Call of Duty: United Offensive
Aspyr Media
Price: $29.99
Pros: Fresh new missions, expanded weapons options, and more airpower!
Cons: More demanding on hardware than the original, requires separate app and CD to play.
by Gerrit Dalman
A while back I had the chance to review one of the best World War II shooters on the market, Call of Duty. Now I get to re-visit the title in the form of it's expansion pack, Call of Duty: United Offensive; recently released for the Macintosh.
United Offensive brings more of the same awesome game as well as a few new goodies. In summary, it brings 13 new single player missions that span the alliance, 11 new multiplayer missions, vehicle-mounted weapons, and mobile heavy machine guns.
The new missions are most welcome! Though separate from the original campaigns, they carry you through cohesive strands of the war as seen by American, British, and Soviet perspectives. Your first mission has you fighting in the epic Battle of the Bulge for the 506th PIR, which was recently made more famous by the HBO mini-series, Band of Brothers.
The added equipment is a welcome addition too. The new weapons and vehicles are well balanced and provide a more realistic depth of tactical options in both single and multi-player modes. Being able to relocate heavy machine guns and shoot from the back of jeeps, for example, make things much more interesting at times.
This was not a hastily developed expansion. The maps are just as carefully built and feature trenches, cities, forests, and even more destructible terrain - or at least it seemed that way when a tank destroyed a boulder I was using as cover the other day!
One thing is for sure, air strikes, tanks, and mortars play a more active role in United Offensive. Some objectives have you taking out German anti-tank weapons so tanks can move in, mortars often stop your advance, and P-47s and Stukas swoop overhead much more often. Not to mention my personal favorite part of the game - a mission that makes you a gunner on a bomber in the air war!
Unfortunately, United Offensive was substantially slower than the original on the same hardware, so be prepared if you're on the low end. It also runs as a separate application and requires a separate CD so switching from COD to UO requires you to quit, swap CDs, and then to start the game you want to play. That's a hassle.
In the end though, those technical issues are overshadowed by all of the additions and I am left with an overwhelmingly positive opinion of the game. It does well where the original did and keeps Call of Duty at the top of my favorites list.
System Requirements:
* Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later
* 867MHz G4 or better
* 256MB RAM
* 1.4GB of disk space
* 32MB or better video card
* DVD Drive
* The full version of Call of Duty