Call of Duty: United Offensive

"Keeps true to what made Call of Duty a sensation."

There's no doubt in anyone's mind that Call of Duty was a phenomenal game. It combined smooth and outrageously fun gameplay with immense battles, a great musical score, and a level of polish not often seen on games nowadays. When it came time to make an expansion for the popular shooter it fell in the hands of Gray Matter Studios, the creators of Return to Castle Wolfenstein. They worked hard for almost one full year creating an expansion pack that would hopefully live up to the level that was achieved by its predecessor.

This expansion follows the format of the fist game to a certain extent. Yes, the game still centers on squad-based combat but it moved that concept to larger battles, the type that made up the majority of the Russian campaign in the original. You will be taken to the frozen fields of Bastogne and the sprawling countryside of Kursk and ultimately to the city of Kursk where the game ends with a huge bang. The in-between missions (the British campaign) almost seems like an interlude because there aren't any huge battles, it is just like the original Call of Duty where that portion of the game focuses on commando-type missions. It seems out of place but it is fun to play nonetheless.

One really unique change of pace is the first British mission. It takes place entirely on a B-52 bomber, making a daytime bombing run over Holland. You will need to man the plane's machine guns to fend off a seemingly impossible amount of Luftwaffe fighter planes.

You will still be following your squad through the entire game (minus a few rare cases) but this time around you will be immersed in some of the largest battlefields that you have ever seen in a game. It does detract somewhat from the good feeling you got from the original game, it's almost too much of a good thing.

The game throws at you tanks, halftracks, hundreds and hundreds of troops, grenades, artillery shells, Stukas on bombing runs, machine-gun nests and even some boats. Most battles have all of these elements in them and create a very hectic atmosphere for you to play in. It sometimes makes the game a bit hard but that's the point of the game.

Those large battle scenes make for a heavy load on your video card. Don't expect to be able to run this game well if you have a very old card. I first played this game with my old Radeon 9100 card. It ran okay, there were quite a few parts where the game lagged simply because my card couldn't handle the load. Today I picked up a Radeon 9800 and popped in this game just to see the difference…I could play it on the highest settings with no problems and it looked absolutely wonderful with almost no lag at all. There were only a few hiccups.

Speaking of involuntary movements let me mention on of the biggest problems with this particular game. This game is riddled with bugs and glitches. Having written a FAQ for this game I must say that I have been e-mailed with questions about almost 15 different bugs and glitches. There are problems with the scripting in some places and that's what account for most of these. When you encounter these problems you will have to go back and re-load your last save and see if that helps. If it doesn't then you will have to resort to cheats to get through that part. It's rather irritating even when you encounter a minimal amount of these.

The gameplay has been very subtly tweaked in some ways. Some of the weapons sound different, look different, and have accuracies and damage ratings slightly off from the original and it will throw off and most definitely aggravate most veterans of the series. It's just a small complaint but something that doesn't go unnoticed.

So what has been added in this expansion? Putting aside the obvious change to a whole new campaign there are a few major additions. The Germans have a new semi-automatic rifle, as do the Russians. There are also new pistols for the Russians and a revolver for when you play in the British army. The most exciting additional weapon is the transportable machine guns. All four armies have their own portable machine-gun, this makes for a whole new aspect of shooting and strategy. For an added flavor, the developers threw in a flamethrower towards the middle of the Russian campaign and a few of the multiplayer maps. The commando missions for the British side feature a new Silenced Sten that makes stealthy kills ever so easy.

One of the biggest, perhaps the biggest, is the addition of vehicles and new game modes and maps into multiplayer. In every new multiplayer map and mode you will be able to hop into a tank or jeep and cruise through the map either gunning people down or running them over. It makes the game a little too similar to Battlefield 1942 but it is fun regardless.

The new game modes are Domination (BF1942's main game type), Capture the Flag (standard in all FPS multiplayer games), and Base Assault in which you try to overtake an enemy's base, get inside, and plant explosives in the middle. Domination and Capture the Flag are both extremely fun but the Base Assault mode leaves something to be desired. I personally feel that it would have been better if that mode were infantry based, rather than being vehicle based.

The new maps are definitely as well designed, if not better, as the ones in the first game. There's a good combination of open fields, hills, and narrow passes and each side is very well balanced. The only complaint is that the maps are perhaps too big, if you have anything less than 16 players on these maps you're going to be moving around the map looking for enemies to shoot rather than kicking ass and taking names, something I'm sure everyone would rather be doing.

The next biggest addition to the multiplayer aspect of the game is the new raking system. Based upon the number of kills you have, the flags you've captured, flags defended, flags returned, bases destroyed, enemy tanks captured, and a multitude of other things you will receive points that will earn you ranks. Those ranks will get you more bullets, grenades, smoke grenades, and the ability to call in artillery strikes on the enemy once you reach the highest rank.

In short, Call of Duty: United Offensive kicks the intensity up to a whole new level and provides for some major new additions to the gameplay in both single player and multiplayer. There are some major issues such as bugs and glitches, multiplayer maps that are too big, a game mode that has it's fair share or problems, and some tweaks to the game system that leaves veterans a bit taken aback. On the other hand the game provides a whole new definition of “fun” and is a non-stop adrenaline trip for the time you are playing it. People who loved the first game will love this as well simply because it takes what made the first game great and kicks it up a notch.

Enjoy Call of Duty? Pick up United Offensive!

Final Score: 9

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/08/04