Call of Duty 3: Roads to Victory

Trailing behind your commanding officer, you turn to admire the lovely scenery that seems so unlike the scenery you were so use to back home in the States. Suddenly, what could have been mistaken for thunder fills your ears but your trained ears know that sound came from a rifle. Your CO shouts for everyone to go prone or risk being shot in the head. Now you’re Canadian and the sweat from your brow stings your eyes as you prepare to fire off a round from a sniper rifle that starts to feel heavy. Finally, you’re a British commando staring at the Arnhem Bridge as you prepare to take it by force with guns blazing. While this sounds like another Call of Duty game for the consoles, Call of Duty: Roads to Victory is the first game in the series to land exclusively on the PSP.

Like Call of Duty: Finest Hour, Roads to Victory is broken into three major campaigns but like Call of Duty 3, the campaigns are woven together in a single tale told in fourteen chapters. You start the first chapter going through the United States Campaign, and then jump into the Canadian Campaign and finishing things off with the Great Britain Campaign. The United States Campaign follows an 82^nd Airborne Division Infantry soldier as you find yourself near Altavilla in Italy during Operation Avalanche on September of 1943. The American campaign will take you through a number of missions, including a mission that puts you in the GI boots of a gunner aboard a B-24 Liberator. Much like Call of Duty 3, you’ll be completing a variety of tasks so you’re never doing the same thing in each of the chapters that make up the campaign.

The second campaign has you playing the role of a rifleman for the Canadian First Army. Once again, it’s great to finally find Canadians in a WWII shooter and here you’ll find yourself deep in enemy territory. You’ll be protecting a radioman armed with your trusty sniper rifle and planting demo charges on Panzer tanks. Much like the most exciting Russian parts in Finest Hour for the consoles, much of the Canadian campaign is composed of sniper missions and they’re pretty exhilarating if sniper action is your kind of thing.

Finally, there’s the British Campaign where you're advancing towards Arnhem Bridge as a commando for the British Parachuting Regiment. Taking Arnhem Bridge was not an easy task for our Allied friends and it’s not easy in the game. These missions, much like the United States campaign, offer plenty of variety in the missions and gamers will have a blast manning tanks for the Rhine crossing missions.

It’s clear that Roads’ biggest strength comes in the form of its mission variety and the game is actually quite lengthy indeed. There are also plenty of bonuses in the game such as wallpaper to download for your PSP as well as a few other pleasant goodies. Unfortunately, the game isn’t without its problems and there are problems aplenty here. For starters, the hardware still has trouble making a first-person shooter feel like a first-person shooter. There are a few options you can pick to fit your style but I found the default controls work best since it makes use of the face buttons to look around. Then there’s the automatic targeting that’s horrible. Sure, you can turn it off but this means you’ll have to manually target enemies and this means you’ll have to stand still to fire. Then there are the glitches such as the time I shot an enemy at point blank range and he still didn’t go down. Then there was the time I found cover behind a wall and a German bullet magically went through it and into me.

There’s also some multiplayer fun to be had here and most of it is handled through the PSP Ad Hoc connection. Activision promised online multiplayer, which would have been great since there are six different game modes (like Deathmatch, King of the Hill and Hold the Flag) and a number of maps (like Carentan or Burgundy). Up to six players can take each other on or team up as well and the game runs smoothly enough.

Graphically speaking, Roads to Victory looks amazing and you’ll find much of what you expect from a Call of Duty game. There are the gorgeous backgrounds that give the impression you’re moving through the various locales for each mission. The level of detail is impressive and you’ll even be impressed by the visual effects (the PSP can display some great smoke effects). As for the character models, they’re not bad and the character movement is realistic enough.

The sound is something of an achievement as well since the game also brings the familiar Call of Duty-styled sound effects and soundtrack to this portable game. The soundtrack is both wonderfully sweeping and cinematic to the point that this score would fit right in with a feature film so it’s great to find it coming out of the PSP speakers. Secondly, the sound effects - while sometimes a bit muffled - are still able to give you the impression that you’re in the thick of a major battle. The voice acting is also good whether you’re playing the American, British or Canadian side.

Call of Duty: Roads to Victory is marred by a few weak spots but it doesn’t stop this game from being an amazing first-person shooter and a great chapter in the Call of Duty series that just so happens to fit right at home on the PSP. While many of the game’s flaws are hard to ignore, the overall package is impressive and with multiplayer action there is no doubt this game will light up a FPS fan’s PSP nicely. If you’re a fan of the Call of Duty games - as I am - you will most definitely be a fan of Roads to Victory. 

Gameplay: 7.5
It’s hard to get a first-person shooter right on the PSP but Roads to Victory tries and does a pretty decent job despite some rough spots. Still, it’s hard to complain when there are three different campaigns to play through and enough level variety to make this game pretty darn fun.

Graphics: 8.5
Despite the few clipping problems, Roads to Victory will not fail to amaze gamers with its gorgeously detailed surroundings, more than decent character models and the usual Call of Duty-styled effects. Like the Medal of Honor game on the PSP, Roads also crams in some real war footage to make this feel like a console game. Overall, this isn’t a bad-looking game at all.

Sound: 9.0
If you thought the PSP wasn’t capable of demonstrating the same beautifully orchestrated Call of Duty score found in the consoles then you seriously need to listen to the soundtrack this game plays through the PSP speakers. While the sound effects aren’t as grand as the console version, the voice acting is really good.

Difficulty: Medium
Whether you’re playing the British, Canadians or Americans, the German soldiers are a force to be reckoned with and boy do they gang up on you if you let them get the upper hand. There are some levels that are more difficult than others but expect to find yourself enjoying the challenges along the way.

Concept: 9.0
Like most of the Call of Duty games, we get to witness WWII through the eyes of different Allied forces and that’s always a good thing for those who like a little variety to the storytelling. The campaign missions aren’t incredibly lengthy but there are enough to keep you playing for a long while. There’s multiplayer and it’s pretty good.

Multiplayer: 7.0
You can hook up with other gamers through Ad Hoc and there are six multiplayer modes fit for up to six players in total. Despite the fact that online multiplayer was promised, there is no Infrastructure mode to be found in this game and thus making this fan cry. Still, the multiplayer is fun stuff.

Overall: 7.6
Word War II first-person shooters are a dime a dozen on the consoles so it is refreshing to see one make it to Sony’s handheld without losing much of what makes these games so much fun. Call of Duty: Roads to Victory isn’t without its share of problems but like a true solider, it marches on admirably. Ignore the few technical flaws and fall in soldiers; this one is actually not bad at all.