Midway Gamer's Day: Hour Of Victory

Electronic Arts started the WWII shooter genre with the Medal of Honor series. Activision and UbiSoft continued the trend with the Call of Duty and Brothers in Arms series, respectively. Now it’s Midway’s turn with their upcoming WWII shooter Hour of Victory that’s being developed by nFusion Interactive exclusively for the Xbox 360 console. During Midway’s Gamers Day event last week we got a chance to play a single player press demo of the title.

The big feature that sets Hour of Victory apart from other WWII shooters is its use of three different characters, each with their own special skills, that the player can switch between at certain points on the level. One is a US OSS spy who uses stealth and sneak attacks. Another character is a US Army Ranger with sniping capabilities. The final character is a British commando soldier who can break through certain barriers through brute strength.

The demo we played was set in a North African village and we can report that the action was as fast and furious as many other WWII shooters with lots of bullets flying around and lots of shrapnel from grenades. We were very impressed with the non-scripted AI of the German soldiers who tried to outflank our positions constantly. The first part of the demo showcased the use of the different character’s skills. While you can just charge in and shoot up the place as the British commando, you can also go on alternate routes as the US spy character. You can sneak in the shadows, cut through barbed wire barriers and get behind German troops to hit them from behind. This was especially helpful in taking out a German machine gun emplacement. We got cut to ribbons as the commando character but as the spy character we were able to use an alternate route to a position behind the emplacement. After it was captured we used the machine gun to take out a wave of German troops.

The second part of the demo showcased the game’s vehicles. First we manned an anti-aircraft gun to shoot down enemy fighters and bombers that were making strafing runs. Then we got inside a Allied tank and headed out to the battlefield to blow up German bunkers and Panzer Tiger tanks. While our tank got disabled by one too many German shells we got out of the tank and took out the remaining targets with a nearby German rocket launcher (which also ended our demo).

nFusion Interactive (which has developed budget priced shooters in the past like Deadly Dozen and Vietnam: Line of Sight) is using Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 as its graphical basis and as a result the visual are quite solid even at this early development stage. The developers at the press event told us that other WWII settings, including the fall of Berlin, will be included in the final product. Online multiplayer modes will also be available for Hour of Victory but at the moment Midway is staying mum on what specific plans they have for multiplayer features.

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