Call of Duty: United Offensive

Call of Duty: United Offensive
Call of Duty: United Offensive
Developer(s)	Gray Matter Interactive
Publisher(s)	Activision, Aspyr (Mac)
Series	Call Of Duty
Engine	Quake III Arena
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh
Release	NA September 14, 2004; EU September 24, 2004; JP October 9, 2004
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer

Call of Duty: United Offensive is an expansion pack for the popular first-person shooter computer game, Call of Duty. It is developed by Gray Matter Interactive, with contributions from Pi Studios, and published by Activision. It was released for Microsoft Windows on September 14, 2004.

Since October 13 2006, the game has also been available to buy on Valve's content delivery platform, Steam. This comes after an agreement with its publisher, Activision. Also available so far are: its original, Call of Duty, the sequel, Call of Duty 2, and the western, GUN.

Continuing from the original game, much of the American Campaign is influenced by Band of Brothers. The Sicily mission is arguably influenced by The Guns of Navarone.

Gameplay changes

The game features single-player missions centered around the three major Allied forces of World War II: the United States (as Cpl. Scott Riley), the United Kingdom (as Sgt. James Doyle) and the Soviet Union (as Pvt. Yuri Petrenko), and includes historical battles such as the Battle of the Bulge, Battle of Kursk, and the invasion of Sicily. A minor deviation from the original game is a bombing mission in which the player mans several M2 Browning machine guns. Several new abilities are added to the game as well, including the ability to deploy light machine guns, use flamethrowers, to sprint; which makes the character run faster but at the cost of not being able to fire their weapon, and the ability to cock grenades.

The biggest changes made by United Offensive are in the multiplayer aspect of the game. There are new maps which are much larger than the ones in the original game, new weapons from the single player campaign, an in-game rank system which grants additional bonuses with more points, and vehicles such as tanks and jeeps (similar to "Battlefield 1942").

Multiplayer

Ranking System

United Offensive introduces a ranking system to multiplayer. As players' scores increase, they gain ranks. Each rank spawns with new benefits.

Private: None
Rifleman: Additional hand grenades and pistol ammo.
Squad Leader: Scouting Binoculars.
Section Sergeant: Satchel Charges. (Lower ranks can also use satchel, but has to be picked up.)
Platoon Sergeant: Artillery Strike.

Also, there are now other ways to gain points than killing enemies. These include planting explosives, defusing explosives, destroying objectives, protecting objectives, capturing flags, protecting flags, and assisting friendly flag carriers. The ranks are reset each map and are not persistent, as opposed to Battlefield 2.

New Multiplayer Modes

Call of Duty United Offensive adds three new multiplayer modes to the game: Domination, Capture the Flag and Base Assault.

Domination

The objective of Domination is to own (or "dominate") all of the control points on the map. There are usually at least five or six of these control points scattered around the map, and are usually found in key strategic locations. To capture a control point, a player must stand near it with no enemies nearby. After a certain amount of time, the area is captured by your team. Every time a team captures a control point, they add a point to their overall score. To win, a team must either have the higher score when time runs out, or capture all of the control points on the map.

Base Assault

*United Offensive* level depicting the Battle of the Bulge.

As the name implies, Base Assault requires teams to use heavy weaponry such as tanks and artillery strikes to attack their opponent's bases and destroy them. On each map, both teams have three bases they must defend and attack. Once a bunker takes enough damage, it is not destroyed, but exposed to infantry attack. To completely destroy a bunker, a player must sneak into the basement of an exposed bunker and plant an explosive. Then they must keep the other team from defusing the explosive so it will explode and destroy the bunker. A team wins either by destroying the most bunkers before time expires, or completely destroying all of the opposing team's bunkers. In some modifications of Base Assault games, teams must use only anti tank weaponry and satchel charges instead of tanks to destroy the bases.

Capture the Flag

The most traditional game mode is CTF, or Capture the Flag. The CTF in Call of Duty: United Offensive is very similar to CTF games in Unreal Tournament 2004 or Halo. Each side has a flag that they must protect. The objective is to steal the enemy's flag and take it back to your own to score a point. A team can only score if they have their flag intact. For example, if you take the enemy flag, but the enemy also takes your flag, neither team can score until one of them retrieves their flag. A team wins either by capturing the flag a certain amount of times or capturing the most flags at the end of the game. A limited selection of maps are available for CTF play. Many of the available maps have vehicles available, making it exceedingly difficult to obtain the flag without resorting to large amounts of firepower. This makes the gameplay extreme dynamic and versatile. On CTF maps without vehicles base defence can sometimes involve a large degree of 'camping' but these maps are usually small and compact therefore the emphasis is placed on moving on foot and face-to-face action.

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