Hour of Victory Review

By Luke Albiges Published 3 July, 2007

War is hell.

Version tested: Xbox 360

The value of playtesting really cannot be understated. The 360 has been privy to some lustrously polished titles of late, with gems like Forza 2 and The Darkness brightening up this miserable excuse for a summer. And with each, you have to admire the poor bastards that played through the same sections day in, day out to make sure that everything worked as it should and that nothing was glaringly wrong. With that in mind, you have to wonder whether the quality assurance guys on Hour Of Victory were ignored to rush the game onto shelves or whether they somehow overlooked the constant barrage of blunders that make up this total shambles. Either way, somebody needed to stand up and say something because, in this bedraggled state, Hour Of Victory is frankly unfit for public consumption and a complete waste of everyone's time and money.

But before the inevitable shoeing starts, here's a little on the concept itself. nFusion's 'big idea' to make its mark on the WWII shooter genre is to offer three different character to take into the fray. Your covert ops chap can cut through fences and pick locks to sneak through levels and perform stealth kills with throwing knives, the sniper offers better mobility and the opportunity to scale ropes to reach higher ground (even if his 'improved accuracy' does make aiming painfully sluggish) and the SAS beefcake is all you'll need for the latter stages of the game, able to take a little more punishment and move infrequent heavy obstacles.

Each of these unique actions comes replete with its own cut scene, with some more annoying than others. Find a glowing rope, for example, and Bull will chuck his own grappling hook up in exactly the same spot rather than use the existing means. Landing a stealth kill, meanwhile, is seemingly a matter of chance - even when directly behind an unsuspecting foe. On the plus side, most of these animations render you immune to bullets, so you can make a run for a locked door or stray rope and hope to find yourself safe when the short sequence finishes.

'Hour of Victory' Screenshot 1

One of the lesser known facts about the Nazi forces is their knack for teleportation. In fact, Hour Of Victory is the first source to document this, often surprising you with enemies spawning right in front of your eyes. Like so many other elements of the game, this is just downright unacceptable in a modern full-price title, and we saw an awful lot of the pause menu as we tried to drink in what had just happened. We glitched through a cable car floor and fell to our deaths. We witnessed Germans sliding towards us motionless. We had to mêlée an officer out of a wall when he became stuck so he could lead us through a level (said officer went on to kick down a gate that wasn't there). We were told to 'man that flak gun' as the imbecile telling us to do so pointed in totally the opposite direction. And that's just a few of the shocking incidents we encountered - to list them all would require far more space than we've given to this entire review.

It seems wrong to dwell so on incidental errors though, especially when the constants are equally appalling. Hour Of Victory is by no stretch of the imagination pleasing on the eye and once things kick off, headache-inducing frame rate issues do nothing to help this sorry cause. The over-the-top orchestral score is pompous and self-celebrating almost to the point of feeling like a joke on the part of the composers. It gives the game an air of horribly undeserved pride.

Level design is basic as can be, ushering you through the most linear take on World War II that you're ever likely to encounter. Even the AI can't pull anything back for Midway's new IP, with Germans running around like dizzy children or just refusing to acknowledge your presence, rather than showcasing any sort of tactical initiative. Most things in this world are blessed with at least one redeeming feature but in this case, we're still struggling to find even circumstantial evidence of one. Live play is probably as close as it gets, benefiting massively from the removal of much of the nonsensical single player slog yet still being totally overshadowed and outclassed by the Call Of Duty series in this respect.

'Hour of Victory' Screenshot 2

But perhaps the most crushing aspect of Hour Of Victory is that even when it does try something new, it just never manages to make things work as they should. The main evidence for this is the almost totally redundant use of your three soldiers' individual skills. More often than not, these simply offer an ever-so-slightly different route around the same obstacle but the number of occasions on which this forced choice alters gameplay enough to warrant its inclusion can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Elsewhere, giving enemies the ability to duck out of the way of obvious mêlée attacks is a great concept, but it just doesn't work. Apart from the fact that there are so many single-shot kill weapons, there's also the annoyance of the dodge animation triggering way after the strike should connect. It's little more than another splatter of frustration in an already arduous game.

The easiest way to look at it is that Hour Of Victory simply isn't a finished product. Frequent crashes, scrappy fundamentals, all kinds of jaw-dropping glitches and rudimentary errors in missions conspire to make this one of the sloppiest and most embarrassing 360 releases to date.

Every aspect - from concept to execution - is so sorely flawed as to make even GoldenEye: Rogue Agent blush and to find a game so virtually meritless in this day and age is a rare thing indeed. Had this been a budget title designed to beat Call Of Duty 2 onto the shelves, Hour Of Victory could possibly have scraped some semblance of purpose. But surrounded by stronger, more recognisable and most importantly finished rivals as it is, there's just no logical explanation for the existence of this upsetting mess. 'Several Hours Of Abject Misery' would have been a far more fitting title.

2 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Luke.

About Luke Albiges

Read more articles from Luke by visiting the Luke Albiges archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (75) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Aretak #1 5 years ago

    A must buy!

  • RedPanda #2 5 years ago

    Post deleted at 14:31:59 28-01-2012

  • Yossarian #3 5 years ago

    looks like Luke Albiges is trying to make a name for himself

  • Avaloner #4 5 years ago

    Could have seen the results from a mile away. I pity the fools who made this mess.

  • kissthestick #5 5 years ago

    the devs are just trying to make an honest buck,lol

  • PlugMonkey #6 5 years ago

    "2/10 seems harsh for any game."

    Really? I was about to ask what it scored the 2 points for. It seemed generous based on the review.

  • [maven] #7 5 years ago

    So why was the preview in the Austrian castle on EG.tv all hopeful? Cocaine? Hookers?

  • pinhead #8 5 years ago

    Thankfully my xbox is at the repair shop, meaning that I will miss this release. Oh hold on I will miss the E3 stuff too!

    oh cock.

    Hurry up MS!!!!

  • JayPee #9 5 years ago

    Good.

    I loath just about everything about this game.

    Setting. Gameplay. Graphics. Sound.

    Everything.

  • TedMoseby #10 5 years ago

    I've only played the demo of this for a little while; what struck me was how utterly horrible the people look - beaten with an ugly stick while having some sort of weird plastic veneer glued to their faces.

    It seemed to desperately want to be Call of Duty, but didn't really sell itself as a polished product. I did like the over the top music though.

  • PearOfAnguish #11 5 years ago

    "2/10 seems harsh for any game."

    Disc's new scoring system: everything gets 7/10, because otherwise it's just not fair.

  • Darren #12 5 years ago

    This is the second 2/10 review I've read so I'm glad I decided against buying it!!! LOL

  • octo #13 5 years ago

    Ouch.

    I guess hiring that german castle was a mistake?

  • Xerx3s #14 5 years ago

    War is hell.

    So was the demo. It's one of those rare demo's that you simply can't be arsed to finish.

  • falvious #15 5 years ago

    Why so generous in giving it a 2/10. The game should really merit a 0/10 and be sent back to the publishers / developers with a dagger stuck through it, telling them to lock it away in a deep dark cell somewhere in colditz castle, and never let it see the light of day again.

  • Haloboy #16 5 years ago

    Hour of Shittery!

  • menage #17 5 years ago

    Good. The demo was a piece of shit.

    Worse thing is. This has been on the shelves for a week, probalby because they knew it was crap. Hopefully nobody bought it.

  • Triggerhappytel #18 5 years ago

    Seriously, we shouldn't laugh - but - ahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!

  • AcidSnake #19 5 years ago

    Screenshot caption contest:

    Screenie 2:
    "With the flak cannons not dealing enough damage the army sergeant decides to rip an entire tower out of the ground to fling at the enemy planes"

    Too long maybe...

  • dr_shambles #20 5 years ago

    The demo sucked relentlessly. Think 2/10 is fair.

  • bit_mite #21 5 years ago

    Based on the demo, I'm inclined to believe every damning word of this review. Not only was it not fun, but negatively fun - any lingering joy I had from playing Pacman C.E. just before quickly got sucked out by this game. I haven't even played that many WWII games (not a big fan of the genre) and I could feel my soul being sandblasted by HoV's tedious generic-ness.

    So probably won't pick this one up.

  • ChromeMud #22 5 years ago

    The demo definitely didn't do it any favours what so ever.
    A disgraceful fps with no redeeming features,tired,generic,thoughtless piece
    of crap that deserves to sink without a trace.
    Let this be a lesson to developers and publishers that this kind of crap will not be
    tolerated and that consumers are not idiots to mindless, money grabbing,
    software on a conveyor belt rubbish!!!

  • barchetta #23 5 years ago

    So was this an internal studio? If not, then its p45s all round then.

    What the hell happened to MS approval criteria if this got through?

  • Weezer #24 5 years ago

    Someone was either incredibly brave or monumentally stupid to release this as a downloadable demo. I played it for about 3 minutes before simply turning it off. Life is a precious commodity and I couldn't be arsed to waste any more of mine on this rancid detritus.

    And kudos to EG's reviewer for telling it like it is.

    Either:
    1) The developers should be ashamed of making such crud in the face of overwhelmingly good opposition.
    2) The publishers should shoot themslves in the face for rushing it onto the shelves (for whatever bizarre reason in the middle of a summer games drought).
    3) The games testers should be fired for not having the balls to stand up and say it's not actually a 'game' (games typically comprising some element of fun).

  • The-Bodybuilder #25 5 years ago

    >"We witnessed Germans sliding towards us motionless."

    This is something I saw way too often in the demo.

    That's the great thing about demos, lets you sift through the garbage.

  • Tomo #26 5 years ago

    I'm guessing it's a 2 from the multiplayer judging by the review text.

  • Huntcjna #27 5 years ago

    This review made me laugh, it made me laugh a lot. :D

  • DanWhitehead #28 5 years ago

    Is that Windsor Davis in the picture on the front page?

  • QotSAfan #29 5 years ago

    From what i played of the demo, my first and last thought on the game was "This is a poor mans Killzone". Completely agree with the review.

  • souljacker2000 #30 5 years ago

    i feel sorry for the poor bastards who own this game... im so glad i didnt go but it n got flatout instead

  • Birchy #31 5 years ago

    Oh dear. I bet the 4 people that admit to owning are trying to remove it from their lists :¬)

    1up were also slating this too.

    My new favourite saying (From the Darkness) springs to mind - You have to say it really quickly tho.

    Shit.Fuck.Cock

  • DUFFKING #32 5 years ago

    LOL at all the ads for this game on the site

  • dr_faulk #33 5 years ago

    Harsh

    lol, I can't wait to see the Angry Videogame Nerd's review of this in 10 years' time!
    Edited by 1 at 03/07/07 @ 15:11

  • smoothpete #34 5 years ago

    The demo was poor. If this had been a budget release I would have thought about buying it, had it not been for the appalling zoomed in aiming. The speed of the aiming movement when the right stick was clicked in was sooooooo veeeeery sloooooooooow... CoD2 buttfucks this with a german potato masher
    Edited by 1 at 03/07/07 @ 15:11

  • orakio #35 5 years ago

    " 5 users own this title "

    Poor fellas

  • ccfb #36 5 years ago

    So what are the two points for? Box art and rifle sfx?

  • miiiguel #37 5 years ago

    I bought the game, should arrive tomorrow. I wanted a FPS, but not a sci-fi one. Bad call I guess, every site is giving really bad reviews, on par with this or even worse.

    "This is a poor mans Killzone".: hummm, not really, Killzone is way cheaper, arround 10Eur, this one was 41. And gamewise Killzone is also cheap.
    Edited by 2 at 03/07/07 @ 15:21

  • SBfistfun #38 5 years ago

    Midway are shite

    Simple as that

  • Agent_Llama #39 5 years ago

    *downloads demo to sample atrocity for himself*
    Edited by 1 at 03/07/07 @ 15:36

  • SleepyMagpie #40 5 years ago

    Haha.

    I tried out the Hour of Victory demo RIGHT AFTER finishing Call of Duty 2 on veteran for the first time. A tough act to beat for any WWII game, but Hour of Victory was so crap in it's own private rectum as to warrant disbelief.

    After running in front of and behind germans tapping them on the back and shouting imaginary missed me's at them for 3-4 minutes, and still not dying, I turned off the demo with an incredulous look on my face.

    And it shows you can easily ruin a perfectly good Unreal engine by going for a cash in.

    2/10 is harsh, but what the heck, war is hell. Don't buy this.

  • menage #41 5 years ago

    "I bought the game, should arrive tomorrow. I wanted a FPS, but not a sci-fi one. "

    Didn't play the demo?

  • miiiguel #42 5 years ago

    menage: no..., I don't dig demos, I like the "first look" feeling..., yeah you may start to laugh now...

  • Saltefanden #43 5 years ago

    I'm tempted to buy this one, just to see how sluggish and broken it is.

  • nickthegun #44 5 years ago

    Judging by my arbitrary visits into game shops in the last week or so, this actually seems to be selling quite well.

  • miiiguel #45 5 years ago

    nickthegun: it is, surprisingly..., or not. Amazon sold out, how odd. Managed to find it at Play (oh unlucky me!), but allready marked with the comment "last units".

  • JayPee #46 5 years ago

    ohdeargod miiiguel.

    Poor you. :(

  • BBIAJ #47 5 years ago

    My copy of this finally arrived yesterday.

    I spent several hours on it, completed about 6 straight levels, and only came across all of one of the faults listed, that being the soldier not pointing at the flak gun, which in itself isn't exactly game breaking.

    I certainly didn't fall through the floor of the cable car, or witness any ice-skating Germans!

    And yes, I did play and complete the demo many times, because I liked it.

  • mull #48 5 years ago

    Wangalangalangalang!

    I saw this being talked up on the TV show a few weeks ago- it looked crap then, too!

  • andromeda #49 5 years ago

    @Saltefanden

    money to burn eh?

  • Zem63 #50 5 years ago

    In a moment of profound insanity i did in fact buy this game,luckily i got good trade-in value on it.
    It is shite,shite,shite,shite,shite,shite,shite,shite.....(fade to infinity).

    Oh for a time machine to erase the shame and the memory of this abomination.

  • L0cky #51 5 years ago

    Let this be a lesson to developers and publishers that this kind of crap will not be
    tolerated and that consumers are not idiots to mindless, money grabbing,
    software on a conveyor belt rubbish!!!

    :/

  • Blockhead #52 5 years ago

    I played the demo, but couldn't stand it for more than a few minutes. It's the worst game I've played in months. And that's saying something. Awful.

  • spongebob #53 5 years ago

    That is pretty bad. I don't even want to try the demo, that's how bad it is. And the demo is free.

  • Rangerwave #54 5 years ago

    I bought this a few days ago for the full blown £39.99. Eurogamer's preview was too hopeful! Why didn't you come to me in my HOUR OF NEED and release a review earlier? Waste of money. Now playing The Darkness, a real game.

  • miiiguel #55 5 years ago

    BBIAJ: wow thanks, I guess, some nice news.

  • Lateralaus #56 5 years ago

    5 seconds on the demo was enough to put me of this title, what a mess.

  • Waldo #57 5 years ago

    Not as good as Commandos: Strike Force, then?
    Edited by 1 at 03/07/07 @ 18:16

  • morriss #58 5 years ago

    TWO??!! o_O

    hehe

    360 needs more crap like this. Get the PS2 crowd buying it.

  • DanMW #59 5 years ago

    Bioshock, Halo 3, Call of Duty 4... I'm not surprised they rushed it. I played the demo and wasn't impressed whatsoever, my thoughts at the time were: "why bother making this".

  • MrBiggles #60 5 years ago

    2/10 for Xbox 360 = 9/10 on PS3 because it has lower expectations and no games.

  • T4RG4 #61 5 years ago

    Knew this would be shit a mile off... come on, the dev team must have known too!

  • Tyronne #62 5 years ago

    The demo of this sold me that this was crap.

  • FortysixterUK #63 5 years ago

    hmmmm...so....unless I'm mistaken, you guys don't think this game is upto much then?

    And to think, I nearly bought this today...but thought i'd read a few reviews first.

    Since doing that I bought DIRT and THE DARKNESS instead...really glad I read the reviews on this sucka.

  • dudefella #64 5 years ago

    Wow, 2/10 here, 2/10 from Gamespot... how can games like this make it to shelves from a publisher like Midway on a console like the 360 in this day and age? It's the sort of crap you expect to find from a nameless developer in the budget bin PC games, like NAVY SEALS 8: STRIKE TO BAGHDAD or something similarly crap.

  • dr_faulk #65 5 years ago

    Remember EG did a preview on this where Midway took them all out to the big fancy castle.... what a waste. How could you organise a big press event, spend so much money when you know in your heart and soul the game's gonna blow. And if it's in this sorry state upon release, what the hell was it like during the preview? I don't think Eurogamer gave any indication as to how bad it would be (not even a 'Despite these problems, Midway still have time to turn it into something interesting' finisher).

  • WestBullet #66 5 years ago

    I still haven't recovered from the hilarious demo.

  • Overlush #67 5 years ago

    360 FTW!

  • jimbob101 #68 5 years ago

    This was meant to be part of Midway's new serious look, i.e. leading up to the next Unreal 3. It's been heavily advertised here, front cover of MCV.
    Oh well.

  • Overlush #69 5 years ago

    "When Midway wants to make a game, and to get it greenlit, they're all concept tested. We do a one page write-up and they're sent out to these groups. They take a poll on their interest level in the game. For HoV we've done hundreds of these. This is the second highest rated concept we ever did. You can also imagine that the first highest is in development too..."

    Who did they poll? Each other?
    Edited by 1 at 04/07/07 @ 09:48

  • andromeda #70 5 years ago

    IGN slapped a 5.7 on this!

    oh, wait..

  • MrsPacMan #71 5 years ago

    I like it... but then I'm a fan of Tenchu 'Z', but that is better than this

  • Darren #72 5 years ago

    When a site like TeamXbox give a game a sub-5.0 score, you just know the game is pure crap but the fact that two reliable sites have awarded it a lowly 2/10 tells me it is best avoided even if someone gives you it for free!!! LOL

  • Mechstra #73 5 years ago

    Lovely review.

    Sometimes it's great to read such a vitriolic deconstruction of a game.

  • onyx_elite #74 5 years ago

    Shower of Dicktory!!!

    I think what happened here is that the Unreal3 engine is incredibly expensive to license. Therefore there was probably enough money in the budget to hire a blind 3-fingered hobo to do the programming and a big stick to poke the work experience student while he did the modeling.

    This game is about as much fun as being shot in the face with a diarrhea missile.

    btw Mrs PacMan, Tenchu Z was a piss-flavored abomination. By buying it you have purchased your front-row seat in hell.

  • viper_h #75 5 years ago

    Maxim gave this tripe 5/5!! what were they thinking?