Holy Nazi’s-over-Normandy! Finally, the Call of Duty series hits the handheld console market and the PSP gets exclusive bragging rights. Call of Duty: Roads to Victory is first ever installment of the renowned series on a portable system and looks to show quite a bit of promise as we take Activision’s franchise World War II first-person shooter on the go.
This tour around, players will battle the German War Machine through 14 different levels from three Allied soldier perspectives- The 82nd Airborne, Canadian 1st Army, and the British Parachute Regiment. Built from the ground up, Roads to Victory will thrust players into heart of World War II facing them off against a relentless storm of enemy soldiers, mounted machine gun skirmishes, sniper and heavy artillery attacks, as well some classic aircraft warfare.
The game doesn’t disappoint visually which is generally expected of this series. The classic battle-hardened scenery sets the tone once again and helps to deliver to players a very realistic World War experience. One of the most impressive kudos that R.T.V has to offer is that even though you’re playing this game on a tiny hand held screen it still manages to grab your attention and suck you in much like the console and PC versions.
Audio is super solid and again that’s what is generally expected of this series. From the powerful musical soundtrack to the explosive sound effects and battle cries you’re going to be in for a serious emotional roller coaster ride.
What’s really to love about this game is not so much a solid game play engine but rather its innovative control scheme. Listen, it’s no secret that the PSP handheld console has received much ridicule about it’s sticky analog controls being responsible for putting a lot of FPS titles already out on the market in the line of fire. In a genre where control schemes can make or break a title, Road to Victory succeeds in areas where rival games like Medal of Honor and Brothers in Arms have somewhat dropped the ball. Don’t get me wrong, those are both great and respectable titles but realistically they both have rather shabby control schemes and somewhat nauseating camera speeds.
The controller layout for Call of Duty is arguably the most efficient I’ve seen for an FPS shooter on this system. With the cross pad you can easily perform a number of actions with a tap in the corresponding direction including ducking, reloading, weapons swapping, and grenade throwing.
The default layout allows players to move back and forth as well as strafe with the buttons and adjust their line of sight with the analog pad helping to make overall movement pretty comfortable. Plus, to help make targeting a little easier, an auto-lock feature has been implemented to compensate for a slightly sticky analog. It’s this very solid and easy-to-use control scheme that contributes significantly to a fun and fulfilling game play experience.
Even though Roads to Victory is solid in many areas the only real gripe one might have would lie in the A.I. department. The enemy A.I. is somewhat weak and so more than often you might see them do things such as mindlessly leave their cover in a blaze of heavy crossfire and essentially put a big "shoot me" target on their heads.
Also you will see very little strategic warfare going on such as flanking or cover fire tactics and there isn’t any real indication that they are actually intelligently working together as a unit to defeat you.
The game does, however, compensate for a weakened A.I. by sending droves upon droves of enemies down upon you to keep missions from being a simple walk in the park and you’ll often find yourself pinned down by heavy artillery fire to help make things a little more challenging and interesting.
On a lighter note, however, I think if you look at the Call of Duty series as a whole the A.I. has never been top-notch and I think it’s intended that way to allow players to indulge in a more heroic experience. After all, there’s nothing better than single handedly taking out a heavy artillery vehicle that’s dropping your battalion like flies or evening the odds in a ground battle where you’re small platoon is outnumbered 2 to 1. The point could likely be argued that a weakened A.I. gives the player more "heroic opportunities" to save the day and feel a gratifying sense of accomplishment.
Ultimately, though, Call of Duty: Roads to Victory does far from disappoint. The game boasts an excellent graphics engine as well as a dynamic sound engine and despite a weakened A.I. still offers up some great game play. More importantly at the core of a solid game play engine is a very innovative control scheme that cleverly maps the PSP handheld’s button layout and allows players to enjoy a FPS game on this system the way it was intended to be.
For that significant accomplishment and all of the above I’m awarding this game an honorary 4 1/2 out of 5 possible GiN gems.