The Game's Cover Art
Call of Duty Roads to Victory is a first person shooter game released in 2007 for the Sony PSP. It was the first Call of Duty game to be released on a Sony handheld (as well as arguably the first Call of Duty game to be released on a widely available handheld).
This game is interesting because it returned to a WW2 theme after the modern setting of Modern Warfare.
Personally, I would have loved to play this game when I had my first PSP as a child some time around 2012 (or earlier) but my parents would have never let me have it.
I did eventually get to play this title in my early to mid teens however, I remember really enjoying it, possibly because it was the only portable FPS game I had access to at the time. I'm curious if it still holds up today though.
So let's take a look.
The Perfect Handheld for an FPS Game /s
The first thing that stands about this game is how poorly it controls. This was a problem with almost every PSP first person shooter as the console only had one analog stick (why it didn't have two is a mystery to me, there was certainly room for it.)
To get around this Call of Duty Roads to Victory uses the analog stick to move and face buttons to look around. When I played this game on my PSP the controls never presented a huge issue but they're still undeniably extremely frustrating, though I think the devs did the best that they could with what they had.
Thankfully it is now possible to map the face buttons to a second analog stick using a PS Vita or emulator, which does significantly improve the experience of playing this game but it still isn't ideal.
I'm Evidently Not Very Good at this Game
This game is pretty much just a glorified shooting gallery. All you do in this game is navigate through tight hallways towards specific objectives while killing everything in your path, this get's repetitive fairly quickly.
Protect the Radioman
It's a shame that the game is so repetitive because the game evidently has a few more ideas, such as under utilized objectives where you have to defend a specific thing or person for a certain amount of time. I know that this sort of repetitive gameplay is normal for Call of Duty but this game would have benefited a lot from some variety.
Another problem with this game is that it won't give you very long to get bored as it's extremely short and can be beat in one long sitting.
The game's campaign is split into three different "chapters" each with several levels. In each chapter you play as a different country's army: America, Canada and Great Britain. Each level is about 15 minutes long and is based on a specific operation during the war.
The method that this game uses to attempt to mitigate it's short length is providing the player with a rank at the end of each level, you could probably play this game for quite a long time if you strived to get gold rank in each level.
Just Look at Those Glorious Smoke and Fire Effects
This game has decent graphics. They're gritty and dark as you'd expect a WW2 game to be. In terms of visual fidelity I'd say this game looks like an upscaled PS1 game. If you play this title in an emulator with upscaling and anti-aliasing it actually looks quite good.
There's Not Much Reason to Play This Mediocre Game When You Can Now Play Some of the Best FPS Games Ever on the Go
In conclusion, this game is aggressively average. It's full of poor design choices and mediocre gameplay and it's extremely short. Despite this however, there's no denying that this would have been cool to have back in 2007. It's not a bad game either, I had fun with it, it's just very mediocre.
In the age of ports of console first person shooters on handheld consoles like the Switch and Steam Deck there's no reason to revisit this game for any reason beyond simple curiosity, but for what it is, it's fine.
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