Coded Arms

"Will this be Sony's killer app?"

The story of Coded Arms is you are a hacker hacking into an uncontrollable and off limits computer system that used to be a teaching tool. Apparently people hack into this system for fun and to get special “parts” and…that is about it for the story. That is all, almost nothing more. This makes me think: “Why play this game when others actually have a story?” . You don't get a chance to know the character cause, well, there isn't anything said about him.

Coded Arms is all about the weaponry, giving you 30 different weapons albeit most weapons are only useful in one-two situations, for example grenades. Konami cleverly forces you to use your other weapons (other than the awesome 3-5) by seemingly giving you no ammo in the guns you use. Konami allows you to switch to any weapon at any time, so it isn't that bad. The controls in CA feel very loose at first; it could make you nauseous if you don't tweak the fully customizable sensitivity and control scheme. Once you get used to the controls (takes 5-15 minutes) you will be aiming with ease. Coded Arms rooms are randomly generated, giving you a fully unique game every time…I guess. There are many rooms in each level, many levels in each area, and three areas in each sector. There are three sectors; the last sector though never ends.

At the beginning of the game, the enemies per room are 1-2. Later in sector 2 and above there can be as many as 10; this is highly annoying because the enemies take a chunk of you health at a time, which will make you die and start the level all over again. Starting over a level again also means all the rooms are being randomly generated again leaving you to lose the advantage of knowing the terrain. This leads to many frustrating moments when you have low health trying to beat a level.

Coded arms breaks up the monotony of killing enemies (which is fun at hour bursts) by having some rooms where you can't leave without killing all the enemies. This provides a thrill because they spawn while you are in the room, so you don't know where the enemies will come from. Sometimes an enemy will drop a power up, giving you invincibility, unlimited ammo, defense up, attack up, etc.

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Coded Arms has great graphics, except for the walls of each room. The walls are flat, with old-school textures. They just have different colors that look like something cool but just end up like Doom. The rest of the game has early ps2 game graphics and the best flames the PSP has to offer (are there any other flames on the system?). When your enemies (soldiers, AT-ST like machines, and bees) are spawned or destroyed they have a matrix-esque effect where it shows them breaking off into code.

Coded Arms features some of the worst and best sounds on the PSP. The songs, while cool at first, are almost the exact same heavy metal type song over and over: very repetitive and very annoying. Turning off the sound though gives you a disadvantage, because some enemies make certain sounds when attacking you. The gun sounds are realistic in their own rights.

Coded Arms gives the player a cool looking menu, although everything you can do between Areas you can do on the in-game menus. Creating a FPS on a console with one analog stick is very tough, but with the total customizable controls Konami pulls it off. Each ammo and health pick up looks like it is straight out of something that would be a computer thus immersing you in this computer hacking world. A problem is that you have to load between each level (there are many in each area) and the loading time is about 20 seconds.

Overall, Konami made this first FPS for the PSP, paving the way for more first-person shooters with its excellent looks and a great idea of hacking a system. The game supports 30 different weapons in an attempt to make things not get repetitive, and it works…mostly. Mid-way through sector 2, most gamers realize all you do in the game is kill the same enemies over and over again to get more health, armor, and weapons. The game has some bosses (three), which freshen up some parts but still gives you a feeling of why am I doing all this? The random level generator is a nice touch, but doesn't help when the graphics on the walls look painstakingly bad. The game is very fun at hour bursts and the multiplayer is great (if there is no lag). The game is fun at first and at one hour bursts, but falls short on repetitiveness, small amount of ammo, not quite right sensitivity, and bad graphics on walls. If you can handle that you have a great shooter.

Gameplay: 8.4/10
Graphics: 8.3/10
Sound: 7.5/10
Presentation 8.8/10

Overall: 8.7/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/25/05