Call of Duty: Finest Hour

Call of Duty: Finest Hour is a 2004 first-person shooter video game developed by Spark Unlimited and published by Activision for GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. It is the first console installment of Call of Duty.

Although it is based on the original Call of Duty for Microsoft Windows, it has a different storyline and acts as a side-story of the main game. It features six intertwined stories and battles based on real events from the perspective of soldiers on each side of the allied campaign (U.S., British, and Soviet) during the Second World War.

The game's music was composed by Michael Giacchino, who previously worked on the original Call of Duty and the Medal of Honor franchise. AC/DC singer Brian Johnson provides the voice of Sergeant Starkey, one of the British commandos.

Much like the rest of the Call of Duty franchise, Finest Hour is a first-person shooter where the player takes the role of a soldier during the Second World War. In the game's three campaigns, they will play as various characters from Russia, England, and the United States, respectively. The player uses authentic weaponry from the time period.

Throughout the game, players will perform additional roles then just as infantry. These include the usage of mounted machine gun turrets, both on structures and vehicles, and the usage of heavy weaponry such as tanks.

Players have a limited health pool that is depleted upon being shot, attacked at melee range, or from fall damage; health can be restored by picking up and consuming health packs, the number of which can be held is limited by your choice of difficulty level in the campaign.

Finest Hour can support both online and local multi-player support, depending on the console. It had no online multiplayer support for the GameCube as it does not take advantage of the GameCube broadband or modem adapter. On the Xbox, Finest Hour had Xbox Live support and up to 32 players can play locally through Xbox's System Link feature. The PlayStation 2 port of Finest Hour also had PS2 Online support, with up to 16 players per session. While Xbox Live for the original Xbox was shut down in 2010, Call of Duty: Finest Hour is now playable online using replacement online servers for the original Xbox called Insignia.

Rather than following a singular campaign, Finest Hour features three smaller campaigns that cover different fronts of the Second World War. The first, taking place in the Eastern front, covers much of the battle of Stalingrad and the following Russian counterattack into Germany. The North African campaign follows British soldiers sabotaging and sapping German forces, whilst the Western Front campaign follows American soldiers fighting through Western Europe in an attempt to reach Germany.