Coded Arms PlayStation Portable

Coded Arms PlayStation Portable

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Oct 23, 2006 | 4 out of 4 found this Coded Arms review helpful

Pros: A solid roster of weapon types; great graphics engine that runs smooth and loads quickly; three multiplayer types for up to four players.

Cons: Random level generation is pointless and dull; enemies aren't interesting or fun to kill; single- and multiplayer levels are drab and repetitive; controls take more getting used to than they ought to.

If there's one big question mark that Coded Arms manages to do away with, it's whether or not the PSP can do FPS controls. After all, the genre is at its best when played with a keyboard and mouse (and, to a lesser degree, two analog sticks), so how would the PSP's controls handle a game of this type? As Coded Arms demonstrates, the PSP can most definitely do a controllable FPS, but it takes a bit of doing. For starters, Coded Arms' default control scheme is complete trash. It relegates your look movements to the four face buttons and assigns movement controls to the analog stick, effectively robbing you of any degree of proper aiming. Thankfully, there are three other control schemes, and you are openly invited to try out each scheme right at the beginning of the required tutorial level. We found the most usable one to be the scheme that might seem the most counterintuitive from the outset: the one that gave look controls to the analog stick and movement controls to the face buttons. It's basically a left-handed person's FPS scheme, and while righties might balk at it initially, they'll be able to adjust without too much duress. Also, the targeting reticle will magnetize itself to a nearby foe (provided they don't jump around too much), which seems to make up for any jitteriness that one might experience trying to get used to the aiming mechanics. It works to a degree, but it's more of a helpful guide than an automatic lock, so don't expect the game to just auto-lock to everything.