Coded Arms: Assault

***Coded Arms: Assault*** was a planned third game in the *Coded Arms* franchise. It was developed by Konami and was planned to be released on PlayStation 3 but was cancelled.

## Announcement

*Coded Arms: Assault* was announced at E3 2006. It was shown twice, once at Sony's press conference and then at Konami's. At the Konami event, Producer Yasuo Daikai explains that the game is made in Unreal Engine 3, and has online 4 player co-op, with the game's setting being a cyber Tokyo, presumably the "Kagura" mentioned in the trailer.

## News Coverage

On July 5, 2006, IGN published an interview with Yasuo Daiki, in order to get more information on the game. According to Yasuo, Assault would be unconnected to the story of the first and second game, and would not use pre-rendered cutscenes, but in-engine graphics instead. The plot of the game would center around the player character being a skilled hacker hired to steal data from the Ashihara Corporation located in a virtual reality.

You would encounter other hackers, such as a mysterious female hacker as well as a professor involved in the virtual reality's creation. There would also be a multiplayer element, considered for up to 16 players with typical multiplayer modes such as team death match and capture the flag. The co-op is again mentioned, where you are apparently able to obtain special weapons only in that mode.

On September 22, 2006, IGN and Gamespot would cover what seemed to be two different playable demos available at the Tokyo Game Show. The Gamespot demo consisted of the city featured in the game's trailers, with the player starting in a subway terminal and fighting their way onto the open streets. The IGN demo starts with you appearing right in the city and having to make your way into a building.

The game is described as having standard first person shooter controls and a pistol, assault rifle, and grenades to dispatch enemies. Enemies come in two types in both demos, hooded programs with wooden stock assault rifles, and large ones that smack you with their arms when you're in range. The objective in both demos are different but similar in that both involve decoding. In the IGN demo you must decode locked gates to advance through certain areas, and in the Gamespot demo you complete the level by decoding the head of an unknown person.

While IGN's coverage was fairly straightforward and positive, Gamespot mentioned that the game's frame rate and loading time needed to be optimized.  Joystiq's coverage of the game is fairly negative and brief:

"Whereas Ridge Racer 7 impressed us, Konami's Coded Arms Assault left us writhing in pain. The game was a comedy of errors and should never have been shown. Among the game's many, many technical flaws include:

* A jerky frame rate that frequently slowed down when something happened, no matter how small (e.g. reloading your pistol)
* Very low polygon count. We're pretty sure we've seen GameCube titles use more horsepower, which is not a good sign for a PS3 game.
* Cheap-looking explosions.
* Bullets and grenades left paths in the air that can best be described as "a line of sprites."
* Horrendous load times (about 43 Mississippis seconds)
* Unresponsive camera controls that had only two speeds (stop and spin wildly)."

Gamesradar describes the demo as "empty-feeling - although already more entertaining than the original Coded Arms". On September 22, 2006, Coded Arms: Assault was reported to be between 40% or 50% completed.