Call of Duty: United Offensive

Written by Jason Cisarano  on February 07, 2007

Rewind Review: A great game just got better

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The Call of Duty: United Offensive expansion pack has some big shoes to fill. The original game made it to dozens of УBest of 2003Ф lists, stayed in the top ten in sales for months and still today remains a popular game in multiplayer circles, with many hundreds of servers and thousands of players still playing the original maps. For many people, Infinity Ward plain got it right with Call of Duty. Not surprising, considering how many of the designers helped put together the massive Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, which dominated the WWII shooter field for so long. And United Offensive, from its very first missions, keeps up this high standardЧthere's no way the expansion pack will disappoint long-time fans of Call of Duty.

This expansion follows the same pattern as the original. You'll play missions more or less evenly divided between the perspectives of an American, British and Russian soldier. You'll also recognize many of the same weapons and equipment: by now the Garand and the scoped Mosin-Nagant, not to mention the Panzerfaust and the 88mm Flak gun should be old friends. But as for the gameplay and the missions, it seems that the guys at Grey Matter Studios followed the advice on making a sequel found in Scream 2, advice which pretty much boils down to Уtop the original at all costs, on all fronts.Ф In the American portion of the game, you'll fight in the Battle of the Bulge, the largest American battle in the war. In the British section, you'll fly out as a gunner in a B-17 squadron harassed by German fighters before you take part in the Invasion of Sicily. And as a Russian, you'll fight house-to-house pushing a German offensive back from the besieged city of Kursk. On each front, United Offensive ramps up the scale and intensity of the battles.

One of the hallmarks of the Call of Duty combat experience was the idea that Уno one fights alone,Ф and if you liked the way that played out in the original game, you'll find even more of the same in the expansion. There's something to be said about fighting off waves of assaulting enemy while supported by the rest of your platoon. Or flanking an enemy machinegun while the rest of your squad is pinned down. If the first game suffered a bit from a hero complex in some levels, where you might be the last one left, running and gunning your way through squads of Waffen SS, the NPCs in United Offensive actually seem to matter. Although your aim is still a lot better than theirs and you'll still find them waiting for you to advance before they act, they actually do seem to try to do some work on the battlefield. You fire to support them, they fire to support you. In short, there's more of a sense of teamwork in this expansion pack. Some of the most exhilarating moments in this game come not from the exploding tanks and collapsing buildings (though those are cool, too), but from the moments where you're hunkered down behind a woodpile for cover, desperately trying to put out rounds while you know that the rest of your squad is doing the same right alongside you. What's lacking is an extended relationship with your squadmates. The graphics are such that they all pretty much look the sameЧthe only way to tell them apart is to aim at them so that their names appear over their heads. So when one of them gets blown away, there's no sense of loss, and when one of them saves your ass, you don't know who to thank. On the Bastogne front line, you'll spend time in a foxhole with a guy you've never seen before and will never see again.

As to be expected with an expansion pack, United Offensive adds a slew of new weapons for you to use and that will be used against you. The new semiautomatic rifles used by the Russians and the Germans (the SVT-40 and the Gewehr 43) aren't too exciting, but the new, mobile Browning .30 cal, the Russian DP-28 and the German MG34 allow you to place these light machine guns just about wherever you want. Their weight and slow deployment might limit how much you want to use them, but they serve their purpose. More exciting is the way the addition of these weapons and more vehicles (though you won't drive many of them in single player) creates the feeling of a combined arms force throughout the campaign. On several missions, you'll run alongside a platoon of tanks, supporting them as they support you. You'll also see the Germans using Stuka dive bombers and Pak 75 anti-tank guns in close support of their infantry. And you'll call artillery fire on hardened German targets. It all adds to the sense of being on a large-scale battlefield, where the action happens simultaneously on many levels in many places.

Along the lines of ramping up the intensity of UO, you'll see that Grey Matter added two new controls which you'll definitely want to put to use right away. The first is the Sprint mode. By hitting the Alt key while running forward (but not at a crouch), you'll sprint with a limited burst of speed much faster than what you're used to with CoD. You'll temporarily lose the ability to fire your weapon, but you'll cover ground quick, perfect for when the situation is getting hairy and you need to dash from one point of cover to another under fire. And for those room-to-room fights, you can now milk your hand grenadesЧthat is, you can pull the pin and hold it for a few seconds before you throw it in order to make sure it blows up in Jerry's lap before he can throw it back at you. Press the left and right mouse buttons simultaneously to pull the pin and your crosshairs will pulse to tick off the seconds. Both of these new additions add to the overall feel of the game, increasing the sense of being in a pitched battle, a toe-to-toe slugfest where you're holding on by your fingernails and your wits.

I can sum up the UO graphics in two words: УSimply beautiful.Ф Turn the detail up and you'll see the weave in the sandbags, the pitting in the Panzerfaust head and the chipped bluing on your rifle. The large-scale looks great, too. The Russian levels present another wrecked city on a grand scale, and it is good. The burnt-out hulks of buildings are smeared with soot and grime, ragged piles of loose stones litter the landscape, and abandoned cars provide cover and concealment. Not to mention the smoke and explosions here, which are simply amazing. In one Russian level I was clearing rooms and the smoke was hugging the ceiling, flowing toward the door in such a way that I had to stop and look, nearly getting myself killed. Now if they could just do the same with the flames . . .

But this isn't just about eye candyЧthe landscapes create the feel of the game as much as the action does. On the line at the Battle of the Bulge, fog obscures the battlefield, limiting visibility to a couple of hundred yards and creating an aura of mystery as the German assault waves appear out of the mist. And the destroyed city of Kursk is rendered in a muted palate of earth tones, which helps convey more of a sense of the destruction that the city underwent. It all adds up to atmosphereЧthe game feels more important because the graphics and landscape take themselves seriously and are done well.

My only real complaint is with the character models. Their faces are indistinguishable from one another and they show exactly one expression, whether they're under fire, shouting orders, mortally wounded or cracking a joke. And their gestures are rarely convincing. When the Lieutenant describes a mission, he waves his arms in such a way that more suggests someone casting a spell than giving orders. And then there's that head thing while they talk. Their heads tend to wave back and forth, left and right like wheat in a field. It's the uncanny valley in full force.

As far as the interface and gameplay are concerned, Call of Duty has always had a minimalist approach, and United Offensive keeps that tradition. The game controls are standard WASD, the basic FPS for running, jumping, strafing right and left and so on, designed to be used with the left hand. The HUD is minimal and somewhat paled to keep it from being too intrusive. There's a compass that lets you know where your teammates are and which direction to go in order to find your next objective. There's also the usual health bar and ammo counters.

The controls outside the game are also straightforward and easy to use. All the game options are clearly organized and accessible. One nice feature about the game load screen is that it shows a small screenshot to let you know just where in the level you'll pick up the play. The multiplayer interface is also easy to use, with convenient options and filters to help you find just the right server for you.

Like its predecessor, United Offensive is an easy game to jump into. As already mentioned, the controls are relatively simple and the display is intuitive and unobtrusive. There are both quicksave and periodic autosave features to keep you in the fight. To its credit, knowledge of squad tactics is more important in UO than is a knowledge of buttons. From the very first missions, players will be on the lookout for danger areas and cover, not fumbling with complicated button patterns.

The original Call of Duty was criticized by some for being a Уgame on rails,Ф that is, too scripted and without a lot of chance for the players to improvise outside the path planned by the designers. While this is still true to some extent here as the player is maneuvered from level to level, from battle to battle, the good folks at Gray Matter have added more freedom for the player within those levels. The maps are generally bigger than those in the original, and often offer the player the choice of several paths through the rubble. Your team won't follow you if you stray from their path, but you can frequently support them better if you flank their opponents. For instance, in a Russian-campaign fight that takes place in a courtyard, your team will take positions at various windows around the courtyard while you have the freedom to move between floors and into the basement, or even engage the enemy close up on the ground floor.

The bigger maps also help give a better sense of being in a real place on a real battlefieldЧyou can see the surrounding buildings, fields and streets. And there are no Уdungeon crawlsФ in United OffensiveЧyou won't be running down corridors as the enemy jumps out from behind doors as in the familiar Chateau and Ship levels of the original. There's still only one УrightФ solution to United OffensiveЧvictoryЧbut you'll have a little more freedom as to how you get there.

The expansion pack isn't as long as the original, giving only thirteen single-player missions where CoD gave twenty-three, but the excitement and quality of the missions is where their value lies.

Speaking of value, much of the value of United Offensive lies in its additions to the multiplayer experience. There are eleven new maps, several new weapons, a new level system, and lastЧbut certainly not leastЧdrivable vehicles. And for anyone who hasn't upgraded the original CoD, the expansion integrates Punkbuster into its on-line play.

A few of these changes are less than thrilling, however. For instance, the new weapons carry over from the single player campaign: most of them are moveable, bipod-mounted light machine guns. I can take them or leave themЧa nice bolt-action rifle is more accurate and handles a lot faster. The LMGs do have a lot in common with another flashy new weapon in the multiplayer, the flamethrower, in that they're simultaneously devastating to anyone caught in the wrong place at the wrong time while making the user a target for everyone with a line of sight on the user. A new level system does add a nice dimension to the play, allowing persistent players to earn points that unlock extra equipment at spawn, including binoculars, satchel charges and the ability to call for artillery fire. It does create the possibility of a positive feedback loop that throws the game out of balance, however: good players/teams earn more points, which in turn unlocks powerful advantages that allow them to more effectively (and frustratingly) dominate their adversaries. Fortunately, the levels reset at with each map.

On the other hand, the new maps coupled with the vehicles really enhance the multiplayer experience. The maps provide a new variety of terrains for multiplayer battles ranging from urban operations in destroyed Berlin, a seaside town in Sicily, to hilly Russian fields dotted with small villages. They're big, allowing plenty of room for the vehicles and teams to maneuver. There are plenty of nooks and crannies for cover. And do I really need to say it again? They look good. But most importantly, they feel like real places that make sense for real battles. The vehicles are easily controlled, with several of the different types of tanks and jeeps offering positions for more than one player to act as main gunner, machine gunner, and passenger. Some of the maps are Уtank-heavy,Ф but they don't necessarily dominate the play, since tank maps also include a liberal amount of bazookas and Panzerfausts there for the finding. And due to the lack of teamwork exhibited by most players in the pick-up games in open servers, the tanks are vulnerable to attack from a well-hidden infantryman. It's no fault of the game, but even in team matches, the players tend to work more for themselves than for the team, frequently leaving tanks and heavy guns vulnerable from sides and rear. Still, with the literally thousands of servers out there to choose from, you're sure to find one where you feel at home.

The sound effects in United Offensive rival anything you've ever heard in a big-budget Hollywood movie, from the squeaking of the tank treads to the rattle of distant machineguns. Even with just two speakers and a subwoofer, you'll feel the exploding artillery rounds and the tank gun reports in your belly. All in all, United Offensive is a great game to play loud. Just don't send your neighbors' complaints my way.

As for the dialogue, well, it's about as good as most of its peers. The writing isn't all that interesting or engaging, and the delivery is kind of flat, especially in the longer speeches, like the mission briefings. The attempts at jokes are just thatЧattempts. And the Russian accents are acted, not authentic. High points for (unintentional?) humor, though, to Boris in the tank level for once again shouting УYou can heil Hitler in Hell!Ф every time you destroy a tank. Like the rest of the game, the dialogue is at its best in the heat of battle, when your companions (and adversaries) shout out commands and various exclamations.

And like the original, United Offensive has a cinematic score by Michael Giacchino that matches the intensity and scale of the battles with its drama and power. It's loud when it should be to build the emotional moment, and it's quiet in other moments to build intensity and tension. Like some other sound effects, parts of the score will sound familiar from the first installment, though it never feels recycled.

Still, if you think about Call of Duty too much, its logic starts to break down. In any one level, the player kills more enemy soldiers than most would have encountered during the entire war. And of course the instant-regeneration health system doesn't stand up to scrutiny, either. Not to mention the fact that when you swap magazines, any rounds left in the old mag somehow end up back in your stockpile of rounds. An ultra-realistic combat simulator it is not. But none of this takes away from the gameplay experience. The designers put the realism where it was neededЧgreat scripting, map design, etcЧand made these few concessions to create an extremely playable and enjoyable game. There aren't any conventional puzzles to solve in this game, but you will sometimes find yourself considering different tactical solutions to the situations you face. Though there is a lot of action in this game, many of the situations require weighing options and some consideration of small-unit tactics.

The enemy seems a bit smarter in United OffensiveЧthey use cover better than before and they also seem able to engage in some limited flanking tactics. They also seem to have a good bit of heavy weapons and sniper support on some levels. United Offensive can be played on four levels of difficulty, allowing you to adjust the play to suit your abilities. The УnormalФ level should suit most gamersЧwhen you kick it up to Уhardened,Ф the bullets really start flying and you'll be using the quicksave button a lot more. And on the УVeteranФ difficulty level, you won't have the benefit of finding health packs on the battlefield.