should probably be free since no one plays it anyways

I applaud the developers for trying to revive what truly was a great shooter, while this game is far from being what SOCOM was it is a step in the right direction and with time and attention to detail I believe this game can succeed. Would I purchase this game if I wanted a finished product? no. Stay away unless you want to help the development of this game.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=445831595

It seems my Review Video has been Banned from Steam. The video was talking about Censorship, and how ANY sort of Critique gets you shunned from the studio...and look what happened.
I speak my mind, it gets reported and banned.
This studio deserves no money.
As a very passionate fan of SOCOM 1 and 2, I wanted to see this game succeed.
But every decision they have made in the last year, has caused them to be:
A) Out of Money
B) Out of fans who can speak critically
C) Out of Ideas, so they launch a Broken Pre-Alpha Build onto Steam for $25.00 in hopes they can take some people for a ride, before they ride off into the sunset.
I give this game 3 months. With a 24 Hour Peak of 60 players. Maybe sooner.

Edit: It appears that Players are now getting Banned from the game for speaking out in Game Chat. I have heard that players who livestream and talk critical, are getting banned under the pretense of cheating.. This company will do anything to silence critics.

In a gaming landscape that’s nowadays oversaturated by “bro shooters” and battle royales, it’s hard to spot originality amongst the blurry lines separating one multiplayer-centric title from another. H-Hour: World's Elite is the somewhat troublesome debut of SOF Studios Ltd. Between a successful Kickstarter campaign funding in 2013 and being on and off development hell in all the years that have passed since, H-Hour has been reborn from its own ashes as of 2019 and its dev team is planning a console release sooner than anticipated. This would be fine and dandy if the Steam version had the necessary features to help it stand out within the environment I already described…

First of all, I didn’t really expect a storyline since the driving force behind all of H-Hour’s competitors shall always be the community forming around them. The fact that we’re “spared” of even the most formulaic narrative thread is a mixed blessing however. Players are treated to a series of maps on which two opposing factions shall vie for control in a number of possible scenarios, all of which you probably saw and learned by heart already. I mean, even someone like me who could never claim mastery of multiplayer modes for lacking sustained exposure, has seen his share of the “same old, same old” tropes related to this type of gameplay and the basics it covers in terms of exposition.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1655663489

The two rival groups are represented by the SOF (abbreviation for the US Special Operations Forces) and the Terrorists, which don’t seem to stand out in regards to any particular national or political affiliation. We’re not going to debate who are the “good guys and the baddies”, since the maps themselves take us across pretty much any landscape you can think of, while players can choose at will which of the factions they’ll be playing alongside. I’ll let you be the judge of who’s the oppressor and who might the freedom fighter be.

For a game that’s boasting the fact that it’s powered by the Unreal Engine 4 during the initial loading screen, I can tell you that this is the most basic Unreal Engine 3 imitation I have ever seen being rendered in UE4. Even by 2013 standards, H-Hour looks quite dated, but perhaps we musn’t criticize it too much about lacking any eye candy. MP shooters are about huge numbers of frames per second, right? The title won’t disappoint from the perspective of its flow and map design at the very least. Performance-wise I couldn’t complain about glitches or crashes either. As far as I could tell, you’re forced to play only in the third person perspective, but I didn’t have any qualms about it. In fact, it did remind of the old school Delta Force games from my childhood.

Sounds could surely use an improvement over the current selection which is both repetitive and underwhelming. No matter how focused I may be towards the non-stop action, auxiliary sound effects are just as important as a soundtrack. This isn’t a mobile port where you wouldn’t even bother about the audio assets. Hopefully this is one crucial area which will receive more attention from the dev team, seeing as H-Hour is still being labeled as “Early Access” on Steam.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1655666725

With each faction having a personalized arsenal, you will have to try out the loadouts across several playthroughs. Since I already mentioned the expression of “Freedom Fighters”, both the shooting mechanics and ragdoll physics reminded me of a 2003 shooter bearing the same name. The firearms themselves seem to behave similar at least in terms of recoil or lack thereof, to be more specific. Run and gun, spray and pray, you name it. As long as you’re not camping (a tactic I can’t recommend or agree with), the matches rely solely on one’s experience and shooting skills. Just as it should be, if you ask me. Such games should be played from the constantly on the move approach. Nearly thirty maps have been implemented so far and the Hostage Situation mode remains my favorite (and a nice throwback to the Counter Strike of old).

The main issue you’ll stumble upon is lack of minimum player quotas needed to access certain servers and maps. If only H-Hour had any bots featured as well. No chance of playing by yourselves even for training purposes. Most of my experience with this title so far can be summarized as visiting ghost towns with the occasional hostile encounter from fellow human players. Perhaps just as dismayed by the lack of proper teams which could highlight H-Hour’s advertised tactical layer. I didn’t expect or need a Rainbow Six Siege clone and this game couldn’t be that even if its digital life depended on it, yet I couldn’t really enjoy an exclusively multiplayer gameplay that’s essentially lacking a community at the time of this writing.

I am barely going to keep recommending this game while pointing it out with a huge caution marker. It’s Early Access, still affordable and it can potentially get priced even lower during Steam Sales. Depending on when you’re actually playing it (in terms of both region and timeframe), you may find enough players (im)patientiently waiting in the lobby for a server to reach the necessary quota. H-Hour: World’s Elite can be enjoyed in the right conditions. I only hope those shall be met without the many issues currently exhibited. As always, time will tell for certain.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1655666961

+ Player customization options.
+ Steam Achievements & Trading Cards.
+ Affordable Early Access title for what it offers.
+ Decent graphics backed by steady performance.

- No singleplayer modes or even bots to play or train.
- Multiplayer is mostly a ghost town.
- Limited sound selection.

Rating 55/100

This review was submitted for Fun Fab Game Reviews through the Steam Curator Connect program.

To start off with, this game is not worth $25 for the amount of content that was released. I participated in the Pre-Alpha/Beta Testing and believe they need more time to get the basics down before they shipped if off to EA.

I have a long history with playing shooters and started off with S1-S4(including CON) and I have to say that we are playing games in 2015 and I would like to see a tactical third person shooter where its realism is believable. Right now, they are not where they need to be.

This game is suppose to be a soul successor of the famous title Socom Us Navy Seals, but falls short with many many fundamental problems.

I wouldnt recommend you to pick up this game till maybe about 3-4 months down the road, where I can see the Devs picking up their act and implementing a competitive side to the game.

Details:

Character/movement - The Characters you control are very robotic, very little sway or any fluid movement, when controlling the gun you dont see or feel like your receiving any kick back from the gun. its like the gun was mounted on a rock that can have the ability to move around. Jumping around feels like your on the moon, being able to shoot as if you were standing still or your running through the air. lots of things that your character will get stuck on, like pivots in the ground, rubble that should be easily cleared, or inclined terrain that anyone can walk up on. Your Character doesnt seem to have any inertia, or body weight when moving around and can change direction(strafe or back pedal) on a drop of a dime with no transfer of weight being displayed. your back pedal is the same speed as if you run forward. you cant dive properly and with many bugs with Dolphin Pop Up Animation exploits(sliding off the ground being able to shoot accurately and still be mobile).

Characters dont feel like they receive damage from anything. Bullets, Pellets, Grenades, or Fall Damage. Character does not slow down when receiving damage untill dead.

Movement Speed is way too fast and arcady to believe you are playing a human character with combat gear and weapons.

There is no Sprint button, You either Press a button to walk, or you move around at a run/jog speed in all directions. No Ability to put your gun down to sacrifice for top flight speed.

Gunplay - The Aiming system is One Dimensional which is point and shoot, There is no general aim or focused aim. There are scopes for the Snipers, but if you have to make a long range shot with a AR or SMG, you will have to scope in with your binocular zoom out and shoot in the regular point and click Classic View). There is no depth in the shooting mechanics, you are set in a battle stance that you are shooting as if you are looking down the sights of the gun all the time(and still are able to move around at jog-running speed in all directions)

- Stances play no role in how you control your gun. Same bullet pattern, same spread.

-All guns pretty much do the same damage, have the same kind of bullet spray, and dont have any feel.
- Fire Rates and How many bullets the gun has really makes the difference in the game.

-Holding down the trigger will only kick your spray pattern so much till it stops at the top of the cross-hair circle. And it will automaticly return to the original point where you started shooting.

Sub Machine Guns can out snipe any gun class. If you want a challenge use the Assault Rifles or Sniper and feel the struggle.

Pistols suffer from bullet delay and do very little damage.(Desert Eagle is the pistol of choice because of its different damage)

Shotguns are never used because its DMG is based off of how many pellets make contact, and there are no knock downs or staggering effects when hitting your enemy.

Grenades/Throwables - You can only throw at Max Distance or Min Distance. You cannot control or gauge the throw. When changing directions from straight to left or right while throwing makes the item go 90 degrees to that direction.

Excessive Bullet Travel - Long Range I think its fine, but the close range combat feels like if you shoot at a wall or target from 3 feet away from you, the bullet is lagging behind your character and will hit 1 foot behind while you mov at a constant speed in 1 direction.

Game rewards spraying more than burst fire(due to fundamental problems^^^^).

No Mic Support

In game Text is displayed for everyone that is playing in your room(dead or alive).

You have to keep picking your gear at the start of every round.(does not remember your previous load out)

2 maps only

1 game mode set to each map.

Incomplete Features for Demolition Game Mode.
-Bomb Location in game
-Which Team has the bomb
-Which Team dropped the bomb
-Many glitches in planting the bomb(locks up character, fail to plant bomb and cannot repick it up, cannot cancel a plant and more.)

Doors are inconsistent

Sound in game is terrible, cannot figure out where shots are being fired from, where people are walking.

So.... probably way more problems but I do not see this game developing faster than what we have seen to Pre EA, if we do they still need more time to fix all the bugs that come with each patch.

I see a lot of inconsistency and I believe its lack of true direction and a big division in the community.

If you want the nostalgia feeling and want to reconnect with a bunch of socom type of player go for it, but get ready for a rough ride with this game.

Update: as of August 7th, 2015

The game still isn't worth $25....BUT it has improved.

- There is a new map called Factory and it is so much better than the original two maps. I actually had a lot of fun playing Factory.

- I have came to the conclusion that the original maps are just bad. In all honesty those two maps are so bad I think it took away from my playing experience when the game launched.

- There is now three game modes..TDM, Demo, and Sabatage..IMO they need to tweak sabatage to play more like breach did in Socom (adding breach points, ect, to make the mode more unique) As of now its basically just demo but the SOF side spawns with the bomb and is the only team that can plant it.

- The shooting mechanics are much better than what I played back at launch of EA. I mean night/day difference

- Grenade throwing has been fixed, the nades no longer shoot off in a random direction. They also added smoke nades, which I do not think were in the game before.

- The guns have a more unique feel now than they did before...meaning the shoot, feel, and handle differently from one to the next.

- Sniper rifles still need work and they need to add the one hitter rifles

- Movement animations are still rough, but they have made some improvements, the jumping looks a little better but still needs work.


I will give credit where it is due and in this case they have made some solid improvements. The main reason I say this game is still not worth $25 is because there is only 1 map worth playing (the new factory map). The other two maps are still terrible. If they can get 3-4 solid maps in this game than it might have a chance.

My only other concern is the player count. This is an online only shooter and each time I have logged in I see less than 20 people online. There is usually only one active room. That is a major concern for an online only game and something to take into consideration prior to buying.

SOCOM has amazing campaigns and had an immersive online community. This is a poor replication of that experience. I've followed it for years and nothing has changed. I appreciate the effort, but someone needs to call the coroner.

You're better off buying the rights to SOCOM, making that HD remake we never got, and uploading it to steam. I would love to run through all the missions again and throw down some Sujo, Guidance, Requiem, Mixer, Foxhunt and even Shadow Falls...

This game is a complete waste of time and money. The development team went extinct, they shutdown all HHour servers leaving the game up to players to keep paying for the servers to keep the game alive. This game is DEAD!!! I would recommend giving the game away for free to build the player base and community but the game can only handle 48 players at a time MAX! ( which is NOT a current problem because the player base is the same 20-25 people with 5 different player names and accounts.) Simply SAD!!! I had high hopes for this game but GOODBYE SOCOM!!! This game is garbage hit detection is HORRIBLE, Most maps are made by community members NOT the development team, Most maps run HORRIBLE( frame drops ). I know why this game never took off now... Supposedly going to playstation ( sure playstation 12 ) sold false hopes to all its donaters for years and still charges for the game today without even the simple cost of running its own server!! If the development team doesn't believe in its own game then why should you!???

SAVE THE MONEY FOR A REAL GAME THIS IS NOT IT!!!

I have to admit, I was a little skeptical of H-Hour at first. It was hard for even Zipper to try and recapture the same formula with their sequels to previous titles, so a totally new developer coming in and trying to do that seemed to be ludicrous. But after playing a few games, I can see the amount of potential this title has. Don't get me wrong, this game needs A LOT of work.... A LOT. But as far as the gameplay right now, there is a solid foundation laid and with the proper fixes and polishes, I really believe that H-Hour can rekindle that addiction that most of us long time SOCOM players are so desperately looking for. SOF studios, you get a thumbs up for trying to appeal to this tight knit community (and sometimes stubborn). I just hope you stick to your word and improve this game the way I know you can. Thanks for getting it this far and I look forward to future content and updates!

The game is just bad. If your looking for a socom sucessor, this is not it. Should of just tried to make a Socom 2 HD or something. Ive played every socom and participated in GB wars when I was 13 till I graduated Highschool. Im pretty bummed out this game turned out so badly. It really sucks it didn't pan out.