the
player is a part of an elite group, their missions are more focused on raids,
with quick escapes capping things off, many of which prove to be fairly exciting.
Dodging German patrols, blowing up bridges and lighthouses, hit and run assaults
- United Offensive did the British proud.
The last campaign, which
featured the Soviets, was my favorite. Similar to the original, the Soviet campaign
starts off with a bang as players rush out of a train to reinforce trenches along
a makeshift front. This was also the first time I saw one of the expansion's other
main weapons, the flamethrower, in action, and it was a sight to behold; let me
say that there was little else as cool or frightening as seeing a unit whip a
trail of flame around the inside of a trench. I really liked the constantly moving
and defending of the ramshackle fortifications, with threats mounting on all sides;
one siege hit its zenith when Germans broke through, and I turned to see soldiers
going at it one-on-one with the butts of their guns. This portion is really all
about assaults, either storming small villages or planting charges on attacking
tanks. The progression from smaller villages to larger cities was nice, and the
cities, like Stalingrad in the original, were impressive with the sights and sounds
of combat constantly going on all around the player as they rush through a desolate
city. There is also the return of tank combat, one of the more surprising and
enjoyable elements of the original. Hurriedly being recruited into the tank corps,
players will get a taste of large-scale tank warfare as they push German heavy
tanks and artillery away from the front. Like the American portion, the Soviets'
last level is nothing short of absolute chaos, nearly causing my mouse button
to break because I had to hit continue so much. While not as short as the British
campaign, it would've been about the same time span if the last level hadn't been
so difficult, what with the stukas dive-bombing, tanks shooting on all sides,
and armored troop transports spending into the middle of the fighting.
Other new additions are a few rifles and machine guns, as well as a sprint feature.
There is no on-screen indicator of how much stamina the player has to show how
much longer they can run; instead, it works similar to Operation Flashpoint in
that the player hears their breathing get hard as they start to slow down. It's
a nice addition that is great to use in quick jams, but because either the combat
areas are so small or because of its briefness, I didn't use it much. The other
goods include three new multiplayer modes: Base Attack, Capture the Flag, and
Domination. Considering how short the single player campaign is—it took me
about 7 hours to complete on Normal—the other new additions are kind of weak,
but I'm also a Day of Defeat kind of person, so those big into its multiplayer
component will get more out of it than I did.
What was so surprising
about United Offensive is how rough it is. While it exudes a feeling of
polish on the surface, a lot of problems become apparent during gameplay. One
of these problems is hit detection: when enemies are crawling through a window,
they can only be hurt once they get inside and not during the motion, and since
enemies take quite a bit of damage—something I didn't like in the Medal
of Honor series but found much better in the original Call of Duty—by
the time one intruder is killed, another is already in the process of getting
inside, thus impervious to harm. Quite a few shots also missed the target completely:
I took about 10 perfectly-aimed shots at a nearby enemy and not one hit him. There
is also an annoying feature that makes it impossible to shoot certain friendly
soldiers on certain occasions, which creates a false impression since others will
rush towards the player and seem like an enemy, but if they are killed, the player
fails the mission.
The level design is not nearly as fluid as it was
in the original. Where I felt nudged before, I feel pushed now, with landmines
absolutely everywhere, making it perfectly clear that the developers want you
to go from point A to B in exactly a certain way. This also limits maneuverability,
often forcing the players into limited combat areas, which isn't really conducive
to promoting imaginative attacks and defenses. It also leads to weird oddities,
like one friendly soldier who was on a cliff that was perfect to use during an
ambush, but I couldn't get on it because the way up was surrounded by mines; and,
with mines often a foot off the road, did the planners expect trucks to never
have to veer for any reason? A final complaint is how ungodly damaging a hit from
the butt of a rifle is: an enemy can take up to five shots to be taken down, but
one or two whacks from a gun will take down even the healthiest foe - and likewise
for the player.
Further increasing the problems from the lack of maneuverability
is the fact that there are respawning enemies. In the original, I remember taking
out reinforcements, but once they were gone, they tended to stay gone; if there
were respawning sequences, they were far more limited than they are now. One portion
of an allied mission in particular drove me insane: after an ambush, I had to
take a tank. Since we were surrounded by landmines, I could only hide behind a
rock or wooden fence to shoot, but the whole time, enemy infantry was storming
over a hill, and would continue to do so until the tank was destroyed. Situations
like that also made me wonder: if a hundred men were going to attack a handful
of men before a tank blew up, why not after, when their odds of winning were still
very good? This really damaged the sense of finality and believability-yes, it
is just a game, but its predecessor managed to pull off those feelings quite nicely.
The graphics, while still looking good, also suffered due to technical
problems. Despite using a fairly old engine, the characters and effects still
looked great, but there was noticeable clipping. There were times when half a
soldier was on the outside of a wall, or the barrel of a gun could be seen before
the door was open. Thankfully, these weren't very common and rarely took anything
away from the gameplay. Just on the aesthetic front, though, the cutscenes have
to be some of the ugliest I've seen; after completing a campaign, horribly compressed
movies of the accomplish missions play while you wonder why in the world it looks
so grainy. Luckily, nothing in the sound department is a disappointment. The music
and voices is still top notch, adding much to the atmosphere that the game still
manages to effectively create.
Overall:
7/10
With all of its faults, United Offensive still manages to be an
enjoyable game, which is mainly a testament to how strong the original was. The
additions outside of the single player campaign aren't much and those who found
there to be too many scripted sequences or the game too confining before won't
be converted now, but fans should still enjoy it. However, given the game's short
length, technical and design problems, as well as its pedigree, Call of Duty:
United Offensive was a little disappointing, and definitely inferior to its
predecessor.
*Correction [10/05/04]: The small icon of a soldier that displays
stance position also works as a sprint meter. [
top ] |
