"A Poor Transition To Console"
What seemed be a port of the first game in the series to consoles ended up being something that was slightly original, at least in the case of it not being a port at all. "Finest Hour" contains a standalone campaign built specifically for consoles, which is no easy feat for a studio that had barely gotten its series started. However, the awful controls, lack of good shooting feedback, empty story, and all too familiar level design of the first game (yet worse) resulted in a pretty forgettable first entry for "Call of Duty" on home consoles.
The controls in this game were really bad. Aiming is really stiff yet doused in stick acceleration, meaning it feels much harder to fight enemies than it should've been. Hitboxes being as poor as they were didn't help either, so you would constantly miss shots that would have been a breeze on PC (aim assist was useless here as well).
Levels were sort of similar to the first game, though there are plenty of original missions here. Unfortunately, these ones aren't really exciting and mostly involve things like wave defense or tank segments (at least during the first third of the game). There is a new setting in North Africa which at first sounded appealing, but the actual gameplay is so repetitive that I figured the change of scenery wouldn't matter.
There are characters introduced in the story that you do take control of, but they also weren't notable. Most had some slightly generic backstory with an okay voice actor, but they lacked personality throughout each of their two missions. The plot is, well, WWII again, but Exact Ent. didn't really seem interested in forming any stories with a particular character or squad like future games in the series would go on to do.
This is just a really bland FPS that controls like crud on console. The only shooter I can sort of think about that had this issue was "Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30", though in "that" game you couldn't even hit enemies with your gun most of the time. It's better than that here, though not by a huge margin. This one isn't really worth the time playing through since it mostly boils down the core COD mechanics while also failing to create a fun game out of the remains.
Final Verdict: 3/10 (Poor)
What seemed be a port of the first game in the series to consoles ended up being something that was slightly original, at least in the case of it not being a port at all. "Finest Hour" contains a standalone campaign built specifically for consoles, which is no easy feat for a studio that had barely gotten its series started. However, the awful controls, lack of good shooting feedback, empty story, and all too familiar level design of the first game (yet worse) resulted in a pretty forgettable first entry for "Call of Duty" on home consoles.
The controls in this game were really bad. Aiming is really stiff yet doused in stick acceleration, meaning it feels much harder to fight enemies than it should've been. Hitboxes being as poor as they were didn't help either, so you would constantly miss shots that would have been a breeze on PC (aim assist was useless here as well).
Levels were sort of similar to the first game, though there are plenty of original missions here. Unfortunately, these ones aren't really exciting and mostly involve things like wave defense or tank segments (at least during the first third of the game). There is a new setting in North Africa which at first sounded appealing, but the actual gameplay is so repetitive that I figured the change of scenery wouldn't matter.
There are characters introduced in the story that you do take control of, but they also weren't notable. Most had some slightly generic backstory with an okay voice actor, but they lacked personality throughout each of their two missions. The plot is, well, WWII again, but Exact Ent. didn't really seem interested in forming any stories with a particular character or squad like future games in the series would go on to do.
This is just a really bland FPS that controls like crud on console. The only shooter I can sort of think about that had this issue was "Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30", though in "that" game you couldn't even hit enemies with your gun most of the time. It's better than that here, though not by a huge margin. This one isn't really worth the time playing through since it mostly boils down the core COD mechanics while also failing to create a fun game out of the remains.
Final Verdict: 3/10 (Poor)