When it comes to PSP or just handheld titles in general, Amaze Entertainment has a solid track record. More often than not their games look great, sound great and play great. "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest', "The Legend of Spyro' and 'Lord of the Rings: Tactics' are examples of their first-rate efforts.
With 'Call of Duty: Roads to Victory' though, Amaze has stepped on the proverbial landmine and another effort to bring a first person shooter to the PSP has been blown to smithereens. War is hell, especially if your game freezes here and there.
As a handheld version of the venerable Word War II action series, 'Roads to Victory' plays out much as you might expect. As either American, Canadian or British soldiers, you wage war against the Axis in crowded foxholes, crumbling city streets and even in the wild blue yonder, which incidentally is the best part of 'Roads to Victory'.
'Call of Duty' is recognized for mixing the gameplay up allowing players to do more than just skulk around taking pot shots at Jerrys. In other installments, we have blown the heck out of enemy airfields while riding shotgun in a military gun truck and taken on the role of tank commander to fend off invading German Panzer units. 'Roads to Victory' doesn't have that diversity. Not even close. Almost all of the missions are search and destroy. Lead by a grumpy A.I. friendly, who barks instructions at you until he is unceremoniously pegged in the head and replaced by yet another frazzled guide; you rush along reaching checkpoint after checkpoint where you periodically man machine gun turrets, plant explosives or signal for air strikes. It is street after street, bombed out building after bombed out building, trench after trench. Sooner or later, every setting in ‘Roads’ begins to look very much the same.
The only original assignment is when you operate gunner positions on a plane to protect your bombers from incoming enemy jets. That stage is more fun than popping bubble wrap. It is a shame that it all ends so quickly and then it is back to sniping at the faithfully brainless A.I. who are extremely slow on the draw. Acting more like inconsequential roadblocks on the way to the climatic stage ending battle, the enemy A.I. sucks so bad that Amaze has to send entire squads against you all at once at certain points in the game just to up the ante. Your Allied buddies aren't much better either. They are always bumbling around in your way. Too bad there is no court martial or friendly fire option available.
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One of the big reasons why Amaze might have lobotomized the A.I. is the notoriously awkward PSP controls when it comes to first person shooters. That is also maybe why they instituted a scrupulously forgiving auto-aiming function. Since pinpoint aiming with the PSP analog stick (button) is virtually impossible chiefly with roaming targets, all you gotta do is aim in the general vicinity of the intended target in ‘Roads to Victory’ and they will be mowed down into hamburger. Tilting the scales that much in the players’ favour though doesn’t provide much of a challenge except that there are no mid-level checkpoints and the levels themselves can take 15 to 20 minutes to complete. The game only autosaves at the conclusion of each section so if you happen to mess up or if the game crashes several times for you like it did for me, you could be looking at a time-consuming restarts.
I couldn’t tell what caused the crashes but what I did notice was that if you do not follow the scripted or timed events, the game becomes dazed and confused. Example, instead of fighting entrenched Nazis along a lengthy stretch of roadway, I ran for my very life dodging bullets until I reached the end of the street. A curious thing happened as a result of my anarchic strategy. The enemy did not pursue me and neither did my back-up. My A.I. bud remained hunkered down and refused to follow me. I ventured forward on my own for some time until I reached a door I could not open. I guess Corporal A.I. had the magic key. Darn those magic keys. I was forced to restart the level…again.
Try as they might with all of their tinkering in ‘Roads to Victory’, Amaze, like other developers before them, has failed to bring a stable first person shooter to the PSP. Taking into account what they have to work with though, it may take a total redesign of the PSP control system before any developer has any success in that regard beyond Sony with its own 'Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror'.
WHAM! Rating: |
4 out of 10 |
ESRB Rating: |
T (Teen) |
Official Web Site: |
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