360

Pikmin, with two differences. Firstly, it’s from a traditional 3rd-person behind-the-main-character viewpoint. Secondly, it’s evil.

The evil bit works well. Killing hobbits by setting fire to corn fields and controlling horrible (yet very cute) goblin minions is great fun. It’s played for, well, maybe not laughs, but big smiles and it has an atmosphere nestled snugly between Dungeon Keeper and Fable.

The viewpoint’s not so good. You have a huge character who, most of the time, is standing back and controlling things, rather than getting involved, and who obscures some of the screen. Also, the camera having to pulled back some way behind him means that events going on in front of you are less clear than might be useful. Optional first-person and top-down views might have been nice. Then maybe I’d see the hobbits in the corn field and not need to be told that they’re there by huge text messages in the middle of the screen.

Regardless of the graphical griping, though, I had great fun. I didn’t realise how much I was enjoying myself until the demo stopped and I just sat there staring at the screen, willing it to change its mind and give me more.

Seems fun enough, in a lightweight kind of way, and that may have been worth 800 points a year ago. Now, though, with Live Arcade stuffed with games, it seems horrifically overpriced – especially as there’s not much content in the “full” version. No, to get the full full game you need to spend 1200 on the game and the two expansion packs. Not that they’re even out yet.

More races, fewer mini games, better pricing and a track editor would tempt me. Right now, my 800 points are very safe.

Now, you know me. I’m not one of those people constantly looking for something new in gaming. Sure, I love me a Katamari or Ouendan, but I’m equally happy with Racing Game #48,392, RPG #102,392 and FPS #99,318… as long as they’re good and right and do what they do very well. I’m happy with better, not just different.

Which is to say that I’d be quite happy with yet another World War 2 FPS if it was done right. The setting and genre are okay with me. I like shooting things – and I especially like shooting Nazis.

Hour of Victory is… perfectly competent. It’s got its own “new” feature, which is the ability to choose a character class to play as. One for running up and shooting people in the face, one for hanging back and shooting people in the face and one for sneaking up and shooting people in the back of the head. It looks pretty nice, in a slightly plastic, very brown way. The controls are fine, without feeling as tight as the kings control like Doom and Resistance. It sounds like it should, with loud gunfire, explosions and dodgy voice acting. The first level is tight and linear, with a good amount of cover and some alternate routes for the different character classes. The second level is a little more open and requires you to destroy tanks (which don’t seem to require any special tactics, they’re just big, fat soldiers with huge energy bars, effectively). I died a few too many times there and stopped playing the game to write this.

If I got it as a present, I could probably have some fun with it. If I saw it for a fiver in a bargain bin, I might be slightly tempted if I was bored. But there’s nothing there to make me want to pay full price. It’s not broken (apart from some odd graphical glitches when using the sniper rifle’s scope), but there’s just nothing there to hook me at all.