Do the Duty

Welcome back to the Cory Values underground bunker, where we're pretty sure we can hold out as long as the cola beverages and delicious creme-filled snack cakes do.

This week, your usually peace-loving host assumes war footing for Call of Duty™: Finest Hour™, the long-awaited Xbox® game from the new smash-hit franchise Call of Duty. There's a new developer along for the ride, Spark Unlimited, and even more interaction with vehicles that puts this Xbox Live™-enabled war game on solid footing in the multiplayer battles to come.

Russian troops at Stalingrad go on the offensive.

We, the console gaming community, are under assault. This holiday season more war games than ever are storming the Xbox beaches, each one claiming to be more historically accurate than the previous. Many such games, likeShellShock: Nam ‘67™ and Men of Valor™, tackle the tough, controversial conflict that still haunts the country, Vietnam, placing great emphasis on that unique experience for U.S. troops. That old standby, World War II, might seem like old hat (old helmet?) by comparison, but Activision's Call of Duty: Finest Hour shows there are still countless historic stories to tell. In this contest of "who can be more real," the single-player CoD:FH game lets you experience WWII from several different Allied perspectives.

Xbox gets more vehicles than the PC version.

The title of the game says it all.Finest Hour is about the people who answered the call—the regular soldiers that were thrown into incredible conflicts. Authenticity is strong, and it kind of feels like playing one of those Garth Ennis War Story comics in game form, especially in some of the British North Africa missions, where you might find yourself riding in the back of an unarmored jeep relying only on a lunatic driver and speed to keep you out of harm's way as you strike German positions.

I played the Stalingrad level, which focuses on Hitler's siege of that Russian city. From the get-go, as is virtually required in modern console war games, you're thrown into a furious firefight that hits you in the face with the cruelty and, yes, innate gut-wrenching drama of first-person combat. Heck, the first character you control (in story mode, you'll occasionally switch personas) doesn't even start out with a gun—things are that hard on the Eastern (or Western, depending on where you're standing) front. From there, I heard a superior officer's rousing speech—in heavily accented English, so don't worry about subtitles—that made me want to seriously get out there and wipe out some Nazis.

Watch out for air strikes from both sides.

After storming German pillbox positions and turning the guns on the attackers, I was sent to report to a sniper. In another nod to historical accuracy, the sniper is female, one of a large number serving in the Russian military solely as sharpshooters. I took over control of this character and picked up the basics of sniping. The rifle behaves realistically, and requires concentration and a soft touch to accurately bring down distant targets. It's tricky, but it didn't take long to get the hang of it. You'll want to keep grenades handy for surprise attacks, since the sniper weapon is very slow at close range. Your ultimate goal in the level is to bring down the Nazi flag and raise the Soviet banner once again.

As I mentioned earlier, single-player Call of Duty lets you take on the toughest challenges of the biggest conflict the world has ever known from multiple perspectives. In my short time with the game, I admittedly spent most of it on the Stalingrad lines, but the historic mission mode also lets you fight alongside the British in the legendary North African campaigns in Egypt and around Casablanca. And, American missions take players into the hardest-won fighting on the European mainland. The overall feel isn't quite as contiguous or cinematic as, say, Allied Assault, but jumping around between the different allies gives you a much more comprehensive WWII experience. When the wave of military shooters is unleashed for the holidays, stay on the lookout for Call of Duty: Finest Hour.

By Cory Herndon.