Call of Duty: United Offensive

WAR, war, war. Everywhere you look in this magazine it's bloody war. War in Vietnam, war in the Pacific, war on terror -you'd think the whole industry was run by Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush. (It's not? - Ed.) But while most of the war-themed claptrap shoved down our gullets is that way simply because the developer lacked the imagination (or the cojones) to do anything different, there is the odd game that comes along and justifies the whole sick obsession. Shellshock: Nam '67 was one such game. No hang on, that was an awful, gratuitous piece of bum-floss. Let's try that again... Call Of Duty was one such game.

You see, the thing about Call Of Duty - and to a lesser extent Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault, its unofficial precursor - wasn't just the hurricane-force sensory assault of its more celebrated moments. More than that, it captured like never before the reluctant heroism and horror of infantry warfare, and singlehandedly reminded us why setting games in real-life war situations was such a ruddy good idea in the first place. Indeed, it made every other war-themed game look like something from the Army Men stable.

You'll forgive us then, for being a little agitated about the first expansion pack to the game, Call Of Duty: United Offensive. Sure, it was always inevitable and sure, we can see the slight cheekiness of releasing it just in time to take the wind out of Medal Of Honor 2's sails, but what the hell - this is Call Of Duty we're talking about, the best war shooter in the world! (Ahem.) For many, the biggest problem with the original was that there simply wasn't enough of it, and this has been thoroughly rectified in the expansion, with 13 new singleplayer missions and a clutch of new multiplayer options.

Monkey Go Home

Better yet, United Offensive was put together by Gray Matter Interactive, the esteemed developer behind Return To Castle Wolfenstein, Kingpin and er... Redneck Rampage. These boys know what they're doing, which goes against the unwritten rule of getting a team of brainless chimps to knock out your expansion pack while your A-team works on the sequel. They're here only because they were at a loose end after Trinity was cancelled, but again, what the hell-it's our gain. So, after all that, is it any good? The short answer is yes -United Offensive is every bit as good as the original, matching its intensity, variety and magnificent level design blow for blow. Is it different enough? Does it bring enough new stuff to the party? Well, we'll see about that, but for now let's take a look at the facts.

Following the structure of the original game, UO is split into three campaigns: American, British and Russian. In the US campaign you find yourself attached to the 101 st Airborne during the Battle of the Bulge; in the British missions you begin as part of an RAF bomber crew and later become an SOE operative in Sicily; while the typically brutal Russian missions cover the horrific Battle of Kursk.

This Means War

Right away, you're reminded where you are. The first mission begins with you and some other troops on a routine jeep reconnaissance at the end of a long day, wearily patrolling the Belgian woodland for Jerries and entreating the corporal for a hot meal. Lulled into this laid-back scene, you follow your squad blithely as they scout the area, fully expecting a gentle tutorialstyle mission to ease you into things. And then you're dead.

Yes, 20 seconds into the game, there's every chance you'll be a fresh corpse, the contents of your skull sprayed all over the virgin snow. Because, you see, you weren't paying attention to the sergeant's orders, or you weren't using cover wisely, or you didn't aim down the sights of your gun when that German force turned up - or perhaps because you forgot to crouch when reloading. Yep, this is Call Of Duty all right, and it ain't no picnic.

Things hot up even more when the troops you stumbled across turn out to be part of a major German offensive, and mission two sees you desperately trying to hold a defensive line until reinforcements arrive - scurrying from foxhole to foxhole, sniping, shooting, warding off flanking attacks and taking out tanks with a bazooka.

It's this sort of rapid-fire diversity that really defines the action in UO - you have very little time to think as you're thrown from one desperate situation to another, death never more than a single bullet away. If anything, the tempo is faster in UO, the variety greater, and as a result the missions frequently more exciting.

Having said that, the US campaign is probably the weakest of the three. It's good solid stuff, but feels very much like more of the same, and it's only once you reach the British missions that the true beauty and flair of United Offensive starts to shine through.

Darkened Skies

In a nice change of pace, you begin the UK campaign in the belly of an RAF Flying Fortress over north-western Europe, alternately manning the tailgun and dorsal turret of the big bomber and trying to shoot down swarms of pesky Stukas. It's a magnificent scene, and a great chance to gape at Gray Matter's awesome new particle effects in the flak and smoke billowing around you.

However, where the US campaign was all relentless intensity and realism, this is pure cinema. It's a theme that continues as you bail out of your ruined plane and pull your chute, beginning the next mission hanging halfway up a tree with your harness strangling your nuts and a German patrol pissing on the tree below you. Soon enough you're rescued by some chaps from SOE (that's Special Operations Executive, not the people who made EverQuest), and all of a sudden you're a commando saboteur, reliving the excitement of Force Ten From Navarone or Where Eagles Dare. This is quickly followed by a few hints of The Guns Of Navarone and even a bit of Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade as you elude the Germans in a motorcycle sidecar.

It's all jolly good fun, if not particularly realistic, and provides an excellent buffer from the brutality that's to follow in the Russian campaign. I won't give away too much of that, except to mention that it's every bit as furious and bullet-riddled as Stalingrad was in the original game, perhaps even more so as you approach the climactic conclusion. Towards the end, the Battle of Kursk scenes are perhaps the most impressive of any Call Of Duty levels ever, and will leave you absolutely drained and exhausted when you eventually emerge carrying the red flag. Let's just say it's worth the wait.

Written In Stone

However, while I have no problem heaping praise on the quality of the levels and the general execution of United Offensive, I will add that all the problems of Call Of Duty remain in force. Worst among these is perhaps the heavy reliance on scripting, which, though extremely dramatic and effective, has some pretty obvious downfalls.

One is that every scenario plays virtually identically every time; but I feel this is forgivable except where the game tries to trick you into thinking otherwise. So, when your SOE major says, Keep down lads, if they spot us we're cooked", you'd expect to have to remain crouched to retain the element of surprise. Not so, as I discovered when I proceeded to break orders and jump around like a ten-year-old with a tapeworm - all with absolutely no repercussions or reaction from the game.

Hang On A Minute...

If this is slightly disappointing, it's nothing compared to the moments when scripting overrides all common sense. I'm thinking mainly of the moments when Al paths overlap badly and one of your squad-mates runs straight past an (equally oblivious) enemy going in the other direction, ignoring each other in their rush to meet their scripted appointments. To be fair, this is an occasional problem at worst, and the Al is generally quite convincing... Except, now that I think about it, that your teammates are largely useless at killing Germans (not wanting to steal your fun, they simply miss time and time again), and your commanding officers are still indestructible. I guess this is the price you pay for tight scripting and dramatic intensity, but it doesn't mean we have to like it.

Panzers At Dawn

So what about the multiplayer game? If anything, this is the area in which Call Of Duty needs most of a boost, the original game offering no truly essential online gameplay. Given the number of people who own the game, the online modes were always going to have some support, but you could hardly say it's taken the Net by storm.

To attempt to remedy this, Gray Matter has added three new game types, all team-based and now with the addition of vehicles such as tanks and jeeps. Sadly, there were no servers up at the time of writing, but we've had a good old play on the office LAN and there's definitely some promise there -most notably in the excellent Base Assault mode.

Borrowing extensively from Counter-Strike and Enemy Territory, Base Assault gives each team three bases to defend, and litters the map with tanks, jeeps, fixed cannons and bazookas. In order to win the day you have to destroy the above-ground portion of all three enemy bases with tanks, satchel charges and anti-tank weaponry and then set bombs in each of the now-exposed basements -as well as defending the bombs against defusing for several long minutes. It's not easy, but it is a hell of a laugh, with excellent attack-and-defend dynamics and some frantic races across maps to try and defuse ticking time bombs. Even from our LAN-dabbling, Base Assault looks set to become the standout multiplayer mode of Call Of Duty, and will certainly satisfy those looking for some real novelty in this add-on pack.

Points Make Prizes

Cleverly, UO also introduces a new battlefield promotion system, cribbed directly from Enemy Territory and awarding high-achieving players with extra ranks and abilities. When you reach the highest rank, platoon sergeant, you even acquire the ability to call in artillery strikes -also borrowed from ET but great fun nonetheless. In combination with the new modes, vehicles and the everamusing kill-cam feature, Call Of Duty multiplayer just became a serious contender and should start making waves online once the excitement of Doom 3 calms down.

Which brings us to a rather pertinent point. I feel pretty safe in saying that United Offensive is one of the most impressive and rewarding expansion packs of recent years, matching and occasionally even outstripping the quality of its outstanding parent. But it could be a fully immersive VR pom sim for all you care - you'll still buy Doom 3 instead (which is only right and good I suppose).

I can only suggest that once you've completed id's masterpiece, United Offensive might be a good way to offset the post-hell withdrawal trauma. It's not just more of the same, it's got some fantastic singleplayer missions and a far more convincing multiplayer complement. And, above all, it's a worthy continuation of the Call Of Duty saga.