The PSP title is Call of Duty: Roads to Victory, and thrusts you into three single-player campaigns, which come to 14 levels in total. Each campaign has you playing as an elite soldier from a different country, USA, UK and Canada. In the American campaign you are an 82nd Airborne Division paratrooper, a British Parachute Regiment commando in the British campaign and a Canadian First Army rifleman in the Canadian campaign.

This one of the few WWII games to incorporate the Canadians, but unfortunately it doesn't introduce anything unique to be excited about. In fact, in terms of gameplay and story, having these three countries doesn't offer anything unique.

One would have thought that the countries and the different individuals from each nation would have formed the basis of an elaborate and interesting story for the game. But alas, the developers failed to take this opportunity, and it seems quite obvious that they didn't think a storyline was important.

Each campaign starts off with a video clip reminiscensent of war propaganda movies in that era as an introduction, and each level starts off with a text-based introduction, then that's it for the story - quite lame, really. Surprisingly, it also appears that Roads to Victory's levels are based on lesser (but arguably still important) historic events of WWII.

However the levels, while remaining highly scripted (a distinct feature of CoD games), are varied enough so that it isn't a tedium to play through. A case in point, as part of the American campaign (which takes up approximately half of the 14 levels), is when you get to man the machine guns of an American bomber to rid enemy fighters from the sky before they shoot you down.

If killing hordes upon hordes of enemies/Nazis are your thing, you won't be disappointed. For some reason, the developers have decided on the old trick of spawning endless foes (a la Serious Sam, which PC gaming boffins should know well), which is something usually not seen in the more serious WWII FPS games. Some may find this annoying at times, particularly because it is unrealistic, but more because of Roads to Victory's lack of AI and cumbersome and unresponsive controls.

For the latter, RtV is not necessarily completely to blame. Afterall, the PSP isn't really geared for FPS' and most, if not all other PSP games in the genre have suffered the same. There are four different control schemes, though they effectively aren't much different and the default option is mostly good enough.

The analogue nub controls movement and the face buttons are used to aim. The D-pad reloads, cooks/throws grenades, changes weapon or holds breath and changes posture. The left shoulder button zooms down the current weapon's sights and the right button fires or melee attacks. Melee attacks automatically occur when you are close enough to an enemy.

Quick and precise aiming is difficult with the face buttons, hence RtV has the pretty standard FPS auto-aim feature. This feature makes it both easier and more difficult to dispatch enemies; the easier part is obvious, but it can be more difficult because sometimes the aim gets locked onto a less threatening target when you are intending to dispatch a more direct threat.

Turn off auto-aim and you can find your aim lagging across the screen, particularly when there is a lot happening in your field of view. One great thing about the auto-aim feature, though, is that its lock distance is dependent on your current weapon, giving weapons a sense of range.

Like most recent FPS titles, Roads to Victory has also done away with health packs in favour of the auto healing feature. So if you get hit and then take cover for long enough, your health eventually fully restores itself. This does make the game easier and addresses the fact that game saves can only happen in between levels.

Another aspect of RtV that makes it easy to complete within several hours is the AI, or lack of it, for both enemies and allies. It is quite possible at times for you to be able to walk right up to an enemy and literally shoot him between the eyes at point blank range, while his comrade standing next to him would just ignore what had just transpired. Even worse are your allies, and it seems quite common in games that the AI for allies are a notch lower than the enemy, presumably to make things more challenging.

While it is laughable to watch an enemy trying to shoot you at close range and missing, or an enemy and an ally miserably failing to kill each other even though they are standing almost upon one another, it can be quite annoying that not only do your allies fail to help you in whitling down the number of enemies, but they tend to get in your way and sometimes block your attempts to head for cover. With friends like this, you sure don't need enemies.

At the end of each level, you are given a Gold, Silver or Bronze star. These ratings, in particular the number of headshots, may unlock vehicle profiles and PSP wallpapers. Unfortunately, these profiles and wallpapers don't have any effect on the game. After completing a level, you can choose to replay it at a later time if you want to earn a higher rating.

The usual array of WWII weapons exists - rifles (including the sniper kind), submachine guns, mounted machine guns, grenades and bazookas - and each looks and sounds convincing enough. In fact, the best part of RtV is its graphics - well modelled and realistically detailed environments/backgrounds, weapons and foot and mechanised units. Lighting for explosions, smoke, fire and gunfire are just as good. Once again, RtV illustrates the capabilities of the PSP compared to its big brother consoles.

The sound department isn't half bad either. Voice acting and special effects (including gunfire, artillery fire and explosions) all sound good - the campaigns even carry a discernible American, Canadian and British accent. Background music is relatively sparse compared to other CoD titles but it does set the mood and pace when present. A slight letdown in the special effects is the PSP speakers' weak bass sound reproduction, so explosions in particular do not sound as devastating as they could.

Multiplayer is limited to ad hoc mode only, with 2-6 players being able to compete in the standard fare of deathmatch, capture and hold the flag, and king of the hill - plus its team variation. This part is functional and works well but don't expect anything special as it is rather standard fare.