WW2 #19: Call of Duty: United Offensive
For when you just couldn’t have enough Call of Duty 1
This review was originally posted to Twitter on November 14, 2018.
Initial release: September 14, 2004
Platform: PC
Developer: Gray Matter Interactive
Couldn’t get enough Call of Duty with the first game? Then Gray Matter Interactive has the expansion pack for you. More explosions, more shooting, more dead cows — it’s all here. If the name Gray Matter Interactive sounds familiar, they used to be Xatrix Entertainment (Redneck Rampage, the second Quake II expansion, Kingpin: Life of Crime) and then they changed their name and developed Return to Castle Wolfenstein, now they’re part of Treyarch. Remember what I said about how incestuous the industry can be?
There’s not really much new. The US/UK/USSR campaign progression is kept, the gameplay is identical. But there’s a few new tricks, such as a level where you’re a gunner on a B-17 bomber, and later you use binoculars to spot artillery targets. There’s also a mostly useless sprint. True to the base game’s cinematic roots, there’s references to Band of Brothers (the Battle of the Bulge, especially the assault on Foy) as well as the 1961 classic The Guns of Navarrone (which, interestingly enough, has no basis in any real-world action in the war.) Perhaps the biggest difference for United Offensive is the difficulty, which is an order of magnitude greater than the original. Players who breezed through Call of Duty on veteran would find themselves hard-pressed to finish United Offensive, especially in climactic scenes such as the trainyard finale.
On the multiplayer level, this game introduces Treyarch’s tendency to experiment, adding new features such as an early version of the ranking system as well as vehicular combat.
All in all, don’t expect a grand departure from the main game like some expansion packs can be. But despite some wonky difficulty spikes, it’s still just as solid a game as Call of Duty 1.
