Hour of Victory

Hour of Victory
The crappy game that started the decline of a well known video game publisher.
Genre(s): First Person Shooter Platform(s): Microsoft Windows Xbox 360 Release: Xbox 360 NA: June 25, 2007 AU: June 28, 2007 EU: June 29, 2007 Microsoft Windows EU: February 22, 2008 NA: Cancelled Engine: Unreal Engine 3 Developer(s): N-Fusion Interactive Publisher(s): Midway Games

"More like... "hours of agony""

— AlexM from Metacritic

Hour of Victory is a first-person shooter video game developed by American studio N-Fusion Interactive and published by Midway Games for the Xbox 360 on June 25, 2007 and on Microsoft Windows a year later only in Europe, as the North American release was canceled. A playable game demo was released on Xbox Live Marketplace on June 1, 2007. It was the first World War II game to use the Unreal Engine 3. An PlayStation 3 port of the game was also announced, [1] but that version was also scrapped.

Sypnosis

Three Allied agents are assembled: Firstly, Special Operations Officer Abrose Taggert, an American covert soldier. Secondly, S.O. Officer Calvin Blackbull, an American sniper. Lastly, S.O. Officer William Ross, a front line commando. They are sent to the town of Al-Shatar in Libya, where Major Colman tells them about the nuclear arms project codenamed Götterdämmerung. A sudden German invasion forces the S.O. officers to fight back and liberate the town, protecting the comm center, downing bombers and using a single Sherman Tank to blow up Tiger Tanks.

After the German presence is repelled, the S.O. Officers return to headquarters. They are briefed by that the Project Götterdämmerung is being worked on by two key scientists, the first being a previous acquaintance called Steckler who survived the sinking of the Sieg ship and the other, a Danish physicist Dr. Martin Fielder. The three-man team is sent to Castle Festunburg in the Alps to rescue Fielder, who is being made to develop an atomic bomb against his will. They enter the castle by cable car. Taggert stealthily enters the sewers and manages to free Fielder in the old cellars. They fight their way through the castle and use a Panzer Tank to make a forceful exit.

Having been denied atomic bomb capabilities and the town of Berlin quickly falling into Allied hands, Steckler has decided to cause nuclear reactor meltdown and poison everyone. To prevent this, the S.O. Officers aid the Russians in their fight in Berlin and break into the university. Having battled through a fortified courtyard, they acquire the blueprints for the nuclear technology in the grand library, then enter the nuclear facility, sabotage the nuclear machinery and are able to stop the Germans from overloading the reactor.

Having stopped Steckler's nefarious plans, the S.O. Officers are sent to the Reich Chancellery to capture the evil scientist. They fiercely fight their way through multiple rooms and corridors, until they make it to Steckler's office. After some banter, the scientist sets his men on the three officers, who are forced to defend themselves and ultimately kill Steckler.

Why It Didn't Achieve Victory

1. Right off the bat, the PC Port can be outright broken, for the simple reason being that sometimes when getting to the start screen and tells you to press the enter button, it wont work.
   • Than there is also the infamous Games for Windows Live Service, the reason why the game wont open at the start screen.
   • The Xbox 360 version isn't any better as it suffers from an atrcious framerate mostly going up to 20FPS, especially during cutscenes.
2. The Aim Assist is bad, as whenever there's an enemy near the crosshair, the aim sensitivity mostly slows down instead of locking on the enemy.
3. There are almost little to no checkpoints in some levels, meaning once you die, you have to restart the entire level again
4. The tank level can be pretty hard because the tank you are driving can take damage very fast and there is no way to repair it, not helping is the fact that there are no checkpoints in this level and once your tank is destroyed, it's mission fail.
5. The graphics looks outdated looking like an Xbox 360 launch title despite being released 2 Years after launch and despite using Unreal Engine 3, the textures themselves look very low quality.
   • Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway another WWII game that came out one year later also uses Unreal Engine 3 and looks miles better.
6. The cutscenes have bad looking animations.
7. Awful and generic soundtrack that mostly loops over and over. It goes to the point where you want to turn it off, but you can't because there isn't even an option for it, the only way to stop it is by turning the entire audio off from the desktop. What is even more sadder is that the music was composed by Jason Graves, who is best known for making great music in the Dead Space games, Until Dawn, and the 2013 reboot of Tomb Raider.
8. Unlike every other FPS Game, in order to regenerate health, you have to stand still which can cause you to die very fast.
9. Just like Killzone (2005) you can choose between three characters: Commando who has more health, Ranger who has better accuracy and an sniper and Covert OP who has a silenced sten gun, a knife and he goes stealthy, the problem is that none of these matters, because there is no punishment if you dont go stealthy and aside from different layouts there are no differences, so you would most likely choose Commando.
10. There is one section where you have to be on an AA Gun defending 3 Radio Towers from enemy Airplanes, the real kicker in the ass is that there are also enemies shooting at you, which makes this section painfully difficult.
11. The voice acting is painfully mediocre.
12. The enemies will despawn if you manage to get past them, which makes most of the shootouts totally useless
    • And you have to get past them, because the enemies will constantly keep spawning if you dont go to the next area (clown closets as we like to call them).
13. The A.I are dumb as a rock.
14. Despite there being an plot there is nothing interesting to write home about
15. The Final Boss is next to incredibly impossible to beat, not only does the boss have an inexplicable huge amount of health, but everyone is trying to kill you, german enemies, the boss himself and even a tank outside, there are also no allies to help you fight them you are on your own, and the biggest problem is that there are also no cover to use, which makes this just as awful as the boss battles from Soldier of Fortune: Payback.
    • Speaking of the boss he just randomly appears for no reason and he's name is Steckler (which you wouldn't know that unless you read it on internet), he was never mentioned before.
16. Unsatisfying Ending: After you manage to kill the boss (if you actually bother, which we suggest not to), he just falls down, dies and the game ends, That's It.
17. Overall, the game was so bad that it killed the company behind this game Midway Games which resulted in them filling for bankruptcy 3 years after the game's release, this being 2009, till their IP and assets were eventually bought by WB Games.

The Only Redeeming Quality

1. While useless, each character actually has different routes to go making some levels much easier.

Reception

The game received substantially negative reviews from critics. On the review aggregator GameRankings, the game had an average score of 38.05% based on 39 reviews. On Metacritic, the Xbox 360 version had an average score of 37 out of 100, based on 33 reviews, and the PC version of 22 based on 2 reviews.

In IGN's 5.7 review, they criticized the lack of originality, the multiplayer portion, and the graphics, saying, "Hour of Victory is a mediocre shooter with bad graphics and terrible multiplayer.

GameSpot's review was particularly scathing, with Jeff Gerstmann scoring the game just 2 out of 10 (making it the lowest rated Xbox 360 game on the site to date), saying the game "is practically broken and has no business being on shelves in its current state" and "no one, under any circumstances, should play this game." As the only 'pro' in the pro and con section of the review, Gerstmann wrote, "thankfully, no one is forcing you to play this game." GameSpot went on to name it the "Flat-Out Worst Game" of 2007. The game received the following 9 demerits: Bad Sound Effects, Bad Value, Busted, Broken and Buggy, Derivative, Shallow, Short, Stripped, and Weak Story.

ScrewAttack made it a SAGY nominee for Worst 360 game of the year.

Eurogamer also gave the 2 out of 10, whilst GameCentral marked it even lower, giving it only 1 out of 10. Maxim was, however, much more appreciative of the game, giving it 4 out of 5. Official Xbox Magazine UK gave the game a rating of 6 out of 10.

Official Xbox Magazine rated this game a 2.5 out of 10 (a.k.a. Broken) and gave it the "Worst 'Value' of the Year" Award in the OXM 2007 Game of the Year Awards.

It also left a permanent stain on Midway's reputation, as after the game's release, the company suffered constant financial problems due to future titles not making enough revenue. In February 2009, Midway filed for bankruptcy, alongside the cancellation of projects such as Gun Runner (a sequel to Stranglehold) and This is Vegas. Warner Bros. Games would later purchase the company's assets and IPs.

Comments

Loading comments...