Description:

Call of Duty and the United Offensive add-on pack are two of the genre's most respected shooters. And to complement the official release of United Offensive, Activision has somewhat predictably delivered a deluxe edition box set carrying both titles. Woo-hoo! Here's what they're all about...

Call of Duty

Call of Duty follows the events of the war from multiple perspectives, giving you the opportunity to battle the enemy forces through the eyes of American, British and Russian soldiers. Starting the game as an American Paratrooper on D-Day, you eventually progress to a member of the British Special Forces, and finally rise up to become a Russian tank commander. As such, an extremely diverse array of missions need to be undertaken, including infiltrating a POW camp, a British assault on the Eder Dam, and the re-taking of Red Square.

One of the most notable elements of Call of Duty is its emphasis on team-based combat. From the outset, you fight as part of a squad and, as such, need to stick together, communicate and cover each other, as well as carry out certain objectives shouted to you through the blaze of oncoming fire. For example, an early level sees you defending a town from an onslaught of tanks. Someone's gonna have to go and grab the rocket launcher and take them out - can you guess who it is?

As you would expect, the game comes complete with some comprehensive multiplayer support, allowing up to 32 players to fight it out over a LAN or the Internet, across a wide variety of popular game types. The game's emphasis on squad-based battles means that it's sure to go down extremely well with the online FPS community.

United Offensive

Hosting a brand new single-player campaign in addition to a mass of multi-player modes, United Offensive will give its players plenty to do until Finest Hour comes along.

The single-player campaign - a game in its own right - gives players the opportunity to experience a another handful of the Second World War's most legendary conflicts, bringing with it an array of new weapons, new maps and character abilities. The Battle of the Bulge and the invasion of Sicily are particularly involving, and a multitude of weather effects and explosions makes the adventure all the more convincing.

The aforementioned multiplayer game has been expanded too. As well as offering a set of new maps designed for tank or troop warfare, United Offensive also affords its followers three new multiplayer modes for up to 32 players. These comprise of Tank Battle, the ever-popular Capture the Flag and Domination. The first two are fairly straightforward, whereas the latter, Domination, is a little more in-depth. Here, you must use your wits to take control of key locations whilst simultaneously preventing enemy troops from doing the same. It's a great challenge that'll never get old.

Minimum system requirements:

Pentium III or Athlon processor 700 MHz

Windows 98/ME/2000/XP

128 MB RAM

DirectX 9.0a compatible 32 MB Hardware T&L-capable video card

DirectX 9.0a compatible 16 bit sound card

8 x CD-ROM

DirectX 9.0a (not included)

Information:

• Number of players: 1-32
• Development Company: Infinity Ward
• Software House: Activision
• Video Dimensions: 3D
• Publisher: Activision
• Point Of View: First-person