Another week, another World War II adventure. But while the shelves in your local HMV are straining under the weight of Nazi-baiting blasters, Hour Of Victory works hard to bring something new to the saturated genre.
For starters, HOV allows you to swop between three tooled-up warriors, each with their own special powers; choosing the covert operative, for example, allows for a stealthier approach to the missions, the sneaky soldier being able to snip through barbed wire and pick locks to edge his way around enemies, then silently off unwitting enemies with a cold kiss from his dagger. By contrast, the commando makes for more gung-ho battles the meathead lieutenant boasting a bigger energy bar that allows you to steam into dangerous situations head-on and the Army Ranger can jump further and climb to higher levels to snipe his rivals from a safe distance.
Crucially, HOV also adopts a more light-hearted approach to its subject matter, allowing you to slaughter waves of screeching Nazis in a blaze of bullets, as opposed to the bewildering battles of a game like Call Of Duty 3 where youre often too scared to crawl out from behind cover for fear of being shot.
Online multiplayer, sections where you use antiaircraft turrets to shoot bombers out of the sky and the chance to drive vehicles such as Panzer tanks also help to round out the experience, and while theres little here that you wont find in other WWII games, Hour Of Victory is still a varied and gripping blaster.