Coded Arms is something of a light at the end of the tunnel for some PSP gamers. They have waited and waited for a game that would bring their PSP a great game, something that has been sorely lacking in the recent couple months. So is Coded Arms something that will please you?

Unfortunately it isn’t.

Upon opening the game, looking at the impressive box art, cool looking intro and slick menus, I was almost sure this game was going to work. As the game launched me into the computer like world, I simply stared in amazement that I was playing a first person shooter on my PSP.

The game seems to even further enhance the feeling of a virtual world by giving guns and items cool names like: “Shotgun.dfn” and several other cool little subtleties.

This quickly dies. The environments are some of the worst I have seen in a long time. It is either a big box room or a long hallway, something that never seems to change in all the games levels. The game tries to mix it up by randomly generating levels every time you play, but it doesn’t impact the enjoyment of the level at all. This isn’t helped by the fact that the levels are extremely long, and will seem like a chore to finish and less like a game.

The weapons in the game (called .ARM files in the game) are decent, featuring a rather large assortment of destruction. These include:

Pistol

Pulse Rifle

Salamander (Flamethrower)

RPG

Shotgun

The game makes them very satisfying to use, but will disappoint you when you go to use a shotgun up close and personal in a gunfight, only to find that you get slowdown, which really hinders the game at some points.

Which brings us to the graphics, which are nothing short of impressive. It is nice to see that developers are taking advantage of the PSPs’ hardware to give us a great looking game. The problem being the aforementioned dull level design and slowdown are the only things holding it back from being a superb looking PSP game.

One thing Coded Arms touts is Multi-Player, which is so simplistic and boring that you won't play it with your friends for more than five minutes. Another flaw worth pointing out is the lack of infrastructure mode, a true disappointment.



Something that has been worried about straight up to the games release is whether the game will control decently. My final word on it is that it controls just fine. After giving it a little bit of time, you will be strafing and blasting away just like a pro. In the default control setting, you move forward, backward, left and right with the analog stick, and look up, down, left and right with the face buttons. Shooting and jumping is left to the shoulder buttons.

This works just fine, and clears rumors as to whether a FPS truly would work on a PSP. The concept is the problem with this game, or rather the way it was executed. I hope that this game can show developers what not to do, and concentrate on what they should do to make a FPS on the PSP a success.

Closing comments

When I first heard of Coded Arms, I was ecstatic about the premise of my favorite genre on the PSP, with a cool story to boot.

As you can tell from the comments in my review, the game is lacking in both areas. This is not to say the game is awful, just no where near good.

If you are looking for a shoot-em up for your portable needs, or a fine rental, Coded Arms will do just fine.