Call of Duty: Roads to Victory
COD's brand of WWII shooter is headed to the PSP. First impressions inside.
Published: October 25, 2006
When a franchise does as well as Call of Duty has across both PCs and consoles (current- and next-gen), it's not really surprising that a publisher like Activision would want to push it out onto as many new platforms as possible. But then, of course, one must ask themselves whether the PSP needs the World War II shooter as a genre. It's not particularly well-suited to first-person shooters in general, what with the lack of a second analog nub, but that's not stopping handheld development specialists Amaze Entertainment and poppa Activision from at least trying things out.
We got a chance to peek at a work-in-progress version of Call of Duty: Roads to Victory at Acitivision's headquarters in Santa Monica earlier this month, in a slightly bizarre look-but-don't-touch showcase of what the game is actually going for. This time plopping gamers in the shoes of an 82nd Airborne Division infantryman, a British Paratrooper and a Canadian First Army rifleman, Roads to Victory is not a port of any existing COD, but rather is it's own 13 level scenario.
Though our peek at the game was rather brief (like a few minutes brief), we walked away with some basic notes on things and noticed that at least in spirit, it felt like a Call of Duty game. The levels were fairly sparse, and texture detail was low, but the game won't be hitting until next year, and even at this stage, things were running at a nice clip. In fact, "running" is a good word for things, since the pacing of the game is notably different from the console counterparts. Where they favor cover and strategic movement, Roads is more of a run-and-gun shooter.
A slightly sticky lock-on aids movement with the analog nub and aiming with the face buttons. The team at Activision mentioned the absolutely awesome Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror as inspiration for the basic control scheme, though there will be other setups for those that favor something a little more unconventional. With a seemingly endless series of enemies popping up and levels that had a slight corridor feel to them, the game sort of felt like an updated version of DOOM or even Wolfenstein (fitting considering Activision publishes both games).
The series' classic scripted events were indeed in place here, though, with some level intros throwing fellow troops out into the mix before massive bombardments or an anti-tank round started causing explosions and havoc -- y'know, like you see in wars. Enemies kicked over tables for cover, and would at least scream if they heard the plink of a grenade (in one sequence a whole room of Nazis bit it hard at the hands of a well-tossed grenade). We were also promised that there would be a level where a plane would be flyable, and we're guessing the temptation to throw in the series' trademark rail shooter sections will probably prove too strong to resist, but we'll have to wait and see.
On the multiplayer front (ho hooo, get it? Front?), Amaze and Acivision are aiming for 4-6 player Ad-Hoc skirmishes with your typical multiplayer modes; Deathmatch, King of the Hill and Capture the Flag, though sadly we didn't see any of these demonstrated. Given the relatively quick pace of the game and the control scheme, multiplayer fights should be rather interesting.
Roads was understandably early -- which is probably why we got our hands slapped when we lazily reached for the PSP dev kit -- and though it was a little weird to have fully playable versions of Call of Duty 3 running on either side of our head while we could only peer on at the game, we at least came away with the impression that Amaze was trying to do something that was PSP focused. It's not Call of Duty 3: The PSP Version, it's its own game, and while we're still leery of seeing the series reduced to something a little more brainless, there's still plenty of time to see how individual missions and environments take shape.
As soon as we see it, you'll see it.
We got a chance to peek at a work-in-progress version of Call of Duty: Roads to Victory at Acitivision's headquarters in Santa Monica earlier this month, in a slightly bizarre look-but-don't-touch showcase of what the game is actually going for. This time plopping gamers in the shoes of an 82nd Airborne Division infantryman, a British Paratrooper and a Canadian First Army rifleman, Roads to Victory is not a port of any existing COD, but rather is it's own 13 level scenario.
Though our peek at the game was rather brief (like a few minutes brief), we walked away with some basic notes on things and noticed that at least in spirit, it felt like a Call of Duty game. The levels were fairly sparse, and texture detail was low, but the game won't be hitting until next year, and even at this stage, things were running at a nice clip. In fact, "running" is a good word for things, since the pacing of the game is notably different from the console counterparts. Where they favor cover and strategic movement, Roads is more of a run-and-gun shooter.
A slightly sticky lock-on aids movement with the analog nub and aiming with the face buttons. The team at Activision mentioned the absolutely awesome Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror as inspiration for the basic control scheme, though there will be other setups for those that favor something a little more unconventional. With a seemingly endless series of enemies popping up and levels that had a slight corridor feel to them, the game sort of felt like an updated version of DOOM or even Wolfenstein (fitting considering Activision publishes both games).
The series' classic scripted events were indeed in place here, though, with some level intros throwing fellow troops out into the mix before massive bombardments or an anti-tank round started causing explosions and havoc -- y'know, like you see in wars. Enemies kicked over tables for cover, and would at least scream if they heard the plink of a grenade (in one sequence a whole room of Nazis bit it hard at the hands of a well-tossed grenade). We were also promised that there would be a level where a plane would be flyable, and we're guessing the temptation to throw in the series' trademark rail shooter sections will probably prove too strong to resist, but we'll have to wait and see.
On the multiplayer front (ho hooo, get it? Front?), Amaze and Acivision are aiming for 4-6 player Ad-Hoc skirmishes with your typical multiplayer modes; Deathmatch, King of the Hill and Capture the Flag, though sadly we didn't see any of these demonstrated. Given the relatively quick pace of the game and the control scheme, multiplayer fights should be rather interesting.
Roads was understandably early -- which is probably why we got our hands slapped when we lazily reached for the PSP dev kit -- and though it was a little weird to have fully playable versions of Call of Duty 3 running on either side of our head while we could only peer on at the game, we at least came away with the impression that Amaze was trying to do something that was PSP focused. It's not Call of Duty 3: The PSP Version, it's its own game, and while we're still leery of seeing the series reduced to something a little more brainless, there's still plenty of time to see how individual missions and environments take shape.
As soon as we see it, you'll see it.