Somewhere there is a FPS god looking down, having a good chuckle at my incessant pursuit of good FPS games for every platform I own. Occasionally I am rewarded (Duke Nukem Advance for the GBA), often I am disappointed (Serious Sam Advance for the GBA) and sometimes I'm downright punished (scratching the screen of my first iPaq playing Quake). I was most recently somewhat rewarded by the excellent Nintendo DS controls in Rogue Agent, but it was clear from the moment I started playing Coded Arms on the Sony PSP that my luck had quickly run out.
So what is it about? The story is basic sci-fi pulp – in the future, people directly connect their brains to computer networks by 'jacking in'. At the same time, some mega-conglomerate has been waging a top-secret war against aliens on a distant planet. They have developed a combat simulation program called 'A.I.D.A'. Predictably, the program would not shut down when instructed, and has a 'fatal bug' – anyone who dies in the simulator loses his or her personality. As a result, interaction with the system is outlawed, and only top hackers – called 'Coded Ones' dares to enter in search of riches. You are one such hacker. Thus begins your role in Coded Arms, and ends any attempt at storytelling or plot from the game. It is all run-and-gun from beginning to end, and not very satisfying either.
My half-joking question about this game is – which battle is harder, the one against the enemies or the one against the controls. The default controls use the analog stick for motion and the 'shape' buttons for aiming. There are four control sets available, in the hope that one might actually make the game more playable. None of them do – you are constantly forced to choose between fluid motion and aiming. If I were left handed, perhaps control set 'C' – aiming with the analog stick and moving with the shape buttons – would work. But instead I never found a set I liked, and stuck with the defaults because the handedness of that control scheme at least made sense to my brain.
The game has an upgrade mechanism reminiscent of Tron 2.0 – you gather file fragments and assemble them to upgrade your weapons and armor. Files you pickup can also increase your maximum health capacity. You can get infected with a virus, in which case you need a virus cleaner file. The levels in Coded Arms remind me again of a point of contention I have with so many new games – they claim that random area generation lends replayability … but what about the first play? Coded Arms' levels and areas are dull and repetitive, unimaginatively laid out, cramped and boxy. You just trudge along through halls from room battle to room battle, looking to kill the gatekeep to unlock the level end gate. Then you repeat that on level 2.
Coded Arms features multiplayer modes based only on the PSP's 'ad hoc' mode, meaning you must be near your opponent to play. That is too bad, as the ability to run through the maps against friends seems the only hope for any value in this game. In order to test the multiplayer, I had to rent a copy for a coworker to play at lunch. It was my first PSP multiplayer, and it wasn't as smooth an experience as Rogue Agent on the DS. Hooking up went well enough, but now you had two clueless people battling the controls hoping to get a frag we could be proud of (you know, one where the other person isn't obviously struggling with the controls to find you?). Worse still, we were experiencing 'lag', which makes no sense to me. After a bit of the single player and some multiplayer, my friend threw the game down and said 'you can return this today if you want, I don't want to touch that game again'. That was a felling I experienced often playing the game.
I really had a mixed experience with Coded Arms which was only good because I love the FPS genre, and bad because of most everything else, especially the poor controls. At times I thought I had it all down, and found myself enjoying the mindless run and gun style similar to Painkiller. But frequently reality set in, and I had enemies high, middle and low, and found that a single touch of the shape button would take me from missing right to missing left, and the 'aim snap' wasn't always much help. The single player section is only a few hours long, and the multiplayer is only fun if you have friends close by and all have similar skills. There might be a good FPS for the PSP someday, but after wrestling with the controls in Coded Arms, I know this isn't that game. But for now, if you are a FPS fan with a PSP, and have experience dealing with single analog stick FPS game systems like the N64, you might get a few hours enjoyment from Coded Arms. At best, it could be worth a rental.
Create an Account
Member Login
