With a few minor issues, this game is a favourite, and a solid World War Two classic.
Starting the game as a Russian private, you are immediately thrown into the action in the infamous battle of Stalingrad at its most critical moment. The Russian part of the story (my favourite) is centered around this famous battle, starting on the banks of the Volga and ending with the surrender of the Germans. After beating the Nazi's here you moved on to North Africa where you play a few missions as the British Long Range Desert Group destroying Rommel's supply lines before playing as the Americans into Aachen and ending with the crossing of the River Rhine. Through the game you play as a variety of characters, all with their own unique stories and duties. I liked the change of characters during levels, as it allowed you to act as an infantryman or sniper throughout, and even sometimes as tank commanders or jeep gunners.
The graphics of the game are of note because I think they were good. Obviously more crude than modern games (such as Call of Duty World At War), they still capture the environment of World War Two. You get some nice cut scenes within the game, and the starting movie is well worth watching. The only part I could critique was that the explosions did not look very convincing (especially in the tank missions), but it is unimportant unless you really care about that sort of stuff. The sound systems were fine too, and the soundtrack is always good for raising the emotions in a fight.
The combat is pretty routine, like any other World War Two shooter. The weapons are what you would expect, so you can expect to handle MP-40's, Sten guns, M1-Garands and all those you come to expect in a game like this. Unfortunately you do not get to choose before a mission the guns you want, as you do in more modern games, but was not a big issue for me. As per usual you can change weapons en route, and all in all you can carry two guns with an array of grenades - once again making it more realistic than the Medal of Honour series in where you can carry an infinite amount. However, the fact you can carry dozens of grenades challenges this realistic approach to the game, but the fact the grenades are so irritating to use (I often miss) you usually need dozens!
Through all my missions I had trouble finding ammunition for my original guns, and had to change to German ones, and in this aspect I think the combat was a let down - I would at least have liked some ammunition for my own weapons. Like all shooters from this period the health system comprises of a health bar, with med packs to heal yourself. It is not hard to find them, and it was very rare I would run out of them when playing - although when I did I tended to rage quit! But I found no major problems with the combat, and I think it suited the game well.
However, as in all games some parts are irritating, so here I will post my list of dislikes about the game. Everything seems to be slower than other games like it, and when you are running you feel like your character is lumbering around five hundred pounds. It takes a long time to get from place to place on the map, and without a way to sprint it really annoyed me to no end. It then gets worse when the combat begins and you start firing, where for some reason or other you get even slower, and sometimes you can be annihilated because the enemy is shooting you and you are too cumbersome to get under cover. The friendly AI can be frustrating, and half the time they do not seem to know what they are doing, which means they often get themselves killed. You are just lucky you have an unlimited amount of soldiers replacing them. But it does frustrate me how in this attempt at realistic combat the AI is particularly dumb.
But these annoying parts of the game are just little things, and they are things that can be overlooked. Call of Duty Finest Hour has all the hallmarks of a classic game, and although it is old in the gaming world it will stand for me as one of the most influential games ever released on the Ps2. It is the all around good package which deserves it a solid 7.5 in my opinion, because it really is good value for its price.