SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals: Combined Assault

"An averager shooter, creates an engaging experience, but with too many faults."

I never was a SOCOM player. This series has appealed more to on-line gamers, and those with friends who actually like to play on-line. I am not the first, and have none of the second. So, I was actually surprised that this game offers a decent single-player game, more so than previous installments.

The game drops you into the fictional Middle-Eastern country of Adjikistan. You can probably figure out why they made up a Middle-Eastern country... but I digress. The game puts you in the role of code-name SPECTER, the leader of an elite 4-man squad of NAVY SEALS. Your mission is to investigate a paramilitary uprising, and to find about as much Intel as you can about the country's shady leader.

The controls have changed little, if any, from previous games. Your standard look, move, shoot buttons are present, but the gear interface menu is frustrating. I'd rather not have to stop what I'm doing to press R2, find the item I want, press X to select it, use it, then have to change back to my primary weapon. I've died countless times from trying to kill a terrorist with a medpack. ARGHHH!! It's frustrating thinking about it!

On the plus side, the story in interesting, but not really new. The missions are varied, and have you travel to many different locations. You'll be fighting off terrorists in a rural village, invading an Adjikistan political palace, and saving citizens from imminent genocide in a former sports stadium. Some missions require you to go back to certain locations that you have been before, but with at different time (night/day), and with different weather, and sometimes different situations. For example, in one mission, you are told to liberate a village controlled by the paramilitaries, so that your allies, the rebels, can enter it again. This mission takes place at night. In a latter mission, you'll return to that village, during the day. Here, the situation is that the paramilitaries have teamed-up with mercenaries to assault the village. There is no way that you and the rebels, can stop the assault, but your tasked with weakening and slowing the forces so that the rebels can evacuate.

Graphics seem a little dated, however. They would be fine for a game that came out a couple years ago, but not now. The FMVs are nice touch, but compared to Final Fantasy and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, they start to look pretty bad.

The game is not a revolution. However, it is a good 3rd person shooter for the PS2, and for people like me, who don't intend to spend a ridiculous amount of money on a new system, it helps confidence in the veteran PS2.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/16/07