Call of Duty: United Offensive Member Review for the PC

The Good: Amazing cinematic atmosphere, holds of graphically even today, immersive sound effects, realistic feeling gun play

The Bad: Visually look pretty dated in spots, no one playing online, a tad short

Another World War II game, but wait this came out 7 years ago during the subgenre's peak. Why should I play this? It's just another Call of Duty. Before you go making drastic decisions Call of Duty started out as a WWII series way before the Modern Warfare explosion. Call of Duty was known for great cinematic atmosphere, tight gun play, and excellent story telling. United Offensive is the expansion to the award-winning debut game in the series. Offensive is just superb and even hold up on all levels today.

The game has three campaigns that run between America, England, and Russia. You play as three different faceless soldiers, but the environment is the main character here. Each campaign has an amazing opening scene as well as some memorable moments like the escape on a Jeep in the American campaign, the gripping plane scene in the England campaign, and the tank scenes in the Russian campaign. There is never a dull moment in Offensive and everything from sound, great voice acting, and realistic sounding war effects bring together a riveting experience that I truly have not found in any other WWII game (even in later CoD games).

Instead of trying to pack every scenario into one game (including weapons) we get some long battles that feel challenging, but not terribly hard. Some scenes can last up to 20 minutes (like the plane scene in the British campaign), but it holds you out just enough to make you feel the terror of war and a little helpless. Some battles require waiting a certain amount of time before reinforcements arrive and then a wonderful orchestral soundtrack picks up and makes it that much more intense.

The gun play is solid and feels great with favorite weapons like the MP40, M1 Garand, MP44, and the Springfield sniper rifle. We've used the weapons dozens of times but each weapon feels different which includes power, accuracy, and mechanics of the gun. I feel the grenades still have no weight, but there are a variety of them. Each level and scenario feels different and gripping, but you never get attached to any characters because the environment is the main attraction.

Mutliplayer would keep you coming back, but due to the age there is no one playing online ever so you have to stick to LAN. War games just aren't like they used to be, and United Offensive shows how to put across the feeling of war as well as realistic feeling weapons. United Offensive stands up graphically as well thanks to tiny details. The only thing dated are the low poly models, low resolution textures up close, and some static lighting. Most of the time you won't notice because you're sucked into the experience too much. If a game from 2004 can suck you in after playing modern war games then that really shows how much a games stands up.