Call of Duty: Finest Hour

The good: well…it is a FPS
The bad: sluggish frame-rate

I love first-person shooters. I love it probably the most next to RPGs. So, it’s of no surprise that I immediately snap up most FPSes. Fortunately and unfortunately, Call of Duty is a decent, sufficient title which should probably hold you over till the next batch of high-profile shooters arrive.

I say fortunate because at its best, the game is a very playable, albeit standard, title comparable to the Medal of Honor series. The unfortunate side is that the PC version accumulated great praise but the console version was trimmed down both technically and features-wise. Unlike the PC version, you only get to issue rudimentary commands to your squad mates. In fact, you only seem to be able to give them a medi pack and order them to run around like a drunken Nazi dancing to the bad tune of Adolf Hitler. I’d surmise that if technical limitations prohibit you from fully implementing crucial game mechanics, then it’s probably best to craft the game in a somewhat different fashion from the original so that the player won’t get annoyed by non-working gameplay elements.

Another unfortunate thing is the game’s overall presentation. FPSes, by nature, should look good, sound good, and play smooth. So when I turn to shoot my M1 Garand at any hapless Nazi, I’d see beautiful sights at 60 frames per second with a woozing clunk of the bullet as I hit the fire button. Yet, the game ignores this basic tenet with sub-par graphics (which can only seem to paint gray shades), a sluggish frame rate, imprecise and annoying aiming function (you have to continually hold L1 to aim at the baddies), and sound effects which disappoint.

But like I said, Call of Duty is still very playable. If only there was more of it; the game ends sooner than you’d think. (3/5)