New screens as Call of Duty: Roads to Victory nears PSP assault

War is something of a recurring theme on PSP at the moment, with EA's Medal of Honor Heroes and Ubisoft's Brothers in Arms D-Day still fresh from the development trenches.

Hoping to outrank them both, however, is Activision's forthcoming Roads to Victory, the latest instalment in the successful and atmospheric Call of Duty series (which has not previously appeared in handheld form).

Designed from the ground up for Sony's handheld, the game offers 13 all-new missions that put you in the boots of an 82nd Airborne Division infantry soldier, a Canadian First Army rifleman and an elite British Parachuting Regiment commando.

Assuming you don't suffer from split personality issues, you'll be expected to undergo a set of challenges ranging from mounted machine gun battles and sniper encounters to aircraft attacks.

Aware that control issues have affected most first-person shooters on PSP to date, the developer has promised four different (allegedly rigorously tested) options to enable players to find the one that best suits their style of play – we'll be able to judge how well these fare once we get our hands on review code.

In the meantime, we can at least confirm that multiplayer modes such as Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and King of the Hill will be provided with four- to six-player support, while the main game features a range of unlockables (extra weapons, vehicles, armor, to name three) to encourage replayability.

Judging by the latest screens, Roads to Victory already looks set to outgun the competition graphically. Whether it manages the same feat with regards to how it plays is something we're naturally eager to find out this spring.