World War II shooters are probably the most tried-and-true category of the FPS genre. Everyone and their grandma is familiar with the time period, and by now, it’ll take something that’s really spectacular to be the next big thing. Call of Duty: Roads to Victory is not that game. Though it does stand out, RtV isn’t noteworthy for the right reasons.

The narrative is bland and forgettable, the objectives are thoughtless, the AI is fairly poor, and the controls are average at best. It’s far from the worst game ever; in fact, it has a few things going for it. Even so, these can’t overcome the fact that FPS games just don’t work very well on the PSP.

Road to Victory puts you into the boots of troopers from the American, Canadian and British forces, as you carve your way through some historically relevant points of the war. But despite the compelling circumstances of WWII, the narrative and objectives are forgettable. Gameplay consists mostly of following the beacon on your mini-map and slaughtering any Nazis in your way. Other WWII games like Medal of Honor and Company of Heroes do a great job of recreating specific and memorable battles of the European Theater of Operations like the D-Day invasion into Normandy and the siege of Carentan. That’s not the case here, which is surprising if you consider the rich history this era has to offer.

Even the most compelling scenarios aren’t very fun if you can’t properly control the action, and that’s where RtV is lacking most. Simply put, the PSP is not an ideal home for FPS games. Controls are reduced to movement via the analog stick and aiming via the face buttons. While you can have relatively precise aim with a mouse and keyboard or the analog stick of a console controller, using the digital buttons on the face of the PSP eliminates any sort of fine control that you need for this sort of game, and that isn’t good enough. Combine that with generally loose, sluggish controls and you have a recipe for mediocre gameplay.


To alleviate this precision problem, an auto-targeting system has been implemented, where you can zoom in on any enemy inside a certain range by using the L button. Again, what we get here is a flawed feature. In most games, when you auto-target something, the reticle stays on your target until you want it to go away. In RtV, the reticle focuses on a point in space that your target happens to be occupying, rather than the target itself, making the auto-targeting system useless unless your foe remains stationary. Sometimes your enemy keeps moving, making it impossible to use the auto-targeting, but when your enemy stays still, you can get a bead on them and take them out, which you’ll see a lot as the game’s AI is unimpressive.

You may notice that in many shooters, the game’s AI manages to pull off at the very least the simplest of tasks: participating in battle, taking cover, actually doing damage to its enemy. That’s not so much the case here. The AI has got to be the dumbest I’ve seen in a while. Your allies will run into battle without any discretion, getting in your way, pushing you into the line of fire, or otherwise acting inane. The enemy AI looks like it’s from a Three Stooges movie, bumbling around the screen until you take them out.

The only reason you’ll ever die is from being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Enemy tactics consist of very little other than a blitz. No flanking runs, no smart use of cover; rather, it just uses a constant stream of Nazis to overwhelm you. Sure they run around the battlefield, pausing occasionally to fire off a few rounds, but it seems that it’s mostly for show. Either that or they’re using some of the worst aiming ever found in all of gaming. I literally saw a Nazi and a Paratrooper face off just a few feet away from each other while missing every shot. They barely had enough room to clear the muzzles of their rifles, and they still managed to miss! Is this supposed to be an action title or a comedy? Is this supposed to be Saving Private Ryan or The Naked Gun?

The multiplayer portion of the game works well enough, though it’s hindered by the poor controls of the system as well as a little bit of lag through only an Ad Hoc WiFi connection, which offers support up to six players across six modes. In Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, players with the highest amount of kills win; in Capture the Flag, the team which scores the most points wins; in Hold the Flag, the player who holds the flag for the longest period of time wins; and for King of the Hill and Team King of the Hill, those who hold the zone around the flag for the longest period of time is declared winner. Though none of these modes set out to remake the wheel, nor do they excel at any one thing, they accomplish what they set out to do: allow a handful of people to battle on the stage of one of the most important world events.


The one shining light in all of this is the stunning and chaotic recreation of the battlefields of the greatest generation. Voice talent. Weapon fire. Artillery. Visual touches (red haze overtaking the screen as you take damage). From the popping of your M1 Garand to the deep, resonating explosions of artillery to the ringing in your ears caused by a grenade that went off too close, the a/v experience is one of the most remarkable yet seen on the PSP. It’s sad to see that despite such a great presentation, the rest of the game is so mediocre.

Call of Duty: Roads to Victory is a game that would appeal to only the most die-hard fans of this period in history. Though the presentation is worth checking out, the rest of the experience makes it difficult to hang with, considering its laughable AI, dodgy controls and ho-hum storylines.