Hour of Victory Demo Impressions

The Hour of Victory demo is now available from Xbox Live Marketplace at 938MB. I wasn't aware that this demo was available until I read Jigsaw hc's Demo Review yesterday as it seems to have appeared without much aplomb. To be honest I can see why, as on the whole it's not a game that I'll be eagerly looking forward to playing again.

You may or may not be able to guess from the title that this is yet another WWII first person shooter. These days you really have to offer something new to stand out from the crowd in this overcrowded genre. So what does this game offer us? Well, in the demo you can choose your character from one of three on offer with different skills. There's the British SAS commando "Ross" with strength and endurance, a US ranger "Bull" a trained sniper with a grappling hook to climb to higher vantage points, and finally there's the covert operative "Taggert" whom can pick locks and cut fences. Depending on the chosen character you should be able to take different routes through the level. However, I'm going to have to take the word of the press on this as to be honest I didn't have the tenacity to try out each class.

The demo does not impress at all, the graphics are very humdrum and lacking detail and decent character animation. To compound problems the default controls felt lethargic until the sensitivity was upped at the expense of precision aiming as the shooting reticle jerked about the screen. Whereas games such as "Call of Duty" add a great deal of atmosphere to the gameplay, Hour of Victory is lacking in this department. I didn't feel like I was in a life and death situation at all, I was just going through the motions of moving from one objective to another without really needing to take cover. In the end it just isn't very exciting.

Granted this is a demo of a game and as such it is work in progress but this demo does nothing to help its cause. In some respects it would have been better to not release this as it doesn't compare well against its rivals. Unless this game changes drastically then it is one I will be avoiding.