Hour of Victory

Platform: Xbox 360.
Verdict: War is fugly.
Rating: 1/5
It’s a little expected bugbear that Hi-Def visuals can actually make a game look worse by accentuating problems that standard TVs might mask over with their relative fuzziness. In the case of Hour of Victory, no cheap TV can save it from itself – this has to be one of the ugliest games I’ve played in a long time and that unfortunately has nothing to do the nature of war.
Blatantly and understandably attempting to mimic the fine Call of Duty series, Hour of Victory is yet another WWII game but at least it attempts to add to the formula by allowing you to play through each level as a commando, ranger or covert operative. Each soldier has different weapons and different abilities - the gunner has extra resilience and can move objects out of his path, the sniper has a deadly long range weapon and uses a grappling hook to reach high ground while the covert op has stealth on his side and can pick locks.
On paper this increases the replay value of the game and allows the player to choose a preferred style of combat. In reality it boils down to annoyingly constricted and unbalanced level design with frequent and intrusive messages informing you you’re the wrong person for the job. The different abilities rarely add anything to the gameplay with awkward stealth sections shoehorned in and shakily animated lock picking sequences opening up pointless new areas to explore.
Alongside the poorly realised diversity, Hour of Victory’s other problems are plain to see – ropey frame rates, jerky animation, useless AI and glitch ridden, painfully generic and derivative gameplay all help dig its shallow grave of mediocrity into a plague pit of a mess. The graphics are just the final nail in the coffin with its bland, sterile art direction, placeholder textures and plastecene sheens all contributing towards your Hi-Def TV going on strike until you apologise with flowers.
Luckily my TV has no such delusions of grandeur but for those with cash, this is one of the few 360 games that displays in 1080p – why you’d want it to is beyond reason though.