SOCOM U.S. Navy Seals Fireteam bravo. REVIEW

[Kippers]

Well...After about 4 hours (yeah slow) started at 11 finished about 5 minutes ago. I've completed my second review just out of pure bordem. Which i wish i hadn't done now coz i've got a stomoach ache, head ache, feel real sick, dizzy, tired and my eyes are throbbing like mad. Anyways, Read, enjoy and leave a comment

 

SOCOM

US Navy Seals

Fireteam Bravo

 

By Kippers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

General information

 

 

Format

PSP

 

Genre:

Modern tactical shooter

 

Developer:

Zipper Interactive

 

Publisher:

SCEA

 

Online?

Yes

 

Release Date

Already released:

 

April 21st '06 (UK)

November 8th '05 (US)

 

General Price:

£39.99

$39.99

 

 

Rating:

16+ (UK)

M Mature (US)

 

Learning Curve:

Half an Hour

 

Difficulty

Easy

 

Connectivity:

Online

Wi-Fi

 

Number of players:

1 - 10

 

Number of players online:

16

 

Multimedia:

Screenshot 1

Screenshot 2

Screenshot 3

Screenshot 4

Screenshot 5

 

The Rundown

The long running tactical team strategy game SOCOM has finally arrived to the small screen, becoming one of the psp's best shooters. The psp version to the massively popular franchise takes you into the far reaches of Chile and Morocco as part of 'Fireteam Bravo', an army of two sent out to stop an extremist terrorist group calling themselves the Chilean Liberation League, CLL for short, hoping to overthrow the government. When the leagues acts turn to terrorism the US calls upon you to put an end to it all once and for all.

 

Gameplay

To start with before every mission you get a short briefing telling you what the objectives to the missions are, why you're doing it, any Intel you may already have about the place like aerial maps or building plans, and lastly a weapon selection screen where you can toggle between yourself and your partner Lonestar and choose which weapons you might want for the mission, such as Heavy weapons that you would use to just blast through enemies quickly, like shotgun or machine gun, or weapons for stealth like silenced machineguns and sniper rifles. Usually you can tell which to pick by what the objectives are and what the briefing tells you.

You play as 'Sandman', you're mission codename, the leader of two, with your companion on the missions codenamed 'Lonestar', doing away with the PS2 versions 4 man team (But to be honest it doesn't make much difference) If anything it makes the game that little bit more easier. Instead of having to worry about where your other 3 seal friends are and having to spend time repositioning each one of them when ever an enemy or objective is in sight, you just press one single button and off Lonestar runs to do all the work for you. When ordering Lonestar to do something, it's much the same as the PS2 versions. Point your crosshair at something, tap down CIRCLE, and select a command from command menu and job done. When selecting a command, the in game action happening around you freezes so as to give you as much as you need to analyze the situation and come up with the best strategy. When encountering an objective which requires your team mate to do something say, defuse a bomb or plant a satchel charge, a blue bar will appear above both your health bars indicating that if you hold down circle, Lonestar will do that task without you having to go into the command window first.

From not having played any Socom games for a long time, I'm not sure what features have been added as of late, but in fireteam you can for example, go into a battle all guns blazing and hope for the best or tell Lonestar to stealth up to and hide behind an object nearby and take them out silently. Both ways of getting the job done sadly have their downfalls.

When Going in all guns blazing the camera in this game can get very fiddly when in tight quarters say a building or on a flight of stairs. With the camera being in a fixed position behind your back and not being about to stop and move it around like is Splinter Cell Essentials, you can often find yourself being shot from behind and messing around trying to get your character to turn round, (or maybe that's just me?) but Lonestar's there to back you up and usually has it covered before you do.

This is where the gameplay is really let down. The AI, In most cases you'll find that the enemy AI is so stupid that you can just run up to any CLL soldier, stand right next to him where you would obviously be in his line of view, and still he wont move or notice you, which gives you rather less reason to stealth your way through missions. It's not just the enemies whose AI isn't what it should be. On one of the missions, it requires you to empty a house full of CLL men and collect a load of Intel. But halfway through doing that, you trigger a timer connected to a load of bombs scattered around the house. Whilst the timer was ticking, I ordered Lonestar to defuse a bomb, he said 'Right away' and immediately got stuck behind a low wall, instead if simply climbing over, he kept running straight, coursing me to run out of time and the bombs to explode. The team mate AI isn't only lazy then, sometimes you may find when you order him to breach a door that he'll just sit there and not move, and it would take several attempts at the command to get him to do it. This has only occurred a few times but can cost you health and time in the process.

You can also move around and play the whole game in a first person view if you want but the crosshair is locked to the middle of the screen and auto aim is disabled.

The game takes you through 14 missions all in various areas of the world like, Chile, Morocco, South Asia and Poland. The missions are very military based with objectives like rescuing somebody, clearing out bases, defusing bombs set in important buildings, collecting Intel and photographing/recording important conversations. But you'll find that most missions are some what easy due to the lazy AI.

A really cool thing about fireteam is that when you're doing the Morocco, South Asia and Poland missions, they interlock with the events of SOCOM 3 for the PS2. By completing bonus objectives and crosstalk objectives' on both games, it enables you to unlock new skins and weapons for the games. You can also make certain areas easier in either one or open up new objectives, all done by connecting your PSP to PS2 via USB and by enabling the sync functionality within each game. Not too tricky.

Needless to say, despite all the minor set backs like the AI, the missions and objectives are still pretty damn fun to play through, offering you plenty of things to do during the course of the missions. great variety of objectives, and slight twists in the storyline meaning things aren't so simple anymore, and runnin' and gunnin' at enemies is still a barrel of fun. And the game does get slightly tougher as you increase the level of difficulty.

 

Gameplay 8/10

 

 

Controls

The control you have over your character in Fireteam is similar to that of any other Socom game, and oldies should feel almost right at home when moving around the maps, you using the single analogue stick to move around. You have 3 standing positions, stand, crouch and prone activated by pressing TRIANGE. With no jump feature in the game you can only climb over walls, pick up other weapons and open doors by pressing SQUARE, the action button. The weapon you're using can be changed by pressing left on the D-pad and a little scroll menu pops up where you get your usuals that you take with you on every mission like binoculars and grenades, plus which ever 2 main weapons you picked to go in with during the mission briefing. (See above). You can switch between night vision and thermal vision modes by pressing up on the D-Pad; this also takes you into a first person view, new to the Socom series? If you have a scoped weapon on you, you can press up to zoom in using the scope but this also takes you into thermal or night vision, getting rather annoying at times when trying to pick off enemies.

Without the aid of a second analogue stick to the psp, aiming is accomplished by a lock on system, holding down the right shoulder button to lock onto the nearest target represented with a red square, and if there's more than one enemy press the left shoulder button to cycle through them all.

You are unable to customize the controls to your liking in SOCOM but due to the whole 'Tap triangle to do one thing a hold it down to do another' concept I can see why they haven't allowed it.

 

Controls 9/10

 

 

 

Graphics

Fireteams' graphics as a whole are pretty good, the character models are fairly detailed with the cameo spots and weapons slung on his back to bags hanging off their belts. Occasionally the animations are choppy, for instance when you kill an enemy and he's next to a wall, he may bob up and down a bit before actually hitting the ground. Textures on all the maps and pretty impressive, no matter where the mission is set, it can look a little flat and boring at times due to the lack of any real foliage anywhere, but running in and out of buildings with no load times is also impressive.

In between every 3 or 4 missions when you enter a new area you're given an amazing, real life looking cutscene, don't know what else to say about them apart from they look amazing!

 

Graphics 8/10

 

 

 

Sound

The music played in the background as you engage in a fierce gun battle with a CLL soldier and the ratatatatat sounds coming from both your machine guns are just fabulous. Voice acting in the game is also almost spot on from orders sent down your radio to CLL soldiers speaking to each other in native tongue during cutscenes.

 

Sounds 9.5

 

 

Online

As I'm unable to play any online modes for my psp I will base this solely on what other sites have said about it and then my rating will be based upon my likes and dislikes of what I read.

Socom fireteam Bravo has possibly the largest and most popular online play for the psp system. Up to 16 players on any one map, it's smooth, responsive and barely any noticeable lag throughout the entire time. Online modes include deathmatch, in this case called suppression, extraction (Hostage rescue) free for all, demolition and captive mode, where it's like suppression except that team mates can revive you. The maps are essentially the same ones used for single player and plenty roomy enough to accommodate 16 players comfortably.

You can give your character different outfits and of course change the weapons. Which include sniper rifles, assault rifles, submachine guns, and shotguns, as well as accessory weapons like grenades or antitank rockets. Attachments like scopes and silencers are also available for your guns.

Unfortunately the selection of these things isn't all that wide, especially compared to the PS2 versions.

 

Online 9.5/10

 

 

Replay Value

At the end of each mission you're given four separate grades plus one over all grade. The four individual ones are for Stealth, objectives done, team work/commands given and accuracy. If you end a mission with a poor overall grade, or just want to get A in all missions you can go to the 'redeploy' option on the main menu and select any of the missions you've already completed.

You can also go to the 'Instant action' option on the main menu which gives you several different game types but using the single player maps. Think of them as extra missions if you will. For example you can pick the level 'Chile village' and then select a game type such as Hostage extract, stealth extract, sweep and clear and two others, and then you pick the difficulty setting you prefer and away you go. These are only short extra missions though, like in hostage Extract you have to find the hostage and bring him to the extraction zone, naturally there will be enemies standing in your way.

Although the missions are very varied in the objectives, playing through a second time may seem a bit repetitive due to enemies always spawning in the same spots, and when you remember the layout to the missions you can breeze through the objectives and collect all the Intel in no time at all. But the online is never repetitive, as you're always up against different people, they'll all do spontaneous things that always see you coming back for more. Along with leaderboards, clans, message boards, news, friends' lists, and more, online is where SOCOM's replayability really lies.

 

Replay value 9.8/10

 

 

 

 

OVERALL SCORE: 8.5

Edited May 30, 2006 by kippers

[Vanillainy]

Another great review Kippers. Im picking up a PSP game today as it snows.

 

Ill probably go for Exit, that review you gave it made it sound like a great game, i need a game that will keep me playing.

[Kippers]

Another great review Kippers. Im picking up a PSP game today as it snows.

 

Ill probably go for Exit, that review you gave it made it sound like a great game, i need a game that will keep me playing.

Glad someone likes it

 

Well if you can get online socom will last you for months. But EXIT is much funner (And the AI is good )

 

 

[Mr.Mister]

I might get Socom on Saturday. I asked if I could get it. Maybe I will.

 

Can't wait. Oh, and nice review.

[TenaciousD.]

Another great review from kippers, i wonder what you'll review next

[The-end]

Great review Kippers, just as good as your last.

 

What's coming next?

[Kippers]

Thanks

 

I dunno if i'd bother tbh. This hasn't exactly been noticed so spending 3 hours on another doesnt seem all that worth it at the moment.