Call of Duty: United Offensive

"Solid expansion pack to an incredible prodecessor."

The 'Call of the Fans' has finally been heard, and the expansion pack to the award winning Call of Duty is here. Developed by Gray Matter Studios, the expansion pack proves to be solid expansion pack, with a widely expanded multiplayer to keep fans of the series satisfied, and to keep an enjoyable experience on multiplayer for months to come.

Story 10/10
Call of Duty, is of course, based upon real events of World War II. Like the original Call of Duty, you experience parts of the war in the prospective of the Americans, British and Russians. Each campaign has a memorable moment that you may have even read in textbooks. For example, the Battle of the Bulge for the Americans, the Invasion of Sicily for Great Britain and the Battle of Krusk for the Russians. The expansion pack includes 13 new single player missions.

Graphics Varies.
Depending on the ability of your computer, the game can look pretty to very pretty. Call of Duty is not a heavily demanding graphical game, so you don't need a hefty PC to be able to fully enjoy Call of Duty. Playing on all 'Extra' settings, the graphics on Call of Duty: United Offensive is incredible. The environments are extremely war like, and allow you to feel yourself in the middle of a raging war. Explosions all around you, your allies rushing into battle, smoke in the air, with gunfire blazing. Facial expressions and look are extremely well done, the troops have a sad and depressed look on their face, just like real World War II soldiers would have, being forced into war, removed from their families, and suffering from the stress of combat. The graphical environments in this game is a large factor making Call of Duty the successful and growing franchise that it is today.

Sound 10/10
What truly makes Call of Duty in general shine and the expansion pack in no different. The sound of gunfire from your allies and the Germans fill your ears in all directions, with faint sounds of air-raids in the distance, as well as guns heard firing in the far distance. The dropping of mortars all around you, sending the rumble through your speakers, nearly vibrating the room. No war game today can establish what Call of Duty has established for sound. It is strongly recommended that you get some of the best speakers possible for playing this game. With a surround sound equipped system, the sound will be absolutely remarkable.

Controls 9/10
Standard WASD control setup. R to reload, C for Crouch, the usual stuff. Nice and responsive. Everything was smooth and nice.

Single Player Gameplay 9/10
The expansion pack seems to focus a lot more on special events, such as car escapes, tank fights, and aircraft battles. This really helps you experience many sides of the war, in addition to the hell that the infantry was going through. In addition, the single player difficulty was also beefed up quite a lot since the first Call of Duty. You truly pay the penalty in this game for rushing enemy lines standing completely up, running ahead of your allies. You are not a one-man army in this game, as Medal of Honor may have portrayed. In some missions, you can no longer lay to waste all the German resistance to proceed, and sometimes the German forces will simply continue to pour on, until you can reach a certain objective point. Difficult and frustrating, yes, but who ever said war was easy?
As the Americans, you'll do most of your infantry fighting, with one car fight in a stage. The British side is slightly different from American, starting you off with a very fun aircraft fight against the German forces, and then engaging you in some secret operative missions, with a small squad of people, as you invade Sicily. The Russian side was well known for their skill in tanks, and in the expansion, it's no different. You once again get to engage in a thrilling tank fight. Overall, the single player is great and epic fun, just like the first Call of Duty, with more jeep fights, tank fights and the new aircraft fight to keep you wanting more.

Multiplayer Gameplay 9/10
Call of Duty was always known for its incredible infantry combat multiplayer. It was fun, and overall balanced. You could use a rifle up against a submachine gun and win, depending on who was more skillful, of course. The expansion pack adds approximately 3 new weapons for each nation. Russian and Britain finally get their own handgun, with their own strengths and weaknesses. That means no lugers for both Germans AND Russians, and the Colt for British and American. Both Russia and Germany get semi-automatic rifles, which are deadly at long range, and pretty good in a pinch for close range. Each nation gets a machine gun that must be mounted on either the floor or on a trench, it is pretty useless, but it is good if you plan on defending your base, or in certain modes, such as Capture the Flag. Speaking of which, new modes of multiplayer have been added entirely.
Capture the Flag is pretty obvious, of course. In domination, there are 5 to 7 zones on the map. There are flags representing each zone. A team must standby near this flag, and attempt to win it for their country. The first team to capture all the flags wins the round. Lastly, is Base Assault. There are 3 bases in which the enemy must destroy. You first need to destroy the base with heavy weaponry, such as tanks, artillery strikes. Then, you must plan explosives to finish off the base. First country to lose all bases loses the round. Vehicles have also been intergrated into certain maps of multiplayer. Some include tanks and jeeps, while you can now also mount Flak guns. I personally found this as the flaw in the multiplayer. If I really wanted vehicles, I would go play Battlefield 1942. Vehicles in Call of Duty: United Offensive destroyed most of the sense of infantry combat, and instead getting blasted away by a tank, or ran over by a jeep. Luckily, you can find servers that don't feature vehicles, if you love the fair and balanced infantry combat. Lastly, as you kill members off the opposing team, you gain ranks. As you progress in ranks, you begin to get more pistol ammo, more grenades, and eventually binoculars and even order an artillery strike, which completely decimates any friend or foe in the area, and no, you cannot spam this constantly, thankfully.

Replay Ability 9/10
The single player is quite short, just like the first Call of Duty, so that is not the core factor of the game. The intense and expanded multiplayer is what will keep you playing the game for awhile. With a ton of servers, (5000 as of CoD), you can always meet and play with new people, in a style that you find most comfortable.

Recommendations
If you like infantry combat, you could try the Medal of Honor series, which is online, and doesn't feature vehicles last I checked. If it turns out you really enjoyed playing with vehicles in UO, I strongly suggest you pick up Battlefield 1942, which is completely vehicle oriented, or Halo for the PC, which features widely used vehicle combat. Finding a game similar to Call of Duty single player will be hard though, since that is what makes it so epic! Once again, you should consider trying the Medal of Honor series; you may find it just as enjoyable. Also, don't forget to try Call of Duty: Finest Hour coming soon, for all three gaming consoles.

Final Words
United Offensive has proved itself to be a worth expansion, both covering the bases of proving yet another enjoyable single player, and topping it off with a widely expanded multiplayer to keep the player entertained for weeks, or possibly months. Call of Duty is slowly developing into the 'next big thing' World War II game, and will only continue to impress. For only $29.99, and possibly cheaper if you look for a bargain, this game is practically a steal, and is worth it for all Call of Duty veterans to pick up.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/23/04