The World War II FPS genre, crowed though it may
be, has been hitting the PSP in full force recently. First came EA’s Medal of
Honor Heroes, which brought the series to the PSP, then came Brothers in Arms
D-Day, which was Ubisoft’s foray into the WWII on PSP arena. Now Activision is
getting into the mix with their flagship WWII series, Call of Duty.
Call of Duty: Roads to Victory does what it sets
out to do, which is to effectively bring the series’ intense gameplay to the
handheld format. The preview build that GameZone was able to recently sit down
with showed that the game needed quite a bit more work, but what we saw was a
pretty good accomplishment on the PSP, which has been notoriously unkind to the
FPS genre.
The preview build of the game showcased four
different levels. Each level presented different elements of the game, and they
felt pretty diverse. You’d run the gamut of missions that aren’t uncommon to the
series, such as destroying flak batteries with timed bombs, clearing out machine
gun nests and fighting your way back to your squad mates after a glider landing.
The last mission of the four previewed had you manning the gun of a B-24
Liberator, shooting down anti-aircraft balloons and enemy planes.
The familiar trappings of the Call of Duty series
were present in preview build of the game. The “down the sight” aiming is
present and easily accessible, requiring you to hold down the L button to look
down your gun’s sight. Each weapon is different, as some will give you a better
means of aim, while some are better off utilizing the auto-aim feature.
Of course the biggest problem when it comes to
creating a decent FPS experience on the PSP is the controls. Since the system
only has one analog stick, or nub as it were, it can be tough to emulate a
console shooter without the extra control of two sticks. However, Call of Duty:
Roads to Victory helps this out by offering up a very liberal auto-aim system.
You aim with the analog nub and the face buttons move you back and forward and
side to side. There were some control issues that seem unavoidable on the PSP,
like remaining stationary to change your weapons or cook a grenade.
The graphics and sound are done very well, and
aside from less detailed textures and some hits in the framerates when the
action gets intense, it looks about as competent as the PS2 versions of the
series. The music and sound effects are also pretty good, akin to the other
games in the series.
Call of Duty: Roads to Victory is shaping up to be
a pretty solid entry to the series, taking the franchise’s presentation and
production values to the handheld format and losing little in the transition.
While the controls can be rough at times, the auto-aim feature is leaps and
bounds beyond most FPS games on the PSP. Look for it to drop this March.
