Call of Duty: United Offensive

"Anyone who owns Call of Duty, must own the expansion pack United Offensive, period."

Call of Duty: United Offensive is the expansion pack to 2003's hit World War II shooter Call of Duty. I must say that United Offensive is a wonderfully fantastic game, and it will really make you wonder why all expansion packs can't be this good. United Offensive adds tons of new single player missions, tons of new multiplayer levels, a variety of weapons for every team and many vehicles for multiplayer. Anyone who calls themselves a fan of Call of Duty must own this game, saying you already have Call of Duty 2 is not an excuse, United Offensive is an awesome experience that should not be missed by any fan of either Call of Duty or Call of Duty 2.

Story:
Call of Duty: United Offensive isn't a direct sequel to Call of Duty story wise, most significantly because Call of Duty ends with the end of WWII. What United Offensive does is let you play through key battles in WWII that the original Call of Duty never let you play through. These new battles you partake in are the battle of the Bulge, the invasion of Sicily and the battle of Kursk. Fans of some of Call of Duty 1's characters will be pleased to know that characters like Sgt. Moody and Cpt. Foley return for the American campaign.

Gameplay:
What makes United Offensive such a must have expansion pack is not just all of the awesome new weapons it has added to the game but is also the amazing single player experience. If you thought Call of Duty was immersive give United Offensive a shot, you will really be blown away. United Offensive still has its fair share of missions similar to Call of Duty where you run around shooting German troops, but some of the new levels are completely awesome. One of the best levels is in the British campaign where you are a gunner on board a B-17 bomber shooting down German planes while your pilot tries to get to the location where you need to drop the bombs over a target. This is a really cool mission and you have about three guns at your disposal and you need to switch between them to shoot down the German planes.

What will really help you realize how awesome United Offensive is going to be is the first level, which is possibly the most action packed level in the entire game. Don't worry though, after you finish the first level you will be glad things clam down a little. The first level starts out with you on a patrol and everything is quiet while you accidentally stumble across what is soon going to be a huge German invasion of your camp. You hop back into your jeep while your driver makes a daring getaway while you're on a machine gun on the back shooting at tons and tons of Germans trying to eliminate you. This section alone was better than any driving mission in the original Call of Duty. The best part is that is not all after you are done being chased you are ordered to hit the fox holes where you must repel a massive German invasion, and the game uses this as an opportunity to try and familiarize you with most of the new weapons.

These new weapons consist of Bazookas for the Americans and the German equivalent for them. Also the Russians and the British have their own pistols now, the British get a Webley Mk 4 (it looks like a revolver) and the Russians get a Tokarev TT-33 (similar to the Americans pistol). Besides each team getting a new deployable machine gun and bazookas and pistols for some teams, the Germans and the Russians have new types of rifles. These rifles are semi-automatic and add great new depth into the games online play. Another really cool weapon is the flame thrower; however you must find this weapon in the level as it is not available as a starting class, sadly.

The multiplayer has also been changed quite a bit, for one there are plenty of jeeps and tanks for you to use in the multiplayer levels which is really cool. But thankfully for the people who might not really enjoy having vehicles in multiplayer there are usually plenty of Bazookas or panzerfausts scattered around the level at your disposal to use against the tanks. There are also satchel charges lying around which you can pick up. These satchel charges basically act like uber-grenades. You can't tell them when to blow up but you can "cook" the timer, which you can also do with grenades now. If you are using a grenade or a satchel charge to "cook" it you hold left click down when you are throwing it and then you also hold down right click. The amount of time that you held the right click down will remove this time from the grenade or satchels fuse which allows you to time it so that it will blow up instantly after reaching its destination.

Some other neat aspects in the multiplayer is that everyone starts with a smoke grenade, while most people don't use them very often they can prove to be quite useful in certain situations, especially if you are trying to avoid a tank or provide cover from a sniper. Also the ability to sprint has been added, however you cannot sprint for very long and you can't shoot while sprinting, it is a very welcome feature.

Graphics:
The graphics are pretty much what you have seen from Call of Duty although they have been beefed up a little bit. The environments look noticeably nicer, which you will notice right away in the first single player level, however for the most part the graphics are very much like Call of Duty.

Sound:
Like Call of Duty the music and voice acting is superb and it adds greatly to the depth of the game and does an amazing job of making an immersive World War II simulation for the player. Everything is mostly the same as Call of Duty.

Value:
This is where the game truly shines. Despite the fact that Call of Duty: United Offensives single player campaign is not entirely long (doesn't seem much shorter than the originals) the gameplay experience that United Offensive offers is absolutely amazing. All of the single player missions take the intensity of Call of Duty and then crank them all the way up to max level. The multiplayer is actually interesting now, where as in the original Call of Duty the multiplayer was actually (in my opinion) quite lacklustre. The addition of new weapons such as new semi-automatic rifles, deployable machine guns and jeeps and tanks with tons of new levels makes United Offensive a very appealing package. The things that United Offensive adds to Call of Duty are so mandatory that I could never switch back to playing the original games multiplayer after experiencing what United Offensive had to offer. Any fan of Call of Duty will be greatly pleased with what United Offensive has to offer.

Score:
Gameplay: 10
Graphics: 8
Sound: 9
Value: 10
Tilt: 10

Overall: 9.6
United Offensive is such an amazing package. Everything that it adds to multiplayer is must-have, the missions in the single player are a blast, and it adds greatly to the overall experience of Call of Duty. This game is highly recommended to fans of Call of Duty and it should not be missed, even if you have Call of Duty 2 and you don't think United Offensive is worth it, you are incredibly wrong. United Offensive is an amazing game that fans of the original game must play.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/16/06