Friendly fire. In war jargon, that's what they call it when a soldier accidentally unloads a weapon on their own people.
After playing Call of Duty: United Offensive, the terrific add-on to one of 2003's best shooters, Call of Duty, it became painfully clear that there really is nothing friendly about it and if I was ever in a real battle, I would probably be a greater threat to my own men than the enemy.
REALISM
Such is the realism of this game that the action unfolds so quickly and the colour of uniforms is so muted and dirty, that it's hard to tell the good guys from the Germans without a program.
Like the original game, you are teamed up with a band of Allied brothers working your way through 16 WWII missions -- from the forests of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge to the rubble-strewn streets of Kursk -- playing alternately as an American paratrooper, a British SAS commando and a Russian grunt.
Gray Matter Studios, the makers of Castle Wolfenstein, was hired to make this add-on, and has done an impressive job creating battle scenarios that are larger and feel more freewheeling than in the original.
Once again, though, you are only a cog in the military wheel, a wheel that turns with or without you.
Fellow soldiers head into battle on their own and will engage the enemy even if you decide you would rather run for cover.
Of course being a yellow- belly means missing out on all the bloody action and missions can't be completed without your input.
NEW ARMAMENTS
Helping you accomplish your missions is a load of new armaments, including a silenced Sten gun, a .30-cal. Browning as well as anti-tank weapons and flame-throwers.
In the beginning of the British sequence, you also get to man the guns of a B-17 Flying Fortress during a bombing run that is decimated by German Messerscmitts.
The multi-player mode boasts six types of play, including Search and Destroy, Domination and Behind Enemy Lines.
My favourite, though, remains Deathmatch, because it has no friendly fire.
In that game, everyone is your enemy.
