Konami walked on thin ice before releasing Coded Arms, which introduces the first-person shooter genre to the PSP. They had to cradle gamers like newborns, because they were hyping up the game and bringing in a lot of attention. Fortunately, Coded Arms is mostly a good game.
The story is basically there for the ride, but it serves its purpose. A computor program known as A.I.D.A. was shut down by government organizations, but they never completely erased the program from the world networking. It spread and became an out-of-control entity. It became a treasure mine for computer hackers, and special hackers known as "the coded ones" were given the duty of recovering special files and "erasing" dangerous files. The story isn't very deep and you never encounter a single bit of cinematics after the game begins, but that's not what a shooter is for.
The gameplay makes up for the story being such a small detail. Coded Arms is suprisingly deep. There are three enemy classes that each have a weakness to certain weapon types. There are over 20 weapons to choose from, and each can be upgraded with power-ups recovered from dead enemies. The shooting itself is very exciting, high-energy stuff. Enemies can be downright punishing in the second half of the game, which means that extra precautions and strategic elements must be enforced to ensure survival.
Many critics have been hard on Coded Arms because of its unique control scheme. Basically, if the PSP were a console controller, its face buttons would serve as a right analog stick. The d-pad is used for switiching weapons, reloading them, and activating a zoom feature. The triggers allow you to shoot and jump. It's not a difficult scheme. What is a little awkward to use is the targeting system. The auto-aim is very slippery and imprecise. Fortunately this can be tweaked in the options menu, and it becomes less of an issue once the controls have been adjusted to.
The technical aspects of Coded Arms are very impressive. The explosions, gunshots, and sci-fi effects burst right out of the PSP's beautiful screen. The levels, though somewhat repetitive, all look great. The music is good and actually helps during gameplay by telling the player when an enemy is in the room. The sound effects explode out of the speakers as well. Overall, this is one impressive package visually and sonically.
Coded Arms is NOT a bad game by any means. It is very fresh, very unique, and very fun. It takes a little time to get used to the controls and the way the game works, but once you do, you should be having a very good time. I highly suggest that fans of shooters (namely Doom) and sci-fi movies (like Matrix) check this one out.
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