More SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals Info:

http://xengamers.com/sections/previews/8233/

As Sony\'s broadband adapter launch title, SOCOM will play a key role in selling people on the $40 peripheral. Currently it\'s shaping up to be a competent entry into the tactical shooter market (also known as the Rainbow Six/ Counterstrike clone genre) that sets itself apart by being a touch more approachable than other entries in the genre.  

 Upon seeing the huge success and equally huge online communities supporting tactical shooter games, Sony figured that such a title bundled with a headset microphone for inter-player voice communication would be a good choice to launch its own PS2 network adapter. We got our hands on a beta copy of the title sans headset microphone or network adapter, so keep in mind this preview is written based solely on our glimpse of the game\'s single-player experience.

The controls in SOCOM are a little more complex than your average 3D shooter because of the tactical team element in the game, but not dauntingly so. The left and right analog sticks work to move and aim respectively, a setup console shooter fans should be quite used to by now. The up and down buttons on the D-pad are used to zoom in and out, while the left and right buttons lean your character from side to side to peak around corners. The face buttons are used to jump, activate switches and open doors, give orders to squadmates and change your position from standing to kneeling to crawling on your belly. The left shoulder buttons select your primary or secondary weapons, while the right ones are another weapon select (useful for grenades, etc) and the fire button. We suspect the button to give squad members orders will be the headset activation button for voice chat in multiplayer games.

Even if this setup sounds complicated, everything becomes pretty simple once in the game. Although there are lots of specialized buttons, you won\'t be using them in rapid combinations so you\'ll typically have plenty of time to make sure you\'ve equipped the right weapon, are in the right position (standing, kneeling, prone), have zoomed in properly, etc. If there\'s something in the immediate area you can interact with, like a door to open, a rifle to swap for or a corpse to sling over your shoulder, a little yellow window pops up at the bottom of the screen and a press of the X button will do what needs doing. The only problem we had with the controls was that the analog sticks seem a bit sensitive, making some actions difficult, like very minute changes in sniping or any kind of run and gun action. A simple menu option could fix this problem entirely, so there\'s not much room for concern there.

Each mission is set up with a short cinema showing you the part of the world in crisis and setting up some mission objectives. Once you\'ve been briefed on the mission ahead, you can outfit your troops with a selection of assault rifles, sniper rifles and handguns. Not all weapons are suited to all levels, so you\'ll have to choose your arsenal carefully. If you\'ve got to clear an entire enemy camp, you might want to pass on the sniper rifle with its limited ammo and slow rate of fire in favor of a less subtle rifle with 50 rounds to a clip.

The missions that we\'ve seen so far are fairly involved affairs with multiple steps to success and numerous primary and secondary objectives. While there\'s nothing too complicated about the mission objectives on the surface, some are a little vague when it comes to how each goal should be achieved. For example, in the first mission there\'s a freighter your team must board, retrieve intelligence from and ultimately scuttle. When you approach the control room with two armed terrorists in it, you\'re told to take them out without drawing attention to yourself. The problem is that as soon as you receive this notice, it seems you\'re on a deadline. You can wait perfectly quiet in the hallway outside the control room and after a few moments the mission will count as a failure. You can sneak your way down the corridor and try to quietly take them out with a silenced pistol, but as soon as one dies, the other apparently triggers an alarm of some sort and the mission is blown. After numerous tries, we finally got sick of it and charged in guns blazing, discharging a dozen or so rounds into the control room walls and equipment for every round that hit an enemy. Much to our surprise, the mission didn\'t immediately end. We couldn\'t say why a massive firefight in the control room of a freighter counts as not drawing attention to ourselves, but it did. This wasn\'t the only time in the course of previewing this beta that we felt there wasn\'t quite enough direction given. We hope the final version of the game will include perhaps a few more in-mission cues as to how to proceed, or at least a good tutorial that explains which approaches work in which situations.

One crucial aspect of SOCOM that isn\'t finished yet (we hope) is the squadmate AI. The missions we played gave us direct control of one character and indirect control of that character\'s partner and a second pair of Seals through a simple in-game command menu. While the second pair of Seals performed as well as can be expected, our own partner was often times more of a hindrance than a help. If you adopt the prone position, your partner does likewise. But if you start moving while prone, your partner stays still until you\'re outside of a certain small radius around him, at which point he stands up to walk over closer to you, and then resume the prone position. This completely ruins any stealth you\'ve got going and tips the enemies off to where you are. Making it worse, you can order him to hold his position, but as soon as you start moving again, he\'ll start following. Another issue with the AI is that your objective might be to order your secondary squad to sneak to a position, but your commands menu doesn\'t have a “Sneak to...” command. The “Run to...” command might work, but it also might get them killed. While the team AI performs admirably in combat, often times making your life easier by taking out pesky enemies behind soft cover like trees, it still needs work before the game\'s release.

The graphics and sound in SOCOM are good, but they don\'t really separate the title from the pack of other tactical shooters on the market. There\'s a nice attention to detail with footprints in the snow and blood trails left by wounded people (crawling leaves more blood than crouching or running), but the environments still have an artificial look to them, especially the trees. The sound is likewise standard for the genre, with a wide array of gunshots that I would guess to be authentic (pardon me for never having fired a Desert Eagle before) and lots of helpful radio chatter to clue you in on the location and movements of enemies. The music is virtually non-existent much of the time, but once you enter a firefight or a game of cat and mouse with a terrorist, it picks up and you\'re treated to a fairly intense bit of music as your life hangs in the balance. A big part of the title\'s success in the audio department will depend on the functionality of the voice communication headset, however, and we didn\'t get the chance to try this peripheral out at all.

Sony is looking to launch the PS2 network adapter with a flashbang, and SOCOM might do just that. The single-player aspect of the game is solid and really has us contemplating the possibilities of taking the almost intuitive gameplay online to frag complete strangers. If a few wrinkles can be ironed out before the game\'s release at the end of the month, Counterstrike and Rainbow Six may find themselves with a bit more serious competition in their genre.

 

socom = teh pwn!

Pretty indepth review..makes me want the game even more.
Since So much of PS2\'s success depends on this game, i\'m sure they\'ll iron out the minor flaws they reported.
As for the screenshots..they dont do the game justice. you gotta see it in motion.

somebody tells u how the game is to play here: http://sony.gamerweb.com/features/socomhandson.asp

Broadband only so I\'m out

that really pisses me the hell off

and not that its broadband only, but my area has no broadband capabilities

Originally posted by ddaryl
Broadband only so I\'m out

that really pisses me the hell off

and not that its broadband only, but my area has no broadband capabilities

Can\'t blame ya there.  I\'m in the same boat hear living in the outskirts of Richmond, VA.  A sickly 56K-er.  Well, can\'t blame Sony to some extent however.  Had it been available to all, there would have been gripers (aka 56K-ers) dying all over the place trying to keep up with BB owners.:evil:  Well, the world will stretch to BB in due time.  

Keep in mind too, SOCOM is supposed to have quite the single-player game in there too (and ya still use the headset & jabber to AI\'s!:eek: )  Not too shabby!

- Dave

This game is sound more exciting each time I hear about it.

I played this game at E3 and it looks like a good kick off for PS2OL. Shame it will only be BB only but I dont think 56K can do it justice.
________
White Widow Seeds

Exactly..I\'d rather that they kept the game broadband only rather then make it 56k, And have a unfair playing field, with people lagging and not enjoying the game to the max.
Also, like someone said..The single player version is fun as hell also..Atleast from what I played of the demo.