Released a year after the original
game, comes Grey Matter's expansion pack for
the hugely popular Call Of Duty. And in most
ways, it improved on what Infinity Ward did
with the full game.
For a start, United Offensive,
while being fairly short for even an expansion
pack, was still almost as long as the full game.
I estimated UO to be about 5-6 hours, with the
full Call Of Duty game being 7-8. And that was
my main criticism of Call Of Duty, that it being
too short.
The other area Grey Matter
have improved upon, despite still using the
same engine and game, is level design. The levels
in UO are a smidgen more impressive this time
round. They feel more epic, especially examples
like the lighthouse level. The only let down
was the final Russian leg of UO looked exactly
the same as the original game. They could easily
have seamlessly integrated into part of the
full game's Russian leg.
The other major difference
between COD and COD:UO is the gameplay. UO features
much more frantic action, with hordes of enemies
running you down. Some of the battles just feel
MUCH bigger. And in the process, hard as well.
In some cases a little too hard. The sniper
rifles with zoom features weren't used much
in UO and you'll really miss them. At least
in my run through I never picked them up much,
if at all. Instead I stuck with the same few
guns throughout the entire pack, which did get
a little numbing by the end.
COD:UO is an improvement over
COD. Slightly more epic levels and gameplay,
a decent length when compared to the original
game. But very much more of the same, just slightly
better.
