Coded Arms E3 2005 Hands-On Preview - ( Review, Preview, Article, Interview, Q&A )

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Coded Arms: PSP
By: Jestin Jund

For those of you who haven't been following the game, Coded Arms is Konami's first attempt at porting a first person shooter to the Playstation portable system. While there has been a ton speculation and skepticism on just how well a first person shooter would work on a portable, I can safely say that it all makes sense.

First and foremost, the question of controls needs to be answered. In coded arms, you will use the analog nub move your player, and use the four action buttons to look around. If you have ever played Quake 3 on the Dreamcast, you will have a good idea of how things feel. The left and right trigger buttons act as your fire and jump controls, and the d-pad controls all of the other actions. For instance, if you need to reload, you hit down on the d-pad, then to change weapons, you hit up. Inititially it takes a bit of getting used to, but once into the scheme things it becomes easier. Also to appease aiming issues, an auto lock on feature has been added. Thus far, the lock on system works pretty well, but when confronted with a spool of enemies, its tough to keep your priorities straight.

Graphically, the game looks decent, but when things get a bit heavy on the screen, frame rates drop down. Colors are rather dark and dreary, but I am sure once the story is revealed, we'll all understand why. Rather than spatting blood on the screen, enemies digitally evaporate. The basis of the game is that you are in a world of code, similar to that of the world of the matrix ( thanks for the originality Konami!) As aforementioned, not much is mentioned about the story, but after finishing the first level, I was told that I was uploading my data. Who knows what this means, and reasoning for skepticism at this point is validated. Coded Arms should be shipping for the PSP in early June.