This is a game with very good (approaching great) graphics. We get sick of saying how this would have been a good looking PS2 game in days gone by, but it's true. You won't find many better looking PSP titles out right now. There are a few exceptions that come from weird camera foibles. The game - like any first-person shooter - is only as good as the amount of control it gives you to view your surroundings. Unlike titles with static backdrops or movement "on rails," Brothers in Arms: D-Day gives you freedom to roam. One interesting feature is the "Situational Awareness View." This is probably intended to alleviate the frustration you'll feel when you run into a mob of Germans and can't draw a bead on them quickly enough. Pressing Select during play will bring up a list of targets, including you and your partner. I liked the ability to stop the action and plan a route to flank enemy positions. On the downside, there is a "fog of war" effect when using this viewing feature. I'm not sure why this was included, since the premise is that you are recalling positions from maps and tactical charts you checked out before coming into battle. I would have preferred a straight top-down view to the 3D perspective in this Situational Awareness View.

Cut scenes tell the story of soldiers dropped during the Normandy invasion. The dialogue is excellent and really conveys some sense of how young kids dropped into the heat of battle might react. An overall story of D-Day isn't the focus; this is more of a character-driven experience and you'll get lots of talking from individual soldiers to introduce their character. As you direct soldiers on the battlefield, you're as likely to hear chatter from Germans across the way as your squad. Battle noises seem realistic, with bullets slicing near your head and the thump of artillery. Visual cues accompany many of these sounds. If you are hit, you may see blood on the screen and close calls show up as a flash in the direction of the bullet impact. The sound design is surprisingly accurate when it comes to judging direction. At times, you'll stand around in a group talking and the volume will change depending on whether you turn to face someone that is speaking. These little touches don't make the game, but they make it better.

Brothers in Arms: D-Day, or BADD, is a solid FPS in a World War II setting. If the historical setting is more what you care about, this is a realistic representation of the environment soldiers faced after landing in Normandy for the D-Day invasion. Fans of other Brothers in Arms games won't be disappointed, especially since this is the first portable version. The translation to PSP may have killed some visual sophistication, but the story quality is intact. Playing as Baker (not Able, or Charlie) you'll lead a group of soldiers through German territory and take out the enemy before he takes you out. The variety in the solo missions is impressive. Lots of interesting weapons are introduced for the home team and you can pick up weapons from Germans you eliminate along the way. You can also hop on a machine gun and take out waves of enemies quickly.

This is all fine for a FPS game but BADD includes some neat squad combat. I remember the early days of squad action and it was embarrassing. Nothing worked the way you expected and the A.I. never did more than provide cover. In this game, you really have the opportunity to direct a battle strategically using other soldiers. Instead of jumping on that machine gun, you can direct your squad to mount the gun and provide cover fire. Cover fire shows up on screen as a meter above the head of each enemy showing their level of suppression. Initially this looks silly, but it comes in handy. With just a few intuitive button presses, you can direct a friendly soldier to take cover and give him a target. Once an enemy position is reasonably suppressed, you can haul ass for a flanking position and pick off the German soldiers. You can also do neat things like toss a grenade and watch the Germans run out from behind cover where your squad can pick them off.

There are some good things about the multiplayer options in BADD. First is that it exists and is well implemented for a cooperative multiplayer campaign experience. Since the bulk of the solo game is really you and one other squad member, there is a natural fit for a wireless, multiplayer co-op experience. You can also set up games on the maps from the game and fight with assigned conditions, choosing sides and the level of difficulty. What I found odd about how multiplayer works in BADD is that it doesn't feature any type of four-way Deathmatch or large, competitive mode. It also doesn't have online capabilities, where you can play the co-op campaign with remote players through infrastructure mode. How do you release a great FPS title on a platform endowed with Web connectivity and not offer any significant online play? Major bummer... Even some option to download new maps for solo play would have been better than nothing.

The ability to adjust difficulty makes Brothers in Arms: D-Day accessible to anyone. Even on the easiest difficulty where the assumption is that tactics are strictly optional, you can get drilled if you ignore a few simple rules. The first rule is that heavy artillery is not to be trifled with. If a German is manning a machine gun or a tank, you just need to hang the hell back until you can find a flanking position or a rocket launcher. At lower levels of difficulty, there are more opportunities to be wrong, walk into the line of fire, and still make it back to cover. As you ratchet the difficulty up, you'll find that sticking your head around a corner at the wrong time can be the difference between life and death. Don't get me wrong: this isn't a simulator. But in the later levels on the hardest setting, you really get a feel for how an unforgiving a battlefield might look and feel. Luckily there are checkpoints scattered through a level, so you don't have to restart the entire chapter. These are especially important because there aren't health packs or medics anywhere in the game. Hello, realism.

The control scheme in Brothers in Arms: D-Day is not simple, but almost completely intuitive and easy to learn. A single button lets you give directions to your squad member. A target on the screen lets you point out where you want a guy to take cover and pointing the target at an enemy automatically makes your soldier open fire on the enemy position. You can press a button to call a soldier to you or have them hold position while you scout ahead. This type of control works for friendly artillery like tanks, as well. Most of the default controls can be modified, but I found the default options pretty nice under the fingers. You can only handle two weapons plus some grenades, so item management is greatly simplified. I was okay with this for the sake of realism, but it takes away your choice of weapon somewhat during each mission. Luckily each mission is short, so you can test out different weapons on later missions. The control for grenades is a little strange. Like the squad controls, you can hold a button and see a target for the grenade's trajectory. I never found the target highly accurate and it seemed to do weird things around walls and objects. Grenades can really turn the tide of a battle, so it's worth experimenting, but I didn't find the controls here wildly successful.

Brothers in Arms: D-Day does a great job of introducing the franchise to PSP. Players looking for a ground-breaking FPS won't find it, but the action and controls are solid. The story and setting is the most unique thing and is very well executed. The absence of a robust online offering is really odd and loses big points for what would otherwise be a must-play title. The shelf life is limited greatly when you can't get a bunch of friends together and battle in these maps. Perhaps there was some concern about realism, but that doesn't excuse the complete lack of added online content. With that gripe aside, I recommend BADD highly as a rental, for FPS fans or anyone looking for WWII action on the PSP.