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Call of Duty Review

Most anyone who plays games would more than likely be very impressed with Call of Duty's authentic presentation, well designed and often very intense single-player missions, and fast-paced, entertaining multiplayer modes.

Shortly:

There seems to be a lot of World War II games coming out, and while some of them aren’t worth your time, Call of Duty definitely is. Brought to us by Activision, Call of Duty is based on the American, British, and Russian armies as they fight German forces in Europe.
The game has a good length for its genre. To keep it from feeling too long, they split it up into campaigns that follow different soldiers from different countries. This allows you to see more battlefields, use more weapons, and experience a variety of events. While the first two campaigns are mediocre and offer nothing too new, the final campaign is amazing. It follows a Russian soldier as him and his comrades try to take back Red Square. The entire campaign is breathtaking and quite emotional.
Before each mission you are treated to a short briefing as it loads. Each campaign’s briefing is done differently depending on the country which is nice. These reading breaks usually offer more background on what you’re about to do, so reading them is beneficial. Also, there are a few video briefings featuring footage from World War II that are very interesting.
The nice thing about Call of Duty is the variety to the missions. You never feel like you’re doing the same thing over and over, and each mission is just the right length to where it doesn’t feel too long. Also, the missions flow really well together, so nothing ever seems out of place.
The controls are great. As with any other First Person action game on the PC you can set up the keys any way you wish, although the default settings are very well mapped out.
The graphics are some of the best I’ve seen in a First Person Shooter (FPS). Realistic models, lighting, and textures make up each level. The wonderful sound and graphics, along with the great script and AI, really make you feel as if you are there. Your AI teammates will go back for wounded allies, dive to the ground to avoid mortars, provide cover fire, and work together to open up a tank and drop a grenade into it. Aside from very little gore, Call of Duty is the most realistic World War II experience out there.  
The soundtrack and sound effects are wonderful. The constant gun fire and explosions make you feel as if you’re actually fighting in a war, and during emotional or epic moments the appropriate music will start up.
I sometimes had a problem with the weapons; a lot of times they seemed very inaccurate. Otherwise, the amount of damage they dealt was very realistic, depending on where they were shot. There’s even a level where you control a tank, and shooting buildings with the cannon puts holes in them. Grenades are useful as well, spraying shrapnel that do great damage within a certain radius of the blast.
Call of Duty offers traditional Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag game modes, but it brings two new ones to the table as well. Behind Enemy Lines and Search and Destroy are the new game modes that offer a unique way to play. In Search and Destroy one team protects an object that the other team needs to plant explosives on and destroy. Behind Enemy Lines takes a handful of Allied soldiers and puts them right in the middle of tones of Axis players. If an Axis player is able to kill an Allied soldier, he then spawns as an Allied soldier and the Allied soldier comes back as an Axis soldier. It’s a lot of fun since the Allies are greatly outnumbered. Call of Duty also has a feature called the Kill Cam. If you are killed in a multiplayer game, you will be able to watch the last few seconds of your life through your killer’s perspective.  
I didn’t think Call of Duty’s multiplayer was that great. The game’s engine seems to be built really well for the single player experience, but it just doesn’t feel right as a deathmatch game. Team Deathmatch and Behind Enemy Lines are really fun, but I would still rather play Medal of Honor or Battlefield 1942. It feels a little slow, and the weapons are extremely inaccurate unless you’re using a sniper rifle like everyone else.
Overall, Call of Duty is a game not to be missed. The single player missions are amazing, and if you don’t think so right away keep playing - the Russian campaign is like nothing you’ve ever played. Activision has even made it easy to mod, so we can expect multiplayer mods to lengthen the replay value in the future. If you have a PC capable of running Call of Duty, don’t miss out. 

Detialed: 
There is no shortage of World War II-themed first-person shooters available, and it's no secret that a number of them, including Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and Battlefield 1942, are extremely good. Now you can add Call of Duty to that list. The first game by Infinity Ward, a studio composed of some of the same team that worked on Allied Assault, Call of Duty presents outstanding action all around and is at least as good as, and in several ways is simply better than, any similar game. Though both its single-player and multiplayer modes will be familiar to those who've been keeping up with the WWII-themed shooters of the past several years, most anyone who plays games would more than likely be very impressed with Call of Duty's authentic presentation, well designed and often very intense single-player missions, and fast-paced, entertaining multiplayer modes. 

What would it take for a WWII-themed shooter to distinguish itself in this day and age? A whole bunch of stuff that's in Call of Duty.

 Call of Duty's distinguishing features, by and large, can't be considered innovations--that's too strong of a word. However, this is a game that pulls together many of the best aspects of other, similar games, and also includes all sorts of little "wish-list items" that may have crossed your mind while playing those other games. The result seems, above all, very well designed. The action in Call of Duty, ultimately, is arcadelike--much like in Allied Assault or Battlefield 1942. You can't survive a shot to the head, but you can take a few bullets anywhere else and can keep going just fine. There's also a clear onscreen indication of the direction from which you're taking fire (and, as you're getting hit, the screen shudders to make it look like it hurts). Luckily, first aid kits, conveniently placed in the levels or occasionally dropped by killed enemies, instantly restore large portions of your health. You hardly ever need to activate a "use" key in this game. When you do, you'll use it to instantly set explosives or grab documents, but you won't use it for opening doors. 

Actually, that's because you won't be opening any doors. One gameplay contrivance that's presented in the first few seconds of the first mission is that any time you see a closed door in Call of Duty, it's supposed to stay closed. This seems like a minor point, but how many shooters have you played in which you fumbled for every doorknob, trying to find the one door that would actually open? That's simply not an issue in Call of Duty. Despite the highly authentic atmosphere created for the levels in the game, there tends to be an intuitive, clear path from the beginning of the level to the end. The levels can be challenging, at least at the higher two of the game's four difficulty settings, but they're not frustrating. If you die, you can restart at your most recent save almost instantly. You don't need to worry about hitting the quick-save key all the time, either, since the game automatically and seamlessly saves your progress not just at the beginning of a level but at several points throughout the level. The game's brief tutorial at the beginning of the single-player mode will be second nature for experienced players of first-person shooters. However, since it's in the context of a military boot camp, it will also provide, for new and experienced players alike, some valuable advice on (and practice with) the nuances of Call of Duty's gameplay.  

Call of Duty does an excellent job of modeling American, British, Russian, and German weapons of the era. You can shoot your weapon from the hip, aim down its sights, use it as a bludgeon, or change its firing mode, in some cases.

 You cannot sprint in Call of Duty, nor can you tiptoe. While standing, you move at a constant pace that's not too slow and not too fast but is just right. You'll have no trouble quickly getting from point A to point B. However, when you're running from cover to cover in an area that's under fire, you'll be painfully aware of how vulnerable you are. You should probably keep your head down, and Call of Duty lets you easily switch between standing, crouching, and prone stances. You move slower while crouching--not too slowly though--which makes this the best way to get around when in the thick of battle. Movement, as well as turning, is understandably much slower while prone. Sometimes, however, this is the perfect option for staging an ambush or staying out of harm's way. As in many shooters, you can also lean around corners in Call of Duty, which can be a real lifesaver during some of the game's deadly firefights when you need all the cover you can get.

Call of Duty features a wide arsenal of authentic American, British, Russian, and German WWII weapons, including various rifles, submachine guns, side arms, and grenades. You can carry only two larger weapons at a time (as well as a pistol and some grenades), so, typically, you'll want to have a rifle for out-in-the-open engagements and a submachine gun for tight-quarter combat. While armed with any of these, you may shoot from the hip, raise the weapon to eye level and aim down the sight (for more accuracy at the expense of movement speed), or use the butt of the weapon to try and club an enemy to death. Manually reloading your weapon tends to be faster than letting the clip run out, and some weapons let you switch firing modes, like going from full-auto to single shot (though, since you can squeeze off single rounds in full-auto mode, this isn't very useful). Your crosshairs expand when you're moving and contract when you're steady, pointing out how much more inaccurate you'll be if you try to run-and-gun. The weapons themselves are modeled very convincingly, thanks in no small part to the tactile sense you get from being able to look through their sights or use them as bludgeons, and most every one will earn your respect since, in the right situations, they can all be deadly effective.  

Sniper rifle-type weapons tend to be extremely powerful in first-person shooters, and you'd think that players' inabilities to run at the equivalent of 60mph in this game would make them particularly easy targets during multiplayer matches. Call of Duty has some good solutions here as well. For one thing, when looking through the scope of a rifle, your view will be severely restricted, and your peripheral vision will be virtually eliminated. This makes the scope work properly as a means of lining up a long-ranged shot but not so useful for just scanning the horizon and spotting enemies from farther than the eye could see. 

 

Call of Duty's single-player missions let you experience some incredible battles from the perspective of an American soldier, a British commando, and a Russian conscript, who isn't even given a gun.

Additionally, multiplayer Call of Duty features the very clever "kill cam," which lets a player who's been killed relive the last five seconds of his life from his killer's perspective. The implications of the kill cam are pretty significant: If anyone isn't playing fair in a multiplayer match, the kill cam ought to make this quite clear, and then players can vote to have the offending player kicked. When playing a deathmatch-style multiplayer mode, you can easily skip the kill-cam sequence and get back into the action, but if you're playing one of the multiplayer modes in which you can't instantly respawn, it can make for an entertaining five-second consolation prize. 

Call of Duty bills itself as having three distinct single-player campaigns--one for the Americans, one for the British, and one for the Russians--but this isn't exactly the case. You do get to play a number of exciting missions from the perspectives of each of these allied forces, and each one takes place in a different part of Europe. However, you play through all of the game's missions in a linear order, and there's no clear transition from one "campaign" to the next. There's no epilogue when you finish a series of missions, so all you get is a different-looking between-mission loading screen to clue you in that you've moved on to the next chunk of the game. Overall, the single-player portion of Call of Duty is of approximately average length, meaning it should take you some 10 hours, give or take, from beginning to end. None of it is filler.
Much like Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Call of Duty really doesn't tell much of a story. You'll get to survive through some harrowing experiences and help accomplish some significant victories, but don't expect to become best friends with many of the game's characters (and don't choke back any tears when some of them get gunned down or blown up), and don't expect to get a sense of the different main characters' unique personas. All there is to distinguish the game's three main characters from one another are their names; they never speak, and the game never gives you a look at them, since you see everything from their perspectives. And, no, there aren't any mirrors lying around on the battlefield.
Also much like in Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, the absence of a conventional narrative in Call of Duty is a trade-off that gave the game's designers the creative license to put you, the player, in a number of different situations. These situations are very intense in their own rights, but, collectively, they would never have been experienced by one man. In fact, Call of Duty is a step in the right direction from Allied Assault in this regard, since that game suggested that the same one character was responsible for all the heroics that took place. In Call of Duty, you're no hero but just a soldier in the war (three different soldiers, one at a time) presented with incredible circumstances. You just happen to be in the right place at the right time and have the opportunity to make a real difference, or, at least, you can die trying. The single-player levels, like those of Allied Assault, are sort of an interactive roller-coaster ride. The scenarios are heavily scripted. Battles, fortunately, don't unfold in precisely the same way each time you attempt a level, but, basically, you need to follow a set path through each level to end up experiencing it in just the fashion that the designers probably intended. If you keep dying, you're probably just doing something "wrong" and should try a slightly different approach. Levels obviously aren't walled-in or anything and look realistic, so things like barbed-wire fences and minefields (as well as a handy onscreen compass pointing to your next objective) will keep you from straying off course.

The kill cam is a neat feature of the game's multiplayer modes, and it allows you to relive the last five seconds of your life from the perspective of whomever it was that took you out.

 One of Call of Duty's most distinguishing features in the single-player mode is how many humans, both friend and foe, it manages to cram into an environment. With the exception of a small handful of corridor-crawl-style commando missions (which, while pretty good, are probably the least interesting parts of the game), you'll never be fighting alone, and you'll always have allied soldiers fighting--and dying--by your side. These allies are mostly for the sake of ambience; they mostly look realistic as they fight from behind cover and draw some of the enemy fire. They even sometimes charge the enemy, as you'd expect them to under the circumstances. However, they won't do your job for you and can't be depended upon to take out the bad guys. 

In fact, in some cases, the presence of all these allied soldiers unfortunately works against your suspension of disbelief. The occasional mission-critical character might get shot, only to get back on his feet because the mission couldn't go on without him. (The designers apparently didn't want to punish you for not looking out for your own.) You'll also sometimes see soldiers fail to react properly to an enemy standing nearby. Still, far more often, the effect of being in the middle of a pitched battle with seemingly dozens of soldiers on each side is quite convincing and dramatic. This is especially true in the Stalingrad mission of the Russian campaign, in which legions of conscripts, some bearing standards instead of arms, can be seen charging the entrenched enemy and getting mowed down. You're just like the rest of them, only you manage to find a sideways route instead of rushing at certain death head-on.  

The Russian missions are perhaps the most memorable in Call of Duty, particularly because this is a perspective of the war that hasn't been portrayed as frequently in the Western world--and understandably so. Nevertheless, if you've read the history books or seen films like Enemy at the Gates (whose opening sequence clearly inspired the first of the Russian missions in Call of Duty), then you'll have a sense of the particularly dreadful circumstances that Russian soldiers faced in a conflict that left tens of millions of Russians dead. The American and British missions have some incredible moments as well. Many first-person shooters now feature "turret" missions, in which you're working the guns but not actually driving the vehicle from which you're shooting. Call of Duty has a couple of excellent such levels from the American and British perspectives, which are some of the finest such interactive chase/shooting sequences to date. As the British, there's also a terrific battle where you and your fellow soldiers are pinned down and are under attack from German reinforcements who are coming from all angles. Your objective is to merely hold out for several very long minutes until help arrives. Throughout the missions, your German foes will pose a significant threat. They're good shots, and they'll smack you with their rifles if you get too close. They'll even toss their grenades at you, and sometimes they'll even throw your grenades back at you. 

 

Call of Duty puts a ton of people on the screen--an effect that gives the game a rather different and more believable look and feel than other WWII-themed shooters.

The single-player component of Call of Duty is thrilling for as long as it lasts. The multiplayer component of Call of Duty is what will likely keep you entertained for much longer. The game features five different multiplayer modes--deathmatch, team deathmatch, a keep-away-style mode called "behind enemy lines" where the allies are heavily outnumbered, and two Counter-Strike-style objective-based modes (one called "retrieval," where one team tries to recover important documents from under the other team's nose, and another, called "search and destroy," where one team attempts to blow up an objective that is being defended by the other team). All that's missing is a character-class-based mode, though by choosing your primary weapon you're essentially committing to a particular role in battle. There are a dozen multiplayer maps in all, and each is available for use with four of the five modes, though there are only four maps designed for use with the search-and-destroy mode. 

Because the core gameplay and weapon balancing in Call of Duty is very well done, and the 3D engine and netcode capably handle situations where a ton of action is going on all at once, all the multiplayer modes are inherently enjoyable. The aforementioned kill cam is another nice touch, and the same sort of excellent level design found in the single-player portion of the game can be found in the multiplayer maps. These are each quite large and easily accommodating of 32-player games, and they offer plenty of cover and plenty of places to set up ambushes. Each of the main types of primary weapons has real value, and real weaknesses, on these maps. A server browser lets you easily get in on a multiplayer match so you can have at it. The game also readily invites user-made mods.
Call of Duty's graphics, somewhere down the line, are powered by the Quake III engine, but the game looks great--not dated. Occasionally, some of the character animation doesn't look quite right. For instance, the animation for when killed soldiers fall from banisters or balconies looks particularly weak. Additionally, there are a few clipping issues here and there. Also, some of the scenery, particularly small shrubs and such, looks blocky and ugly if you get right up to it. We also experienced some graphical issues running the game with an ATI Radeon 9800 graphics card, which didn't properly handle the game's occasional motion-blur effect. Other than these specific issues, the overall look of the action is excellent. Realistic weather effects, explosions, and muzzle flashes help make the game's environments come alive, and the character models for friends and foes are surprisingly detailed given how many of them can be onscreen. Additionally, the game runs very smoothly in comparison to other recent shooters. If you get a good frame rate out of other PC action games, this one will be silky smooth. Call of Duty, like Allied Assault, squeaked by with a "T" rating from the ESRB despite the extremely violent subject matter it portrays. Unlike Allied Assault, it even shows a little blood in the form of a red mistlike spurt that's seen when a bullet hits its mark. For better or worse, there's no graphic violence here, but the animations are realistic, and action is visceral.

 Call of Duty is a thoroughly impressive game.

The audio in Call of Duty is even better than the look. You'll learn to tell most every weapon apart by its own loud and clear roar. In those rare instances when shooting isn't occurring all around you, you'll still tend to hear shooting off in the distance--an ambient effect that reinforces the sensation that you're in the middle of a war. Some of the more action-packed single-player missions are practically deafening, what with all that's going on with the bullets practically grazing your head, shells flying, aircraft making strafing runs, and more. In a great touch, if an artillery shell detonates near you, you'll be shell-shocked, rendering you temporarily deaf and substantially disoriented. In fact, you'll struggle to get back on your feet as the sound of battle eventually rushes back to your senses. The game's sporadic use of voice acting is good, though it's a bit of a shame that much of the Russian soldiers' voice-over (and some of the Germans') is in accented English rather than in the native language. For a game that attempts to appear as authentic as possible, this seems a little incongruous. Amidst all the cacophony of Call of Duty, it can be hard to hear the game's orchestral musical score, but it kicks in on particular occasions and adds even more drama and cinematic flair to the proceedings.

Call of Duty is an all-around excellent game that confidently challenges, head-on, all the other WWII-themed shooters out there and comes out on top. When a game is outstanding, like this one is, some people invariably expect it to be something completely different from what's already available. That's not true of Call of Duty, which is directly comparable to Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and other such games. Yet, on its own merits, this game is executed extraordinarily well, and, therefore, can be wholeheartedly recommended not just to fans of other WWII-themed shooters but to anyone looking for a first-rate action game. 

Call of Duty Game Info

Most anyone who plays games would more than likely be very impressed with Call of Duty's authentic presentation, well designed and often very intense...

Ranking:  

                17 Great

Game Rating:

Game zone  9.4

Game spot   9.0 Editor's Choice

IGN Score   9.3

Critic Score   9.1

User Score    9.2
Press Score   9.1
Reader Score 9.1

Gameplay	9.3
Graphics	9.8
Sound	9
Difficulty	Medium
Concept	6
Multiplayer	8
Overall	9.4

System Requirements:

Minimum:

System: Pentium® III 700MHz or Athlon® 700MHz processor or equivalent

RAM: 128 MB

Video Memory: 32 MB

Hard Drive Space: 1400 MB

  

Game Info:

Publisher: Activision

Developer: Infinity Ward

Genre: Historic First-Person Shooter

Release Date: Oct 29, 2003 (more)

ESRB: TEEN

ESRB Descriptors: Blood, Violence

Category: Action

Connectivity: Online, Local Area Network

Online Modes: Team Oriented

Number of Players: 1-32

 

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United Offensive is an excellent expansion that takes the intensity of Call of Duty and ratchets it up even higher.

Call of Duty: United Offensive Review

 short:

United Offensive is an excellent expansion that takes the intensity of Call of Duty and ratchets it up even higher.

Last version of Call of Duty stood out as one of the best titles of the year, as well as one of the best action games ever made.  Therefore, it would seem a given that FPS fans would be chomping at the bit for an expansion pack to the game.  Well, the wait is over, and less than a year after the original game’s release, Call of Duty: United Offensive is hitting store shelves.  The follow-up offers the same kind of high-intensity World War II action as the original, easily rivaling (and often surpassing) anything in the original game.  If you enjoyed the original Call of Duty, then you need to pick up United Offensive right now.

Just like in the original game, United Offensive drops you into the boots of three different Allied soldiers (an American, a British and a Russian soldier) fighting against the Nazis.  This time the single-player campaign will take you through a variety of action packed missions, from the Battle of the Bulge to a bout on board of a British bomber plane to the epic Battle of Kursk.

The epic sense of scope was extremely impressive in Call of Duty, and United Offensive even manages to up the ante.  From the very first mission in Bastogne, Belgium (the Battle of the Bulge), you are thrust into a huge battle against an insane amount of enemies.  You begin the mission by hopping on the back of a racing truck and manning a gun as Nazis fire at you from all sides, from caravans, buildings and even tanks.  After that, you take to your feet and finally get a full view of what you’re up against.  Tanks, half-tracks and legions of Nazi soldiers pour over a hill in an effort to break the Allies’ line and defeat you and your squadmates.  You must get a hold of weaponry, duck for cover in foxholes and destroy as many enemy units as you can.  The Battle of the Bulge mission is extremely intense and a single bad move could cost you your life.

Following the American soldier campaign, you’ll switch perspectives and fight as a British soldier.  This mode starts you out on board of a bomber plane and requires you to shoot down German fighter planes before they can return the favor to you and your squad.  This stage does a fantastic job of showcasing the new graphics implemented in the expansion.  The billowing smoke and fire effects in the stages are incredible, a noticeable step up from the original game.

Finally, the Soviet campaign’s main centerpiece mission has you fighting back Nazi Germany’s final push against the Eastern Front in a bombed out city.  You will push through buildings, fighting against hordes of German forces and even fending off bombing runs from German fighter planes.

The thirteen-mission single-player campaign is pretty short, clocking in at about ten hours.  But then again, the original game was about this short as well.  While the game is over pretty quickly, the white-knuckle gameplay will make sure it’s a sweet ride.

The presence of drivable vehicles is quite minimal in the single-player campaign, but vehicles add a whole new dynamic to the multiplayer modes.  Tanks and jeeps are predominant throughout the multiplayer modes, giving the game a Battlefield 1942 feel.  Manning vehicles has its obvious benefits (protection, speed, weaponry), but also a few downsides.  If you are scooting through a village with very narrow roads, it’s very easy to get trapped and ambushed by opposing forces.  However, the addition of the Kill Cam is a bonus for people who have a problem with snipers camping out and picking them off.  An ingenious little device, it shows you your character getting killed and the person who killed you, effectively giving away their position for when you respawn and need to kick some butt.

I hinted earlier at the improved graphics, and they truly are a sight to behold.  The newly implemented particle system displays debris, fog, fire, smoke and explosions very realistically, and now more than ever you will feel like you are really in the middle of a chaotic gunfight.  The new graphics push the aging Quake III engine to its utmost limits, causing a few bouts of slowdown on even high-end machines when the action gets really heated.

The sound has been left unchanged, which is definitely not a problem.  The surround sound is very cinematic, with sweeping a musical score, realistic gun sounds and explosions, and great voice acting.

Call of Duty: United Offensive is a real gem of an expansion pack, adding a ton of new content and some fantastic multiplayer features to the original game while introducing some compelling new levels that no fan of the original should be without.   

Check it out now.

 Detailed:

 There's no doubt that Call of Duty was one of the standout shooters of 2003 thanks to its addictive blend of intense single-player action and wild multiplayer gameplay. By taking its cues from Hollywood movies and television shows such as Band of Brothers, Call of Duty manages to immerse you in a virtual cinematic experience as you fight the battles of World War II on the front lines. So it's not too hard to imagine that developer Gray Matter faced a daunting task when it was asked to make an expansion for Call of Duty, which was originally developed by Infinity Ward. However, apparently Gray Matter was more than up to the task, because the developer took everything that was great about Call of Duty and then ratcheted the gameplay's intensity even higher. The result is that Call of Duty: United Offensive is a truly great expansion.

Get ready to receive waves of Germans in the many harrowing battles of United Offensive.

 United Offensive follows a similar format to that found in Call of Duty. You play as three Allied soldiers--an American paratrooper, a British SAS commando, and a Soviet infantryman--who are caught in the great struggle against Nazi Germany. Over the course of the single-player campaign, you'll go from the frozen siege of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge to the epic German counterattack at Kursk. Throughout most of the campaign, you'll participate in huge, heavily scripted, set-piece battles that make the squad-based battles in Call of Duty look downright minuscule in comparison. 

A good case in point involves Bastogne, which represents the opening segment of the expansion. After a short joyride in an American jeep through German lines (not unlike the similar sequence found in Call of Duty), you and your fellow paratroopers have to repulse a powerful German attack on American lines. While a battle in Call of Duty usually involved Germans that came at you in manageable numbers at a time, the sheer number of opponents that the computer throws at you in United Offensive is almost overwhelming (at times). We're not just talking infantry, either, because the Germans come at you with tanks and half-tracks as well. With gunfire and tracer fire all around, you must run from foxhole to foxhole in a desperate defense of the lines. And just when you think that things can't get more intense, P-51 fighter-bombers streak in on devastating bombing runs. It's an awe-inspiring moment, to say the least.
The expansion switches gears a bit for the British portion of the campaign by starting you off as a gunner in a B-17 Flying Fortress that's on a bombing mission over Germany. It's a visually stunning sequence, though you don't get to do much other than shoot down waves of incoming Luftwaffe fighters. Luckily, it's a one-time event, so you'll spend the rest of the British campaign on the ground partaking in commando missions that are probably closest in scale and scope to those found in Call of Duty. These include a Guns of Navarone-style mission where your team must destroy coastal guns that are threatening the invasion of Sicily. While packed with variety, the British segment of the campaign feels relatively low-key compared to the rest of the expansion, mainly because it lacks the massive set-piece battles that are at the heart of the American and Soviet segments of the campaign.
Thankfully, the gameplay returns to over-the-top form with the Soviet portion of the campaign, where you and your Soviet comrades face Hitler's last major offensive on the eastern front. This segment weaves from chaotic trench warfare to house-to-house--and even room-to-room--combat as you attempt to clear the Germans from a broken and burned-out city. It culminates in a climactic battle for a rail yard that pits you against oncoming German infantry and tanks, with Stuka dive-bombers making strafing runs over your positions. It definitely makes for a harrowing experience

During the British missions, you can fly as a gunner on board a B-17 over Germany, where the Luftwaffe swarms all over you like flies.

 About the only complaint about the single-player campaign is that it's not that long. The fast pace of the action works against the game, because there's somewhere between six and 10 hours of total gameplay, depending on how proficiently you're able to get past the tough parts, of which there are many. On the medium difficulty level, you can generally get past most battles and encounters after one or two attempts, but there are some notable sequences that may require a greater number of tries. The key in those situations is to recognize what the problem is and to figure out a way around it. The original Call of Duty featured its own fair share of challenging, almost puzzle-like sequences like these, so the overall level of difficulty in United Offensive is actually about the same.

You'll also get some new toys to play with, including semiautomatic rifles for the Germans and Soviets, which represent more than welcome additions. Another big addition is the machine gun, like the German MG34 and the American .30-caliber, which can deliver a heavy rate of fire but which can only be used while stationary and prone. And since Gray Matter developed Return to Castle Wolfenstein, it's not too surprising to see that it has imported the memorable flamethrower from that game to United Offensive.  

After you've exhausted the single-player campaign, you can look forward to the impressive new multiplayer modes in United Offensive, which reinvent the multiplayer features from Call of Duty. For example, there are 11 new, huge maps that easily dwarf the largest multiplayer levels from Call of Duty. United Offensive also introduces vehicles to the mix--mainly jeeps and tanks. Jeeps are useful for scooting around the map quickly, while tanks have their obvious benefits. Tanks aren't too overwhelming, though, since both teams have access to armor, and there is usually plenty of antitank weaponry laying around for infantry. Snipers are less of a problem with tanks around, and it also helps that the maps are so large that snipers are more spread out. In fact, one of the nightmares of Call of Duty's multiplayer was the high concentration of snipers on relatively small maps, which often turned the entire affair into camping fests. 

United Offensive also features a sea-based mission, which is a first for the series. Check out the pretty water.

The new multiplayer modes certainly feel influenced by the popular Battlefield 1942, particularly with the addition of the vehicles. The domination mode is very much like Battlefield 1942's conquest mode in that each team must take over a set of strategic points on the map to win. Though it lacks the sheer variety of Battlefield 1942 in terms of settings and vehicles, it still makes for a fun gameplay experience as your team has to use combined arms tactics effectively in order to win. Base assault is another new mode that should prove popular, as the goal for each team is to destroy the opposing team's bunkers. The catch is that destroying a bunker is a two-stage affair. First, the bunker has to be shattered by heavy weapons fire, and then infantry must run into the gutted ruins to plant explosives. The maps themselves are well designed, and most of them offer a mix of huge, open areas for vehicle combat, along with narrow, indoor areas that are perfect for close-quarters infantry combat. A good example of this is the Berlin level, which offers narrow streets for tanks to roam, and plenty of gutted buildings where infantry can hide and lay ambushes, as well as a sewer system to move around. Then there's Kharkov, which features huge, wide-open avenues, as well as rooftops where infantry can rain antitank rounds down on tanks.

Another welcome multiplayer addition is a ranking system that rewards players for helping their teams win the match. Above each player is a rank symbol, which resets at the beginning of each match. The more you help your team win by seizing objective locations, the higher you rise in rank. A high rank means that you get special bonuses, like extra grenades, and at higher ranks, you have access to binoculars which can be used to call in powerful artillery strikes. The rank system is a good incentive to actually work as a member of the team rather than running around as a lone wolf, as you get more points for seizing objectives than you do for simply killing the enemy.

It's worth mentioning that we encountered a slight bug while playing United Offensive. The expansion retains Call of Duty's mechanic that prevents you from opening doors on your own. As a result, you have to wait for another soldier to run up and open a door for you. The problem is, we ran into a couple of instances in which the scripting broke, and that soldier didn't appear. So then we had to go back to an earlier save point. Also, though you can quicksave the game at any point, it automatically saves at certain checkpoints, which is helpful when you're caught up in the game's action. However, when you're low on health, the autosaving doesn't kick in (apparently so that you aren't stuck at death's door if you load up the saved game). We mistakenly thought this was a bug as we played through long stretches without any autosaving. 

It sure is fortunate that there's an antiaircraft gun nearby when the German heavy bombers appear over Kharkov.

As testament to the sheer amount of chaos on the screen, United Offensive pushes the aged Quake III engine to its limits, and even high-end machines may stutter at times to keep up with all the action. However, the action is generally smooth, and the graphics have even been improved a bit from Call of Duty. In particular, explosions and smoke effects are rendered beautifully now, and it's a visual treat to watch an artillery barrage rain down around you. You'll see trees shatter, huge plumes of dirt will kick up into the air, and the earth will shake all around you. And, yes, the excellent sound effects that were in Call of Duty are back, from the overwhelming noise of gunfire and explosions to the squeal of tank treads in the distance to the dreaded sound of a Stuka dive-bomber coming in for a bombing run.
By turning up the intensity, United Offensive breathes new life into Call of Duty, which is saying quite a bit, because Call of Duty is an impressive game by itself. Nonetheless, this is an excellent expansion. The single-player campaign may be a bit brief, but it's packed with plenty of cinematic moments, and the new multiplayer gameplay should keep you busy long after you've blown through the single-player game. It's a no-brainer to say that United Offensive is a must-have if you enjoyed Call of Duty.