Coded Arms

"Mindless fun and it works as a tech demo..."

As I sit here typing this review I can't figure out why I wanted this game. The videos did look cool and I didn't own a FPS for my PSP yet. However, I was going on the mentality of "I need at least one game from each genre" and not even thinking of all of the stuff that could be coming along in the next year or so. Let me admit one thing, I'm not a portable gamer. I play my PSP at work, in bed and during choir practice. Anyway, Coded Arms is the first FPS for the PSP and it feels more like a tech demo then an actual game....

The story in Coded Arms is rather simple. You're sort of like a cop in the cyber world. You're looking for hackers and destroying "bugs". And that's the entire plot. It does set up the game and why it's the way it is but it really doesn't make me feel compelled to explore this world or care about what happens, which isn't anything because there isn't a plot.

The graphics in the game are really nice. The videos are a bit misleading because they run much faster than the game and are much crisper. Not saying the graphics are bad though because for 3d, they're the best I've seen yet on the PSP but I haven't played all of the titles yet. The levels are decent looking. There are three level types and they look good, and look like the theme that they are. But there isn't much to interact with. A few canisters and stuff but not much else. Lots of bland elevators and stuff. The enemies look nice and detailed. I really do enjoy the enemy designs in this game as long as they aren't the human-ish enemies because they look sort of generic.

The sound in the game is decent. Enemies scream and the human like one have some sort of alien speech. Guns sound nice, not sure about grenades because I never used them. The music isn't always on but it does kick in during a gun fight. I would have preferred more music, make some of the mindless hunting in the more complex levels feel less tedious. No voice acting, but there isn't a plot so you really couldn't expect voice acting.

I've heard nothing but complaints about the control. It honestly didn't bother me one bit. Sure it isn't super smooth but it worked for me. You move with the nub, aim with the triangle, square, circle and X buttons. L is jump, R is shoot and the d-pad switches weapons. The switching of weapons was a pain but I didn't have to switch on the fly a lot since most of my guns tended to be empty and I'd be stuck with just one, but that's a game play problem. I really didn't have problems besides that with the controls.

The game play in this title is a mixed bag. First of all, all of the levels are randomly generated. This keeps things a bit fresh but I swear I replayed a few of those levels. Some of them are super short, while others are fairly long. There are three sections in the game; city, ruins and something else that I can't remember, maybe a factory type setting or something, I'm not sure. You pick one and play through the levels. Now each place as 2 sections but you must beat the section 1 levels for the three areas because unlocking section 2 areas. The first sections have roughly 6 levels; I believe one of them has 5. In section two the areas have 13 levels, and a boss. The bosses are big and cool but not too bad. I found most of the enemies to be easy if you have the right weapons.

That's where I found fault with the game. You really need to know what enemies are in an area and which weapons to bring but a major problem is ammo, or the lack there of. I had a horrible time trying to maintain ammo. I guess I could have looked it all up and stuff but this was a game that I wanted to be able to pick up and play without too much thinking because hey, there isn't a plot. The enemies AI isn't that good but the enemies will follow you in the corridors. Now let me explain the level designs....

The levels are made up of corridors that lead to rooms. Ammo may be lying around and there are enemies either in corridors or in the rooms. You need to kill all enemies that have the glowing blue or yellow things, kill all of those in a level and you unlock the gate to the next level, you if find a red gate if lets you level a level with your new found items without having to beat the entire section. In the levels you may entire a room that activates a "clear all enemies" message which makes you do just what it says. There is also one that activates a time limit which sucks because it's always seemed to be 3 minutes for me and it tended to me the longest level for me but I never ran out of time, I did make it with just 3 seconds left once. Enemies can drop ammo, health, virus killers (you can become infected and die), upgrades for weapons (collect X amount and it gains a level, which causes it to do more damage), they can also drop new guns, grenades or equipment.

Now, I found the menu set-up to be a bit complex. The game does not auto save which I found to be a slight problem. I also found adding new weapons to your lineup to be too hard, unless I was doing it wrong, which could be possible. Despite that it is a fairly fun and mindless game. It offers a lot of weapons to get and the random levels are nice. There is also an infinity mode full of level after level which adds more to the replay value. The game also has multiplayer but from what I understand it's just against someone close by that has the game running also. I don't know a single soul who owns a PSP so I haven't played the multiplayer.

It isn't the best game ever made but it works as a nice tech demo to show off the graphical power of the PSP. I found the game to be rather mindless but fun and it's a nice diversion for a little while. I found the game to be a bit hard but it tended to suck away hours of my time and I didn't notice so I must have been entertained. I honestly can't recommend this as a buy though. Go rent it from Blockbuster because it really is one of those love it or hate it titles.

Story - 2/10
Graphics - 9/10
Sound - 8/10
Control - 7/10
Game Play - 7/10
Replay value - 7/10

Final Score - 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/17/05