Call of Duty: United Offensive (PC)

The expansion pack has developed into a quandary for PC gamers over the years. While at first they were made to extend the life of a game, they quickly degenerated into a way for the publisher to capitalize on the original game's success while expending a minimal amount of effort. The expansions for FPS are infamously short, sometimes even adding in features that should have been in the original game. Disappointed in the inconsistent efforts of EA for the Medal of Honor expansions, I expected a lot from Grey Matter for the expansion to the similarly high profile Call of Duty. I'm happy to report that United Offensive delivers a substantial payload.

One of my biggest problems with Call of Duty was the level of difficulty; it seems that Grey Matter took this to heart and made United Offensive a fucking gauntlet that you have no chance of surviving lest you heed the following rules:

1. Always take cover. This time it makes even more of a difference.
   
2. Cover your squadmates - they will help you.
   
3. Do not run headlong into the enemy. You will be met with instant death.
   

With these things in mind, this game feels even more realistic than the original, though scripted sequences are once again here in full force. The enemy AI knows you're coming and tend to set themselves up accordingly, taking cover when required. I remember getting hit about 50 different times by a tank hiding in a barn in one of the American missions. It didn't matter which approach I took or what cover I found, its massive cannon was trained right on me. This could also be a function of the AI "tracking" that makes itself felt later on in the game, but I found that if I let it shoot once or twice I was able to move while it was reloading or attacking other squad members.

My first impressions of the American campaign were less than enthusiastic. The graphics looked old, the difficulty seemed tough to bear, and the missions just seemed uninspired. But then came the attack to retake Foy, and things just seemed to pick up, culminating with a fantastic battle to defend an old chateau. The assault on German fortified Foy was straight out of the Band of Brothers episode, The Breaking Point. The newly added dash ability came in handy during this level, because during the initial assault on the town cover was sparse.

I found the house-to-house maneuvers a lot more tense this time around, although the experience was more of a WWII funhouse than an actual simulation of street combat. I knew that German soldiers were around me, but they seemed to appear from all sides or pop up in windows, even though that window I was looking at a few seconds before didn't have a German climbing into it. At some points it also seemed that every German rifle was trained on me. I also got a sense that the game puts you on rails and it's very difficult to get lost - obstacles or unopenable doors are almost always blocking your way and directing you to the end of the level. The final mission - defend an old chateau in the center of the town - involved fending off German soldiers from entering the house, taking out tanks approaching each side of the building, and essentially fighting for your life and those of your squadmates. The level ends with a cinematic swelling of music, and some P-47 fighters fly over the town destroying the German tanks that had taken position outside, that if left to attack, would surely have been the end of your squad.

The British campaign was the one I looked forward to the least, with the screenshots indicating that I would be stranded in the belly of a bomber targeting German fighters like a 1940s Luke Skywalker. But you are actually required to run to different areas of the bomber, either fixing a mechanical problem or operating a different gun. This served to be a fairly intense air battle, and a welcome change from the typical rail shooting sequence. The bomber mission sets up a backstory for your British character, which soon after finds himself on the ground with the SAS. It's pure Hollywood, but the commandos' assault on a coastal town in Sicily plays out decently.

Once again, the Russian missions clearly stand out as being the most memorable. There is a focus on the Battle of Kursk, including the retaking of Kharkov and a massive tank battle. These missions take a bleak, war torn landscape and put you right in the heat of battle. These are probably the most challenging missions, too, as endless waves of German soldiers emerge from buildings and windows, or dug in at fortified positions trying to take out you and your squad. You can try and run through every mission solo, but this is an avenue that quickly leads to frustration. These missions were designed to outnumber you, and again at some points it seemed like enemy soldiers materialized in areas you thought you had just cleared.

Visually, for me Pacific Assault is now the high watermark of WWII shooters, and for the majority of the missions in United Offensive the graphics were showing their age. While most developers are moving on, we have Grey Matter and 2015 still using the Quake III engine. Having said that, the commando mission in Sicily looked really good from atop a lighthouse peering down onto the beachfront. I'm not going to start making comparisons to Far Cry, but for a five year old engine it was pretty impressive. The tracer fire in the British bombing mission looked almost real. Smoke effects are equally good, obscuring your vision on the field of battle and sometimes making combat incredibly chaotic.

Although the game gives the impression that the war is all around you, more often than not action in the game will completely stop until you move forward. On the same token, there were times where I would wander away from the firefight to scrounge for ammo, and I would come back and my squad had taken care of most of the opposition. In this way the scripting makes itself plainly visible, and although the gameplay overall didn't really suffer there was an underlying lack of freedom. Furthermore, the tired standby of rail shooting sequences (despite the fact that many would argue these games are nothing but) are interspersed throughout the game. I understand that they are used to blend one location to the next, but what makes developers think they are so fun? And the least they could do is allow players to shoot out tires or windows of enemy vehicles.

Many might think the addition of tanks and jeeps as drivable vehicles in multiplayer was some kind of half-baked imitation of Battlefield 1942. Driving a tank actually feels like it, and tanks can take more of a beating than those in BF1942. They don't do much to enhance multiplayer combat in the moderately sized maps, but I suppose the developers felt it was a natural progression. Call of Duty shipped with a number of multiplayer modes, and they've all returned for use with new maps. United Offensive also adds Base Assault, Capture the Flag and Domination play modes.

Base Assault is probably the most interesting, as it takes what was so annoying about Search and Destroy and compels teams to create a more involved strategy. You have to set up bombs in and successfully detonate them in all three of the opposing team's bunkers. And defusing the bombs is an option, forcing a delicate balance between offense and defence. Domination you've played before as BF1942's Conquest, but it isn't nearly as satisfying. Capture the Flag - a seemingly innocuous addition - is actually quite fun, though the lack of an actual flag is kind of disappointing. Unlike Tribes and Unreal Tournament's physical manifestations, the flag carrier simply has a floating icon above their head.

For an expansion pack, the length of United Offensive really suprised me - where EA were content to supply you with a few new levels and multiplayer maps with each MOH expansion, United Offensive delivers a hell of a lot more on both fronts. A publisher could easily call the game a sequel, because it's a solid set of campaigns that builds upon the foundation laid by Call of Duty. Although the single player missions do their best to convince the player they haven't seen this before, Grey Matter makes up for a lack of originality in the craftsmanship of each level. The multiplayer has also been significantly retooled to provide a more satisfying experience. I give fans of Call of Duty no other choice but to go out and get this; for others, this would easily fall into typical WW2 shooter territory and will more than likely not change your mind.

marionettes on weakening cables