The original is one of those games that will live long in my memory, I'd just upgraded my when it came out and it was the first game I bought that really showed off my new hardware. From the spectacular set pieces to the jaw dropping graphics and sound, I was hooked and clearly I wasn't alone, that first game went on to sell by the truck load and was followed by equally impressive PC and console sequels before last years latest instalment for the wowed gamers with its beautiful next gen overhaul. Now it's the turn of the to get its own slice of the with Call of Duty: Roads To Victory and we've been lucky enough to have a hands-on with an early version of the game to see how things are shaping up.

Despite the ongoing questions about the suitability of the PSP for first-person shooters, initial impressions are defiantly on the positive side, developers Amaze Entertainment have done a commendable job of capturing the historic feel of CoD games on the handheld platform with the excellent sense of respectful gravitas the series does so well all present and correct. As we've come to expect with CoD the action sees you take control of a number of different characters over the course of the game giving you a little insight into the roles different allied forces played in the bigger picture. Roads To Victory puts you in the army regulation boots of an American 82nd Airborne Division infantry soldier, a Canadian First Army rifleman and a member of the elite British parachuting commando regiment during the course of the game, although, as is the way of CoD games, it's never about character and more about cherry picking the most exciting chunks of the battle.

As ever the main do-or-die for a PSP first-person is the control scheme, CoD tries to make it as pain free as possible offering four different control schemes, the default uses the by now fairly well accepted PSP mechanic of using the analogue nub to move yourself around and the four face buttons to aim before firing with the right trigger, this leaves the four directional buttons for things like changing stance, throwing grenades and changing weapons. While it's fair to say that from our time spent legging it around dispatching Nazis this all works well enough, or at least as well as it has done in other games, it's still no replacement for true duel analogue or mouse and keyboard control. However, there comes a point where you have to stop blaming developers for Sony's oversights and CoD even at this stage does a better job than others of overcoming such problems. To make things a little easier, possibly a bit too easy if we're being honest here, there's also an auto aim feature which helps 'guide' your aim to an enemy target making it possible for the action to stay frantic without becoming cripplingly hard. While this feature can be turned off for those hardy souls who don't want the help, doing so did make even the opening stages noticeably harder during the more hectic parts, however, leaving it on had a tendency to make the very same sections a little too easy. With any luck such tricky balancing will be sorted out before release.

Control issues aside the first thing that strikes you upon playing the game is how well Amaze have managed to translate the CoD graphics to the PSP, everything looks and sounds great with an impressively epic feel to things. Levels are still frustratingly linear at times but are also packed with all manor of earth juddering set-pieces and an impressive numbers of soldiers on both sides to keep you company so that you never really stop and think about how you're being herded through the levels on a preset course.

The game is spread out over fourteen missions giving you the chance to take part in mounted machine gun battles, sniper encounters and aircraft attacks as well as your more standard run and gun style of combat. The first four missions we had the pleasure of experiencing were all full of frantic fast paced action that certainly didn't feel toned down or lacking intensity in anyway when compared to the PC and home console versions which is a feat in itself.

As is to be expected there's a variety of options available as well as the single player experience including deathmatch, capture the flag and king of the hill modes for between two and six players. Unfortunately these are only available via an ad-hoc connection which must go down as something of a missed opportunity seeing as how popular battles in other CoD games have proven to be.

All in all, CoD Roads To Victory seems to be heading firmly in the right direction, the version we got our hands on wasn't finished code, despite playing a fine game, which hopefully means Amaze will have been polishing it to within an inch of its life by the time its ready for release. It suffers the same control issues as any other first-person shooter will do on the PSP but it's taken as much care as possible to stop that from spoiling the experience with the auto aim function. It remains to be seen if that makes things a bit too easy in the long run but as things stand it looks like the CoD series could be getting a PSP entry that does a sterling job of recreating the experience so loved by fans.

By Paul Newcombe