Call of Duty: United Offensive

"The greatest expansion pack in gaming history? Quite possibly."

When you look back to the year 2003, and especially for gaming -- three words come into mind: Call of Duty. The game that surpassed the likes of Medal of Honor in the WWII FPS genre and picked up 2003's Game of the Year award. So when you create such a huge hit and develop a terrific fanbase, what do you do? You expand it. That's where Gray Matter came up with the expansion pack for Call of Duty -- Call of Duty: United Offensive, released in late 2004. "How could you possibly make a great game even greater?", you ask. Hopefully we'll find this out in my review of Call of Duty: United Offensive.

Graphics
Being honest, the game isn't graphically improved to a great extent -- but you can tell the differences here and there. People with low end machines noticed that they could play the original Call of Duty as it wasn't a very demanding game, but with United Offensive you will need a tad bit more power in your machine. Due to this, you can tell that the battles have become more intense and also look slightly better than the original. Don't get me wrong, of course the battle of Stalingrad in the original Call of Duty basically cannot be matched, but in United Offensive you will be in tremendous huge battles with tanks, planes and a whole bunch of soldiers, most noticeably the Russian campaign involving the Battle of Kursk (It's always the Russian campaigns, huh?).

Of course you don't need a top-of-the-range video card to run United Offensive, just like the original. You have the option to set your video settings on either Low, Medium, High or Extra. Set on Extra -- the game would assume you have a very strong video card and United Offensive will just look so crisp. You won't cry if you can't play on Extra, but it surely is a nice addition to your gameplay with the buildings, soldiers and explosions looking extremely detailed. With more stunning levels included in United Offensive, such as the invasion of Sicily, you will be amazed as you look into the beautiful Sicilian sunset, approaching land as you and your fellow SAS soldiers ride on the boat. In summary, the graphics in United Offensive look a bit better than the original and if you play on Extra settings, you'll be pleased.

Sound/Audio
The sound is a very important aspect of World War II games, whether it be the emotional music or sound effects in general. What can be more satisfying than defending your land of Kursk from the Germans, with planes flying in and dropping bombs right next to you and air-raids happening in the far distance? Your comrades shouting out orders, even though you can barely hear them due to the German panzers firing and the heavy sound of gun fire? On top of all this, emotional and World War II-like music plays in the background. Wow. Just wow. You couldn't really ask for more when it comes down to the audio in Call of Duty: United Offensive -- just like the original. I'm jealous of all those people who have surround sound speakers because, well.. you will just feel apart of that major battle. Hell, even with headphones you feel there, so with surround sound it is just unbelievable.

Single Player
The original Call of Duty seemed to have its main focus on the Single player rather than the Multiplayer. With my experience with Call of Duty: United Offensive, I feel the two swap around -- with the expansion focusing more on the Multiplayer aspect. I'll get to the Multiplayer later, but first -- the Single player mode.

United Offensive offers thirteen new missions for you to enjoy. Thirteen may seem like not a lot, but I can tell you that the missions are so varied you will not get bored. Of course, as with the original, you start off with the American campaign. This starts up in the Battle of the Bulge where you must hold your lines against the Germans in almost impossible weather conditions. The British campaign starts off in the air (yes, you fight the Luftwaffe), but end up in the SAS doing special operations. Many people don't like these type of missions, but I feel it's a nice, easy break from the war featured in the strong American and Russian campaigns. The Russians, well.. Once again, you have to attack in numbers and rid the Germans out of your motherland, bearing a 'No surrender' attitude.

Just like it's predecessor, you cannot rush in and expect to kill every enemy around you. You have to use your fellow soldiers and attack the enemy in groups, otherwise you will be shot dead soon enough. Being a type of 'Rambo' certainly isn't the issue in Call of Duty, unlike most of the missions featured in games such as Medal of Honor. Yes, you may find yourself fighting alone at some point in the British SAS missions -- but that is what the SAS did, they were specially trained soldiers who used stealth and killed silently. The Americans and Russians certainly aren't and you will need to rely on your fellow soldiers to get the job done. Pretending the town of Foy, for example, proves to be a very difficult mission, as the more of your soldiers die, the harder it becomes. I noticed that one of my guys was guarding the stares to a certain house -- and once he got killed, the Germans rushed these stairs and I ended up surrounded. Team mates are essential in Call of Duty. You've also got the easiest, normal and hardest difficulties to choose from. I recommend playing on the hardest difficulty level as it will no doubt feel like real war and it's a real tough challenge.

The controls are exactly the same as the original, except with the new addition of a sprint feature, which when you hold down the Alt button, allows you to sprint for a certain amount of time before you have to catch your breath. This is essential for when running from cover to cover amongst enemy fire and will increase your chances of survival in the battlefield. Overall, the single player may not be as 'pulling in' as it's original counterpart, but it's definitely another strong experience and you will have a lot of fun with it.

Multiplayer
Now this is where the strongest part of the expansion pack comes from -- the Multiplayer. Three new modes are introduced: Capture The Flag, Domination and Base Assault. Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Search and Destroy and Behind Enemy Lines, which were all included in the original, are still there in United Offensive. Capture The Flag are pretty obvious, as it's included in most of the online games these days. However, Domination and Base Assault are somewhat a little new. In Domination, it's pretty much similar to Capture The Flag except you have around 5 flags to capture, and when your team captures them all -- you win. Base Assault is not a mode that I'm keen on, but it seems pretty popular with other people. You have to attack bases with tanks and/or artillery and then plant bombs inside them to finally finish them off.

There's also more additions to Multiplayer aside from gametypes. Taking a page out of Battlefield 1942's book, United Offensive features tanks and jeeps which are available on most of the big maps. It's pretty fun but once you've played the game for a long period of time and you get the occasional player who sits in a tank for basically the entire map and crushes any soldier which comes across, it makes you pretty angry. Jeeps are what I like the most. It's pretty fun to ride around all the big maps with another player next to you and then finally, another one of your team mates controlling the machine gun based on the jeep. Of course.. running down an enemy is pretty funny to witness, too. Ranks are also introduced to the Multiplayer. You start off as a Private, but when you gain 10 points, you gain a rank. Gain another 10 points after that, you gain another rank. This eventually stops when you reach 40 points. Each rank gives you different amount of stuff such as ammo and the ability to obtain artillery calls -- just watch out for fellow team mates and yourself when you place it, or you could kill everyone. To use artillery multiple times you have to stay alive and wait for the call that you have artillery.

Overall, the Multiplayer is definitely the strongest part of United Offensive. You have basically seven or so weapons to choose for each team now, instead of the five or so from the original. There's a ton of servers to choose from, many for each gametype, so you should definitely find the perfect game for you. The only problem I had with the Multiplayer was the fact that some people continuously spam text messages in-game, but if that happens, just leave and go play somewhere else. Truly amazing.

Replayability
Basically it's the same as the original Call of Duty. Meaning when you complete the single player campaign, you should replay it on the hardest difficulty and see how much of an easy ride you have then. If you feel you've done everything single player wise, go and crack up the Multiplayer which never gets boring in my eyes. Plus with the awesome amount of servers that are available to play United Offensive on, and new maps and mods coming out sooner rather than later, it surely will keep you excited and at the edge of your seat for a long, long time.

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In total summary, United Offensive is probably one of the best expansion packs in gaming history. I know I wasn't unhappy with it -- as with the rest of the Call of Duty community. Sure, Single player is pretty short, but the Multiplayer feels like a separate game completely and is now, at present, one of the most played online games out there. What more can I say? Go out and purchase the game! Just remember, this is an expansion pack, and you need the original Call of Duty to be able to play this masterpiece.
Overall: 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/06/05