New Coded Soul Screenshots

Solomon Lee — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:40:00 -0600

Sony Computer Entertainment has released the first screens of Coded Soul for the PSP. The game is set for Japanese release early next year in February 2008. There is no word of a North American release at this time.

Check the link to view more images.

Coded Arms: Assault for PS3 Announced

The Gaming Horizon Archive — Wed, 10 May 2006 01:41:00 -0500

Konami just announced a PlayStation 3 game to continue its Coded Arms series, Coded Arms: Assault. Little is known at this time about it, but we've secured some stills from the trailer shown at the Konami press conference. Originally written by Aaron Dunlap

GH Review: Coded Arms (PSP)

Aaron Dunlap — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 01:53:00 -0500

This review was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content.

One of the most exciting things about the PlayStation Portables announcement was that we would finally have a portable system with enough power to finally put a first-person shooter (Americas favorite genre) into our pockets. It took four months for any to arrive (blame Japans lack of enthusiasm for FPS titles) but along comes Coded Arms from Konami to pave the way for FPS games to grab a foothold on the portable system.

This isnt a very good start at all.

Whatever good there is to say about this game is that despite everything wrong with it, it still plays from beginning to end without the system blowing up or melting in your hands.

Perhaps thats too harsh. There are some good elements, they just get smothered by the bad ones. The graphics engine is pretty sharp, despite having terribly bland and murky textures and overall art design. There are over 30 guns you can earn over time, many of which are somewhat inventive, but they take so long to earn that you probably wont want to stick around to get past the machine gun.

There is a lot of customization in the control scheme, but the default schemes are so mind-bendingly uncomfortable that youll need to spend at least a half hour testing out different button mappings and sensitivity levels to get to a tranquil plateau where you can control your character with any amount of precision without going into a left brain/right brain civil war over motor function.

The core problem with the controls is that the PSP wasnt designed with hyper-precise controls in mind, as say the dual shock controllers or even the Nintendo 64 controllers were. Those familiar with control-pad maneuvering of FPS console games may be able to adapt to the practice of controlling direction with the analog pad and using the face buttons for aiming; but those of us who grew up with a mouse in one hand and the AWSD keys under the other will have quite a gap to leap to be able to control Coded Arms.

At E3 this year I played Bandais Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex for the PSP (soon to be the second FPS title for the system) and was able to pick up the controls almost immediately, but two months later I was flopping around Coded Arms like hand-eye coordination was just a funny word I read in a book.

There is a pretty decent multiplayer mode in Coded Arms; theres no Internet support and connections can get pretty laggy over moderate distances, but it gives you the opportunity to stand around the school playground and shoot guns at your chums.

Coded Arms plays like such classic games as Doom and Quake where you wander aimlessly through one-way halls and corridors, occasionally throwing switches to open doors, and going up and down elevators only occasionally happening upon a factionless villainous monster who you quickly dispatch with a series of quick gunshots and a few servings of pseudo-skilled strafing. In this day of days, I dont think we need to be reliving the pointlessly boring past of computer gaming on a $250 handheld. Theres no excitement to the game no story, no motivation.

Enemy AI is nonexistent. Perhaps to compensate for how difficult it is to move your character, enemies simply stand where they were, jump up and down, shoot at you, then die. The greatest difficulty in the game is not in killing the monsters but is in moving your character and your targeting reticule to actually kill an enemy without your systems battery dying first.

With all that, the game is just boring. Every level is the same, every bad guy is the same, theres just no reason to play this game but to collect all the nifty weapons that all dispatch enemies with the competence of a shovel wrapped in bubble wrap.

I cant think of a reason to pay for this game, except possibly for the so-so multiplayer mode. Coded Arms has no soul, no fun, no excitement, no replay value, no decent visuals, no redeeming qualities whatsoever beyond some pretty cool box art and an interesting storyline that is presented in the introduction and never mentioned again. If Coded Arms is any indication of the future of PSP shooters, start mourning now.

Even if you master the controls, it wont make the repetitive level structure interesting.

The graphics engine itself is good, but the textures are muddy and bland.

Putting this game in the microwave and watching it sparkle is more fun than the first levels.

Semi-cliché techno blasting in mono underneath washed-out gunshot sounds and mute monsters.

There is a multiplayer mode, and its just as great as the game.

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New Coded Soul Screenshots

Coded Arms: Assault for PS3 Announced

GH Review: Coded Arms (PSP)