SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs

"SOCOM II proves itself to be the greatest military based game on the PS2"

Video games sure have come a long way from when they very first started. Games used to be nothing but mere dots put together that was supposed to represent two paddles and a ball. All right, so maybe the Atari isn't the best example, but games have evolved over time. IMO, no other genre has evolved than military games have. Those tiny blocks have evolved into a grander state, an almost picture perfect look at reality. Though the world of SOCOM, this is all possible. SOCOM is back and this time it has nothing to hold back. It is easily noticeable that Zipper and Sony but a LOT of effort into pushing the limit on an already fabulous game. With improvements in every area from extending the main mission to revamping the online mode, SOCOM II proves that it has more than what it takes to make a good game.

If you are a new comer to the word of SOCOM, let me briefly discuss its significance. In SOCOM II, you play as a member of an elite squadron of seals who must complete each objective that they are confronted with. It is up to you and your team of three other seals (whom all have their own specialties, i.e. Sniping, demolition, sharp shooting, etc.) to see that all things go as planed. The game is carried out through four locations around the world, each posing 3 missions for you to complete. These locations are: Brazil, Russia, Albania, and Algeria. Each mission has its own unique objectives for you to fulfill.

For your convenience I will break this review down into two parts, the Main Campaign (off line mode) and the online mode. This will make it easier for your reading, and allow others who may want one or the other to go right to it (please note: SOCOM II requires a broadband Internet connection).

Main Campaign

Story 10/10
Travel around the world, eliminating terrorist threats with some of the greatest weapons know to man. 12 missions will keep you on the edge of your seat (guaranteed) while you stealthily make your way through areas of combat.

Gameplay 10/10
Zipper once again hit the nail on the head with this sequel. They stayed truthful to old fans and yet added some new to gain others interest. SOCOM still proves itself to the greatest strategic SEAL game ever made. In the Campaign mode, as mentioned above, it is up to you to eliminate the terrorist's threats. The game contains many different weapons for you to do this with. The game features riffles, machine guns, sub machine guns, handguns, grenade launchers, and sniper riffles. Along with these firearms come grenades (frag, high explosive, smoke, and flash), claymores and proximity mines, and RPGs. While the main objective of the game is to stay hidden, never to be seen, its sometimes in your best interest to take yourself a good meaty gun instead of the silenced weapons that you are deflated to. The game features different levels of difficulty ranging from Ensign to Admiral. Each time that you complete a set mission in one of the higher difficulties, you are presented with new weapons and a new usable character for online use (I'll get to that in a second). These difficulties do have a various range to them, so once you beat it on easy, don't expect to be going against the same thing again.

The game plays out like you would expect a game to, smooth running, fast loading times, a good menu. Zipper did a good job at making it as easy as possible for you to enjoy the game. The missions are various in length and difficulty. Some times you have a time restraint in which you must complete a certain objective. The idea is to keep you moving but still give you time to be stealthy. The game is also very responsive to what you do. Meaning, if you shoot a guy in the head then it's going to count it as a head shot. The game is also very realistic in the damage amount that one will endure before dying. It's not going to take you 40 shots to kill people; only 2-4 shots are necessary, depending on where you shoot the person. But shooting people isn't the only thing that you will do. Blowing up bases, extracting hostages, and overtaking command of buildings are just a few other things that you will do. The game is also a little bit longer than the first one, allowing for you to do a little bit more destruction. As I mentioned briefly before, the enemy AI has been increased dramatically. You enemies now will travel in packs so that if they lose a comrade, they can alert other patrols of it. Also, terrorists will no longer rush right into you or go the most obvious route. They will hide behind objects and make sure that you cannot get through.

The in game display panel show you your teammates health and position, how much time is left, what weapon you have drawn and its fire rate and ammunition. Also, back from the first game is voice command. This is one of the coolest features in the game and really pushes the envelope to reality. There is a list of all the commands that you say to your team to tell them to do such as plant bomb, breach room, or something as simple as get down. In case you don't have a mic, these same commands are accessed through an in game menu that is activated by pressing O. It will list all these commands for you. This is feature that is starting to become a little bit more popular to developers, and it should be. It will work for any voice for the most part (I experimented with it by talking in accents as well). The only exceptions are talking in a slurred voice, mumbling, and or talking with too much of an accent (and of course in a different language ^_^).

Also new in the game are turrets and vehicles. No, you don't get to drive them but you do get to fight them. There is a level where you get to blow up tanks with you rocket launcher, which is a lot of fun to do. The turrets are also a nice feature, allowing you to slay mass amounts of people while not using a bit of your own ammo. Along with this comes a heat vision sniper attachment. With this equipped, any thing that will give off heat, people (dead or alive) and mines as well, will show up as a glowing red figure in your scope.

Controls 10/10
Yay! There finally fixed. Zipper has heaved our words and fixed the dreaded fire rate button. If that means nothing to you then let me explain. Fire rate is now change by depressing the joystick for 2-3 seconds before it will change. Your stance is now also pressure sensitive so depending on how hard you cram down the button, the lower that you will get. The rest or the buttons are pretty easy to get used to. It's nothing more than R1 for shooting and square for jumping.

The features another neat option of pre-selecting your weapons to either L1 or L2. This is very handy so that if you want your grenades you don't have to go digging through the R2 menu for them. It would also apply for a sniper and their handgun. Over all, a very easily controlled game.

Graphics 10/10
Nothing short of spectacular here. The game really out does itself in making the game as believable as possible. Everything in the game in intractable (so when you shoot a wall and come back to it, the bullet holes will still be there). The games levels look very smooth and crisp themselves, no matter where the location of the level is. Texturing has been perfected and makes the level blend in perfectly all around. Nothing seems to look out of place. Wooden buildings and posts look weathered, old buildings are full of cracks and are falling down. Things run smooth through the entire game. There is no notable difference between the in game running graphics and the cinematic cut scenes, which to be honest, is not an easy feat to be achieved. Over all, you could compare the graphics to something like that of the Final Fantasy series, only applied to real life situations, IMO. The game pushes he limits between what we expect from a game in today's gaming world and what we know is possible.

Weapon development has also been hyped up. Each and every gun featured in the game are exact copies to that of their real life counter parts. Explosives look just as good as the guns do. When grenades blow up they blow up. When flash bangs go off, you're blinded. When an RPG goes off, a smoke line will be left in the trail of the rocket (and a back thrust will exit out from the rear of the weapon).

Lighting and water effects are also very brilliant breakthroughs. The new lighting features make playing the game as realistic as it is in and out of your own home. Picture this; you wake up on a bright sunny morning in your dark home. When you go to open the door, the light blinds you. After a while, the glare isn't as bad but it's still hard to see. The same thing is applied in SOCOM II. Walking out from dark places into the bright sunlight will make it hard for you to refocus once again. In the water, ripples will form along the outside of your body. Explosives will cause huge splashes in the water. As well as that, bullets also leave their own trails in the water, both the shot fired and the shell that is released.

Sound 8/10
Sound effects are captured straight out of real life, or at least the nature sounds do. Unfortunately, the sounds that the guns emit have been toned down in an effort to make some depth perception. This didn't go too well. If you stand 5 ft away from someone you will hear the full sound of the gun, but if you take one step back, the gun will sound like it is 100 ft away from you. Unlike the guns, however, if you are 100 ft away from a grenade, you will hear it just as loud as if you were 200 (eventually it doesn't sound as close if you keep backing up). Just one little flaw in Zippers design. The games sound track is very nice, adds to the ambience of the game with its lighter music in times of accomplishment and its darker times in situations of suspense. Music is used to accompany every type of conflict: being spotted, being shot at, etc. Although the music is mostly patriotic, it's a very good match for the mood of the game.

Online Mode

Setup 10/10
Some games make it hard for you to even get on their networks to play. They make you go through a long process of forms and screens, keying in data. SOCOM II is very easy and quick setup. It's nothing more than entering in your screen name, a password, and hitting connect. The game will automatically setup the account for you, allowing you on in less that a minute. Once you are on, you connect to a universe in which you can access other servers from to get to other games: Universe – Server – Games.

Gameplay 10/10
Get ready to be blown away. The online mode for SOCOM is 100x different and more challenging then it's offline. Instead of playing against measly computer bots, you're playing with actual people from around the USA. Competition is very fierce and fast moving. Online is a fiercer playground than offline by far. You could master the offline game and absolutely suck your few first months playing online. The Online mode is played as a Seals vs. Terrorists game and there is a max of 16 players at a time.

SOCOM II's online mode now features 20 online maps for you to play, 12 new 8 old. Each map has a different scenario for you to accomplish, weather it be breaching gates to rescue hostages or just plane killing the other team. The maps are all smaller versions of each of the levels in the game (with exception of the old maps from the first game). The size in the levels all vary, some care long and skinny while others offer you lots off twisting and turning paths to go down. Levels also feature the same look and texture as the regular game. Turrets and new weapons have also been added to the maps. New weapons including the rocket launcher and grenade launchers are only usable on some maps.

The online mode also features headset and keyboard support, and talking is now supported in the game lobbies. SOCOM II now allows you to change your voice as well with their added voice modulator. Along with this comes the option to mute other players that are either annoying to you or that you really don't want to hear talk. Also now included is a buddy list to show when and where your friends are at online. A better clan system has also been added. In case you don't know what a clan is, it's a group, or team, of players that play together and get together with other teams in wars or battles. This system in SOCOM II allows you to create a roster list and send out invites to all that you want in the clan. When you create your clan, you give it a name and a clan tag. This is very nice for the people that often switch clans, now instead of having to create a whole new name, they can just drop off the added tag. The tag holds up to 3 characters now, and is automatically put in front of all members' names. Also, there is now a DNAS system that scans your system for any type of game enhancing software, i.e. Game Shark, Action Replay, etc. That's right, cheating has now been eliminated, or at least cut back. For the most part, or 99% or the time, you will go an entire month without seeing anyone cheating. Unfortunately there are some soft parts in the game that allow you to glitch, but the honor system has been raised up and the team often votes off these players.

The game offers many different game modes for those of you that will be playing. In addition to the suppression, demolition, and extraction games from SOCOM, 2 new games have been added: breach and escort. Here's how each game plays out:

Suppression: Game is played until all members on one team have been killed. All games can be won this way.
Demolition: Game can be won by planting the bomb at the other teams base and blowing it up.
Extraction: Seals try to extract the hostages while the terrorists try to prevent this from happening.
Breach: Seals must penetrate the terrorists defense and get the bomb planted before time runs our. Air Strikes are available on these maps.
Escort: The Seals start out with the VIPs but must transfer them to the other side of the map for extraction. The terrorists kill both Seals and VIPs.

Each game has a time limit that can be change through the “create a game” settings. You can also set the number of rounds that you wish to play. Games are played in the “Best of” format (such as best of 11 or best of 9), so who ever wins the most matches the fastest, wins the game. Games can also go into tiebreakers in which the first team to win one will win the game.

New in the mix are a few other options. You can now create your own taunts to the other team or teammates. Victory dances have also been included allowing you to things such as the funky chicken and back flips. There is also in game messaging support, allowing you to send messages to any player in the game, except for those that you are playing with at that time. A new leader board and clan leader board have been worked into the game, although a little buggy. Rooms can now be set to only allow members of a clan to get into a room as well. Spectator rooms are also added to games to allow other comers to wait it out until the game has ended.

Unfortunately, the online game is laggish. The game can slow down so much at times that it will cause you to disconnect. This is an unfortunate problem that SONY says they are working to fix. But even despite the broadband only connection, the lag compares to that of a dial up game. But lag isn't there all of the time, only on certain maps and depending on the amount of people in the room.

Over all, SOCOM II is by far the best online game out for PS2. 10/10

Replay Value: Very High
Seems that you can't get enough of it once you start, you keep on going back for more. However, unless you have online capability, it might not be in your interest to keep playing the game over again on its higher difficulties.

Rent or Buy?
This will all be determined by a few things: 1, do you like military games? 2, do you have a broadband Internet connection? 3, do you have the money? The last two kind of go together in a way. If you do want to play online, your going to need to fork up $40 for an online adaptor and additional $$$ for a mic and key board if you want them. But it really is entirely up to you. The game is overly fantastic and really belongs in your collection, especially if you are an online gamer).

Great games don't come very often, but when they do, they prove that good things come to those that wait. SOCOM II for the PS2 gets a 10/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 02/22/04