Hour of Victory tries to pull a fast one on fans of games like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor right out of the box but these fans will tell you within minutes of playing that "this dog don't hunt." To use another metaphor involving dogs - if you can't run with the big dogs, stay home on the porch.. Hour of Victory can barely walk, let alone run..

Hour of Victory was being billed as a Call of Duty experience with specialty classes taking on some of the most intense battles of World War II. Unfortunately, none of this materializes in the game - from the special characters that aren't all that special to the battles you engage in that don't resemble any of those historical battles.

But unfortunately the problems don't end there with this game. Those special soldiers I mentioned - a sniper, a commando, and a covert operative - promise special skills but that promise is broken. While each can do special things within each area, these special abilities are so minimal and so under-utilized that they prove to be irrelevant. Unlocking a door and hiding in the shadows looks good on paper but if you can simply move through an area with the commando then what's the point?

So all of these character choices and up being a moot point. The other problem is that you use all the same weapons that you have used in every other WWII action game, but in those games these weapons seemed a lot more effective. The weapons are so ineffective in fact that you are better off just using the butt of your gun to take the enemy out at close range.

Maybe that tactic wouldn't be an option if the enemy AI wasn't so idiotic. Axis soldiers didn't stand around waiting to be killed like cattle in the real war but in Midway's recreation they apparently can't wait to meet their maker.

There are plenty of other problems like the game crashing at random, clipping problems, sound glitches, drab levels, poor level design, etc. etc. Hour of Victory is paint-by-numbers WWII action game development at its very worst.