at least they tried to tell something about the war instead of dropping you onto whatever battle they felt like.
Lastly, the thing that pisses me off the most. The atrocious framerate. Now, I don't certainly know if this is a my monitor thing, because I'm playing on an original PS2 with a HDMI converter and a modern 1080p monitor, but I tested the other games that I have (Scarface, No One Lives Forever, Enter The Matrix, Manhunt and Ghosthunter), and all of them have a consistent framerate, not necessarily high or anything (except for Ghosthunter which shockingly had a pretty high FPS count), but consistent. Finest Hour didn't have a consistent framerate. Sometimes you'll be at like 30 FPS and ten seconds later you'll be at 8 FPS, it's ridiculous. This just worsens the experience a lot making everything feel even more worse. I mean, was it that hard to make your game with a stable framerate? Guess it was pretty hard after all. But even if the framerate was better, all you were to have was a pretty mediocre, badly designed and forgettable First-Person Shooter.
I don't know if these words showed you the hatred this game filled me with, I genuinely don't want anything to do with this ever again in my entire life, I just want to forget that I played this. It's not just that it's a middling game, it's infuriating, horrible in every single way, I despise it, I hate it with all my heart. It is now that I wonder why did I decided to play this first with my new PS2 instead of, you know, actual good games, but I don't know. I may just be fucking stupid.
And I wouldn't mind that if the missions were good, but they're not. It's just: "Defend this position", "Escort this ally", "Assault this place", "Drive a tank" or "Kill all the enemies/tanks/planes/whatever". It's just lazy and uninspired. And this brings me to my next point. This is the most nothing game I've ever played. It's literally about nothing, you just go from mission to mission with almost no plot or characters. This may very well be the videogame equivalent of the WW2 documentary you could find zapping on the TV after dinner. No, in fact when you finish a campaing they do drop you some bits that are just a narration of the actual events of WW2 over real footage. THIS IS A FRICKIN' HISTORY CHANNEL DOCUMENTARY!!!!!. And you could argue that World at War did the same thing, and while it's technically true, at least they tried to tell something about the war instead of dropping you onto whatever battle they felt like.
Lastly, the thing that pisses me off the most. The atrocious framerate. Now, I don't certainly know if this is a my monitor thing, because I'm playing on an original PS2 with a HDMI converter and a modern 1080p monitor, but I tested the other games that I have (Scarface, No One Lives Forever, Enter The Matrix, Manhunt and Ghosthunter), and all of them have a consistent framerate, not necessarily high or anything (except for Ghosthunter which shockingly had a pretty high FPS count), but consistent. Finest Hour didn't have a consistent framerate. Sometimes you'll be at like 30 FPS and ten seconds later you'll be at 8 FPS, it's ridiculous. This just worsens the experience a lot making everything feel even more worse. I mean, was it that hard to make your game with a stable framerate? Guess it was pretty hard after all. But even if the framerate was better, all you were to have was a pretty mediocre, badly designed and forgettable First-Person Shooter.
I don't know if these words showed you the hatred this game filled me with, I genuinely don't want anything to do with this ever again in my entire life, I just want to forget that I played this. It's not just that it's a middling game, it's infuriating, horrible in every single way, I despise it, I hate it with all my heart. It is now that I wonder why did I decided to play this first with my new PS2 instead of, you know, actual good games, but I don't know. I may just be fucking stupid.
Fun campaign/gameplay. Story is forgettable.
What seems to be a good idea first, might become a bad one later on. The fact that CoD's first attempt at a console exclusive title were like this, shows that at the time, developers did not know what to do with the IP, because Finest Hour is not just too safe with it's mission design and campaigns, but also pretty lazy.
Essentially, the game is pretty much the same as CoD 1 in terms of variety. You can play as the russians, the british and americans, but what makes this one unique is that each soldier has a reason to fight and they tell you who they are at the beginning of their mission. You will also meet every playable character in the game in other missions, making the campaigns feel like an unique experience, rather than a random pile of ideas.
What makes this one bad, is that the gunplay is not satisfying at all, and the design of some of the missions are very cheap. Do this for 9 minutes, drive around in a tank for 6 minutes, hop out, shoot 4 guys, hop back, destroy XY etc etc. You get the idea, it is pretty safe and cheap.
The enemy can also literally spawn right in front of you, and the game uses a health pack system, that will probably let you down, because with the combination of a checkpoint system, some parts are utterly terrible.
Not only that, but guns are inaccurate as well, making them unenjoyable to use. Sometimes the game lets you grab and carry a heavier, more stationary weapon, but the recoil and accuracy is so off, that you basically cannot enjoy them at all.
However, I really liked the opening soviet union campaign, which was the most refined experience out of all of them, while the british campaign was undercooked, and the american suffered from recycling ideas.
Finest Hour is a decent time to be very honest, because in the end, you are playing Call of Duty, and Call of Duty is always at least fun, even when it isn't well made in every aspect.
Fun fact: This game was made by Spark Unlimited, the developers of Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, Legendary and Lost Planet 3. This was their first game.
Essentially, the game is pretty much the same as CoD 1 in terms of variety. You can play as the russians, the british and americans, but what makes this one unique is that each soldier has a reason to fight and they tell you who they are at the beginning of their mission. You will also meet every playable character in the game in other missions, making the campaigns feel like an unique experience, rather than a random pile of ideas.
What makes this one bad, is that the gunplay is not satisfying at all, and the design of some of the missions are very cheap. Do this for 9 minutes, drive around in a tank for 6 minutes, hop out, shoot 4 guys, hop back, destroy XY etc etc. You get the idea, it is pretty safe and cheap.
The enemy can also literally spawn right in front of you, and the game uses a health pack system, that will probably let you down, because with the combination of a checkpoint system, some parts are utterly terrible.
Not only that, but guns are inaccurate as well, making them unenjoyable to use. Sometimes the game lets you grab and carry a heavier, more stationary weapon, but the recoil and accuracy is so off, that you basically cannot enjoy them at all.
However, I really liked the opening soviet union campaign, which was the most refined experience out of all of them, while the british campaign was undercooked, and the american suffered from recycling ideas.
Finest Hour is a decent time to be very honest, because in the end, you are playing Call of Duty, and Call of Duty is always at least fun, even when it isn't well made in every aspect.
Fun fact: This game was made by Spark Unlimited, the developers of Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, Legendary and Lost Planet 3. This was their first game.
Medkit toplama sistemi var daha ne olsun. Şu an oynanmaz ama ben 2 sene önce nasıl oynadım aklım almıyor.
100% on RetroAchievements - Played on PS2 Emulator
Some of the cinematic scenes they stole from the PC version are reasonably ambitious for its day, but when you look at the AI, animation, movement and remember that Halo 2 came out the same year, it's harder to be so generous.
Let's get the only good parts out of the way: The Rhine crossing mission rules conceptually and mechanically, and its theme is the cherry on a generally strong score. Unlike its PC brethren, it does make an old college try at writing dialogue intent on character development. Even though the writing overall is worse than its predecessor, it does make the missions feel a little higher stakes and a little more lived in. But that's about all I can say.
The in-engine scenes just do not have the same choreography and composition of its source material. Not to mention, the original has such variety — trench warfare, espionage and infil, daring escapes, sieges. Meanwhile you spend probably 85% of Finest Hour in crumbling buildings or city streets. The North African stretch is a nice touch, but where are the fields? The villages? The snowy forests? At least we have plenty of underground tunnels!
Truly horrible character mobility. The look system has a screwy and floaty dead zone, quite unlike its contemporary console/analog stick FPS cousins, and it feels like you're walking through a swamp. Not to mention getting glued in place if you're being shredded by a buzzsaw MG42 or within 20 feet of a grenade.
The gunplay is where things get really rotten, though. Often I'd have an enemy dead in my iron sights 10 feet away and still miss. Good luck if you need to murk a sniper and you ran out of anything but MP40 ammo. I get it if you want guns to be less accurate to feel more realistic, but if you're going to design a game around that concept, you should probably not also require enemies to take 5-8 bullets to the head before they die on EASY difficulty. I truly couldn't believe how grueling the endgame was. I will say the tank movement and shooting feels relatively fine, but like almost all tank combat in gaming, it is too sluggish and imprecise to really be that exciting. And there is a LOT of tank combat here.
More than a few times, the mission trigger didn't pop and I got stuck, which meant I had to go back to the previous awfully designed checkpoint and often lose like 10-15 minutes of progress. Who designed this? CoD PC is a brutal game, but it at least acknowledges itself and gives you quicksaves and fairly frequent checkpoints.
I'm a big fan of the series and the early PC games had a cinematic quality that make them the definitive WW2 sim experience for their day. But this, this is just cash-in garbage farmed out to a team that either misconstrued or was technologically incapable to deliver what worked so well about the original.
Let's get the only good parts out of the way: The Rhine crossing mission rules conceptually and mechanically, and its theme is the cherry on a generally strong score. Unlike its PC brethren, it does make an old college try at writing dialogue intent on character development. Even though the writing overall is worse than its predecessor, it does make the missions feel a little higher stakes and a little more lived in. But that's about all I can say.
The in-engine scenes just do not have the same choreography and composition of its source material. Not to mention, the original has such variety — trench warfare, espionage and infil, daring escapes, sieges. Meanwhile you spend probably 85% of Finest Hour in crumbling buildings or city streets. The North African stretch is a nice touch, but where are the fields? The villages? The snowy forests? At least we have plenty of underground tunnels!
Truly horrible character mobility. The look system has a screwy and floaty dead zone, quite unlike its contemporary console/analog stick FPS cousins, and it feels like you're walking through a swamp. Not to mention getting glued in place if you're being shredded by a buzzsaw MG42 or within 20 feet of a grenade.
The gunplay is where things get really rotten, though. Often I'd have an enemy dead in my iron sights 10 feet away and still miss. Good luck if you need to murk a sniper and you ran out of anything but MP40 ammo. I get it if you want guns to be less accurate to feel more realistic, but if you're going to design a game around that concept, you should probably not also require enemies to take 5-8 bullets to the head before they die on EASY difficulty. I truly couldn't believe how grueling the endgame was. I will say the tank movement and shooting feels relatively fine, but like almost all tank combat in gaming, it is too sluggish and imprecise to really be that exciting. And there is a LOT of tank combat here.
More than a few times, the mission trigger didn't pop and I got stuck, which meant I had to go back to the previous awfully designed checkpoint and often lose like 10-15 minutes of progress. Who designed this? CoD PC is a brutal game, but it at least acknowledges itself and gives you quicksaves and fairly frequent checkpoints.
I'm a big fan of the series and the early PC games had a cinematic quality that make them the definitive WW2 sim experience for their day. But this, this is just cash-in garbage farmed out to a team that either misconstrued or was technologically incapable to deliver what worked so well about the original.
At first time looks like a standart port of COD 1 or 2, but Developers did a great job. This is not a standart PS2 port of COD. You can chose paths and play custom. Great work but its difficult. Developers made difficult this game so you can spend more hours and checkpoints are far beyond compared titles released in 2004. Give a try, you will like it.
„Dieser Bär ist niedlich.“
Nach dem exzellenten ersten PC-Teil samt Add-on enttäuscht dieses Konsolen-Spin-off beinahe auf ganzer Linie.
Zugegeben, grafisch ist dieses Spiel eine Wucht für die damalige Konsolengeneration und dazu relativ vielseitig, besonders weil auch nicht einfach alles vom Vorgänger übernommen wurde. Man spielt alle paar Missionen einen anderen Protagonisten, analog zu den oben genannten Ablegern mal im Panzer, an der Flak, normal zu Fuß oder mit dem MG ballernd auf einem Jeep.
Warum also die niedrige Wertung? Das liegt an der Mischung aus brutal schwerem Gameplay, schlichtweg unfairem sowie teils verwirrendem Leveldesign und einer grausigen Controller-Steuerung. Dazu kommt die strunzdumme KI der Kameraden – wenn man gerade in Deckung verharrt, wird man sehr oft von den eigenen Leuten zur Seite weggedrängt, mitten in die Schussbahn hinein. Generell stehen sie meist im Weg herum, sodass man nicht abdrücken kann, um Friendly Fire zu vermeiden. Die Feinde schießen dabei einfach durch Personen oder gerne mal Häuserecken hindurch.
Schlimm wären diese Probleme ja nicht wirklich, wenn das Spiel denn genug Heilungsmöglichkeiten bieten würde. Leider ist man schon bei wenigen Schüssen tot und kann höchstens 4 Gesundheitspacks mitnehmen, von denen in manchen Leveln einfach mal lange Zeit gar keine zu finden sind, während man in anderen Missionen damit zugespammt wird. Apropos Spam, selbstverständlich rücken immer wieder neue gegnerische Trupps an, die anscheinend aus dem Nichts von Richtungen kommen, die man schon komplett ausgeräumt hat.
Etwa zweimal im Spiel bekommt man ein Scharfschützengewehr in die Hand, bei dem mir das Zielen trotz der viel zu ungenauen Stick-Steuerung sehr viel Spaß macht. Das war’s dann aber schon, denn alle restlichen Gegenden sind auf so perfide und sadistische Weise gestaltet, dass man auf ewig lange Entfernung MG-Schützen und haufenweise andere Gegner ohne eine solche Waffe ausschalten muss. Es ist die pure Hölle, beim Controller-Zielen Millimeterarbeit zu verrichten, während man von allen Seiten beschossen wird und Angst haben muss, von hinten ebenfalls überrascht zu werden. Diese Karten sind allesamt so gestaltet, dass man frustriert wird, denn Gegner hört man über den Kampflärm nicht auf sich zukommen und ansonsten sind sie irgendwo weit weg in Deckung und ballern kontinuierlich drauflos.
Habe ich schon erwähnt, dass man nicht speichern kann und stattdessen auf automatische Speicherpunkte angewiesen ist, von denen es nur etwa 2 oder keine pro Mission gibt? Ja, bei jedem Tod muss man fast das ganze 30- bis 60-minütige Level erneut spielen. Die Zielhilfe, die standardmäßig in den Einstellungen aktiv ist, macht übrigens absolut nichts. Ohne Savestates im Emulator wäre ich locker 10 Stunden länger an diesem Scheißspiel gesessen, aber wenigstens die Panzerlevel waren fair und spaßig.
Die GameCube-Version ist einer der anspruchsvollen Titel der Konsole, soweit ich das recherchiert habe. Das merkt man leider an Framedrops in einigen Bereichen, dazu sieht man auch kaum etwas um den Spieler herum, denn das Fiel of View ist für meinen Geschmack viel zu nah eingestellt. Dank Emulatoroptimierungen wurde aus dem Ruckelfest dann doch eine Erfahrung zwischen 30 und 50 FPS, was ich als generell spielbar bezeichnen würde.
Wer auf viel zu lange Level, Frustration, unsichtbare Wände, brutal unfaire Schwierigkeit und unterdurchschnittliche Steuerung steht, darf sich das Spiel gerne besorgen. Alle normalen Menschen sollten einen großen Bogen darum machen.
Das ist übrigens mein zweiter COD-Teil.
Gespielte Fassung: GameCube-Version mit deutscher Synchro
Nach dem exzellenten ersten PC-Teil samt Add-on enttäuscht dieses Konsolen-Spin-off beinahe auf ganzer Linie.
Zugegeben, grafisch ist dieses Spiel eine Wucht für die damalige Konsolengeneration und dazu relativ vielseitig, besonders weil auch nicht einfach alles vom Vorgänger übernommen wurde. Man spielt alle paar Missionen einen anderen Protagonisten, analog zu den oben genannten Ablegern mal im Panzer, an der Flak, normal zu Fuß oder mit dem MG ballernd auf einem Jeep.
Warum also die niedrige Wertung? Das liegt an der Mischung aus brutal schwerem Gameplay, schlichtweg unfairem sowie teils verwirrendem Leveldesign und einer grausigen Controller-Steuerung. Dazu kommt die strunzdumme KI der Kameraden – wenn man gerade in Deckung verharrt, wird man sehr oft von den eigenen Leuten zur Seite weggedrängt, mitten in die Schussbahn hinein. Generell stehen sie meist im Weg herum, sodass man nicht abdrücken kann, um Friendly Fire zu vermeiden. Die Feinde schießen dabei einfach durch Personen oder gerne mal Häuserecken hindurch.
Schlimm wären diese Probleme ja nicht wirklich, wenn das Spiel denn genug Heilungsmöglichkeiten bieten würde. Leider ist man schon bei wenigen Schüssen tot und kann höchstens 4 Gesundheitspacks mitnehmen, von denen in manchen Leveln einfach mal lange Zeit gar keine zu finden sind, während man in anderen Missionen damit zugespammt wird. Apropos Spam, selbstverständlich rücken immer wieder neue gegnerische Trupps an, die anscheinend aus dem Nichts von Richtungen kommen, die man schon komplett ausgeräumt hat.
Etwa zweimal im Spiel bekommt man ein Scharfschützengewehr in die Hand, bei dem mir das Zielen trotz der viel zu ungenauen Stick-Steuerung sehr viel Spaß macht. Das war’s dann aber schon, denn alle restlichen Gegenden sind auf so perfide und sadistische Weise gestaltet, dass man auf ewig lange Entfernung MG-Schützen und haufenweise andere Gegner ohne eine solche Waffe ausschalten muss. Es ist die pure Hölle, beim Controller-Zielen Millimeterarbeit zu verrichten, während man von allen Seiten beschossen wird und Angst haben muss, von hinten ebenfalls überrascht zu werden. Diese Karten sind allesamt so gestaltet, dass man frustriert wird, denn Gegner hört man über den Kampflärm nicht auf sich zukommen und ansonsten sind sie irgendwo weit weg in Deckung und ballern kontinuierlich drauflos.
Habe ich schon erwähnt, dass man nicht speichern kann und stattdessen auf automatische Speicherpunkte angewiesen ist, von denen es nur etwa 2 oder keine pro Mission gibt? Ja, bei jedem Tod muss man fast das ganze 30- bis 60-minütige Level erneut spielen. Die Zielhilfe, die standardmäßig in den Einstellungen aktiv ist, macht übrigens absolut nichts. Ohne Savestates im Emulator wäre ich locker 10 Stunden länger an diesem Scheißspiel gesessen, aber wenigstens die Panzerlevel waren fair und spaßig.
Die GameCube-Version ist einer der anspruchsvollen Titel der Konsole, soweit ich das recherchiert habe. Das merkt man leider an Framedrops in einigen Bereichen, dazu sieht man auch kaum etwas um den Spieler herum, denn das Fiel of View ist für meinen Geschmack viel zu nah eingestellt. Dank Emulatoroptimierungen wurde aus dem Ruckelfest dann doch eine Erfahrung zwischen 30 und 50 FPS, was ich als generell spielbar bezeichnen würde.
Wer auf viel zu lange Level, Frustration, unsichtbare Wände, brutal unfaire Schwierigkeit und unterdurchschnittliche Steuerung steht, darf sich das Spiel gerne besorgen. Alle normalen Menschen sollten einen großen Bogen darum machen.
Das ist übrigens mein zweiter COD-Teil.
Gespielte Fassung: GameCube-Version mit deutscher Synchro
Mano vai tomar no cu, que jogo ruim do caralho.
surprisingly enjoyable... i didnt think i would ever find myself saying that about a CoD game, but this is so snappy and has such little fat. the soviet campaign especially is short, fun, varied, and actually moved me at a few moments. i can't really say as much about the two other campaigns but the eastern front was great. this is such a cinematic and large scale (it feels like it is, anyways) game that you really don't expect out of this generation of gaming, it almost feels a little anachronistic.
Don't bother.
An okay but unremarkable spinoff that served as the first CoD entry on consoles. The campaign has its moments but didn't do a whole lot to set itself apart from contemporaries such as the Medal of Honor series, and the physics and controls are weirdly-floaty and not smooth like later entries.
Generic, formulaic, and hence forgettable.
Clunky generic WW2 that did not age well.
Consoles first Call of Duty, and let me tell you, I do not like this game. What is essentially a spin off, and an attempt to give consoles a taste of the Call of Duty game/expansion on PC, it's a poor transition. Yes, I understand technology was pretty limited and developers were still trying to figure out control schemes and mechanics at the time but it's hard to ignore the lack of polish. Nothing in this game stands out, and I find it hard to recommend.
It follows a similar format to the pc counterpart, where the campaign is split up into 3 sections, Soviet, British, and America. This game takes a different approach with the characters than the first game, where it attempts to flush them out a lot more, give them a bit more life. Instead of you playing as what felt like generic infantryman. Being the best out of the three stories and starting off strong with the Soviet campaign, it has one of the coolest story missions in the series where you get to play as a female sniper, Tanya Pavelovna. Who as soon as she appeared I immediately wanted to marry. Time to rewatch Enemy at the Gates I guess. She also happens to be the ONLY memorable character in this game and she isn't around for very long and when she does leave, that's when the game becomes a sloggy, uninteresting mess. The British campaign is very short, which is sad to see because I'd argue it has the coolest setting, Africa. Having some neat set pieces and fun moments it's easily forgotten. The American story is fairly long, but shares a similar fate with the previous campaign, and that it's just kind of boring and forgettable but still having some neat views.
Gameplay is what you would most likely expect, shoot, move up, shoot. The problem with that is, hit detection is inconsistent, sometimes aiming directly at enemies, shots just don't seem to land no matter what, not only that, guns seem to have a hard detection drop off, with in combination with the terrible aiming acceleration where you will often just overshoot and miss targets constantly, it makes it very hard to actually enjoy. When you aren't boots on the ground you are most likely in a tank, which drag on for way to long. It's a way to break up gameplay but by god are they just boring, at least they give you the option of 3rd person which is cool but it just feels a lot more inaccurate when shooting. Unlike the first game you get a dedicated grenade button which is a nice feature, but at the same time they also took away the ability to sprint which they added in the expansion United Offensive. You do adjust to the slower move speed after awhile though. Call of duty 1 had this thing where you couldn't open doors, in this one it seems they got a bit excited about it all and now you have to open every single door to progress, or you can tell your squad to do it. On that note, Ai is shit, plain and simple. Running in front of you, running into fire or grenades, standing there, even the enemies will act lobotomized, then mow you down with pixel perfect accuracy. Health packs make a return, from PC but with the added bonus of being able to actually carry some on you, which is a nice addition.
Multiplayer I did not get to try.
Heavily unstable framerate, sometimes affecting the entire mission feeling extremely slow, adding to the already sluggish feeling of the gameplay itself. Which just adds to the frustration when you are also dealing with the terrible checkpoint system. If you die, or fail then you will sometimes have to start a 20 minute mission all over again, and it will happen.
Visually the game is actually decently detailed, environments are full, and the effects are okay. Although they went with the terrible muzzle flash that the first game had. The game does promote a bit of exploration but it's usually into empty rooms to find a health pack or gun.
The orchestral soundtrack is dramatic which does fit in well with the games style. Sound design, footsteps, bullets flying about and explosions sound pretty okay, except for when mounted machine guns seemed to have this heavy "crunchy" sound to them when hitting an object like a tank, which honestly gave me a headache every time I was near it.
It follows a similar format to the pc counterpart, where the campaign is split up into 3 sections, Soviet, British, and America. This game takes a different approach with the characters than the first game, where it attempts to flush them out a lot more, give them a bit more life. Instead of you playing as what felt like generic infantryman. Being the best out of the three stories and starting off strong with the Soviet campaign, it has one of the coolest story missions in the series where you get to play as a female sniper, Tanya Pavelovna. Who as soon as she appeared I immediately wanted to marry. Time to rewatch Enemy at the Gates I guess. She also happens to be the ONLY memorable character in this game and she isn't around for very long and when she does leave, that's when the game becomes a sloggy, uninteresting mess. The British campaign is very short, which is sad to see because I'd argue it has the coolest setting, Africa. Having some neat set pieces and fun moments it's easily forgotten. The American story is fairly long, but shares a similar fate with the previous campaign, and that it's just kind of boring and forgettable but still having some neat views.
Gameplay is what you would most likely expect, shoot, move up, shoot. The problem with that is, hit detection is inconsistent, sometimes aiming directly at enemies, shots just don't seem to land no matter what, not only that, guns seem to have a hard detection drop off, with in combination with the terrible aiming acceleration where you will often just overshoot and miss targets constantly, it makes it very hard to actually enjoy. When you aren't boots on the ground you are most likely in a tank, which drag on for way to long. It's a way to break up gameplay but by god are they just boring, at least they give you the option of 3rd person which is cool but it just feels a lot more inaccurate when shooting. Unlike the first game you get a dedicated grenade button which is a nice feature, but at the same time they also took away the ability to sprint which they added in the expansion United Offensive. You do adjust to the slower move speed after awhile though. Call of duty 1 had this thing where you couldn't open doors, in this one it seems they got a bit excited about it all and now you have to open every single door to progress, or you can tell your squad to do it. On that note, Ai is shit, plain and simple. Running in front of you, running into fire or grenades, standing there, even the enemies will act lobotomized, then mow you down with pixel perfect accuracy. Health packs make a return, from PC but with the added bonus of being able to actually carry some on you, which is a nice addition.
Multiplayer I did not get to try.
Heavily unstable framerate, sometimes affecting the entire mission feeling extremely slow, adding to the already sluggish feeling of the gameplay itself. Which just adds to the frustration when you are also dealing with the terrible checkpoint system. If you die, or fail then you will sometimes have to start a 20 minute mission all over again, and it will happen.
Visually the game is actually decently detailed, environments are full, and the effects are okay. Although they went with the terrible muzzle flash that the first game had. The game does promote a bit of exploration but it's usually into empty rooms to find a health pack or gun.
The orchestral soundtrack is dramatic which does fit in well with the games style. Sound design, footsteps, bullets flying about and explosions sound pretty okay, except for when mounted machine guns seemed to have this heavy "crunchy" sound to them when hitting an object like a tank, which honestly gave me a headache every time I was near it.