SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs

"Not my cup of tea but a great game none-the-less"

I had played the first SOCOM game when it came out, loved it until I got to the end of the level and just couldn't get it to finish. To this day I still have no clue why that happened but I did recently buy the game again but I just haven't played it yet because I was in the middle of SOCOM II. While I didn't get too far in the original and I beat the sequel, I can't tell you which one is better. However, I can tell you that despite its few flaws SOCOM II is a stellar title and should be in MOST gamer's collections. I say most because this game is not my cup of tea. It's good, don't get me wrong, but it isn't my type of game. Let's get this review on the road!

The story is your basic run of the mill Tom Clancy plot. Terrorist threaten the world and it's up to the US Navy Seals to stop them! Suit up and ship out to save the world. Actually, as I write that "Team America World police" pops into my head. Anyway, the plot is rather simple but like a Tom Clancy novel (I've never read any but I've seen a few of the movies and they played out sort of like this) it does it well and keeps things interesting. The game takes place in four different areas of the world, each is there own sort of mission I guess. They each contain 3 stages. While the plot is simple, I felt it was good enough to keep me going.

The graphics are really well detailed. Grass and stuff sway while you crawl through it. Character models are so-so, you never get a good up close look, for obvious reasons.... The levels are very nicely detailed; nothing looks like it melds in or anything like that. Water effects are pretty good, not as good as what some of the more recent XBOX games deliver but it's good enough. Personally, the way the environments react to you is what makes the graphics look so good.

The sound in the game is all good. Voice acting is nice. The English voices are good, the commander chick has the right kind of voice, reminds me of the TV show Jag actually. Most of the mission cut scenes contain foreign languages, are they correct? I have no clue but they sound nice and smooth. I did find the use of the mic to deliver commands to be a bit hard due to me having a mild southern accent and I do pronounce a few words incorrectly due to my upbringing. The sound effects are really nice, guns all sound different and probably sound just like they should, I don't use guns so I can't be 100% sure. The music is just great, it fits every moment of the game, it swells at just the right times, ect. It just creates this amazing atmosphere.

The control in the game is a tiny mixed bag. Opening doors, picking up items/bodies, that stuff is easy. Firing the gun is easy as well. The problem comes with switching guns, the way its set up is your scroll with the L1 and R1 button and then select it with circle but in the middle of a battle and you need to quickly switch weapons, and it just isn't smooth. I also had problems remembering to hold square for audio commands but to just tap it quickly to give screen commands. I did both to experience like those without a mic. Other wise the control is fine.

If you've played a 3rd person shooter before, then you know the basics here. My first experience with this type of game was with Rainbow Six for the Dreamcast, what a nightmare that was to play. SOCOM is different. You start a mission, given a brief description of what to do. You have a button that brings up a map and a list of objectives to do. There are hidden objectives also but I'm not touching that yet. Map is easy to read but doesn't mark where you need to go next so you need to pay attention to what you're told to do. You have a team of four and you can give them verbal, or menu based commands. They tend to respond well, most of the time. I had a few problems with them just ignoring me and me getting very annoyed with them. They also aren't the smartest guys, I had times where they would just stand there and not shoot any enemies and it wasn't because of any commands I had given.

There are 12 levels, ranging from ships, to bayous, to the ice covered regions of Russia. The missions are very well varied with protecting missions, slaughter missions, defusing bomb missions and the sort. It tends to stay fresh. However, I found missions 6 and 7 to be really poorly done. Maybe it's because I can into a stupid glitch where my teammate with the red smoke would not come and use it so I could finish the level but maybe I was confused but after waiting ten minutes and seeing the words "traveling" by his name I gave up. I didn't have any other problems after that. I also found that the levels were far from linear and are rather vast in size, I got lost in a few of them.

The enemies AI is rather dead at times, two guys can be in a room together and you can kill someone with a non-silencer weapon and the other guy won't respond. However, they like to do one hit kills on you which just suck when they happen near an end of a level. Never get close to these guys. One time on mission 3 I was running through the mansion chasing someone to kill and I lost him, next thing I knew, someone had appeared behind me and butted me with their gun and I died... It just surprised me that the enemy did what it did.

While the game offers no multiplayer it does offer online play (BROADBAND ONLY). I didn't get a chance to try it out like I would have but it's a long and complicated thing involving half the router not working and the company saying the warranty can't be used due to it still half working... Anyway, I did do extensive research and from what I can tell is that it's insanely fun to play online. I believe there are five modes and frankly, some of them sound awesome just from the descriptions in the instructions. The bomb one sounded like it would be fun. I'll redo this section when I finally get to play this online. Even though the game is old, I hear there are tons of players on all of the time. It's seriously sounds like a lot of fun. I do wish it had a normal multiplayer mode though so I could at least say how the different types of modes were.

Now, I started the review with "it isn't my type of game". Why is that? I like the run and gun missions. What the game offers is some of that but a lot more stealth and I don't have a lot of patience. Does this make it a bad game? No, but I feel I should give the game a score based on the enjoyment I got out of, not on the merit of masterpiece or anything like that. It truly is a great game but it has a few flaws and seriously, a glitch, if you can call it that, like I got on the one level just shouldn't happen. The game is really cheap now so go pick up a copy if you can play online or if you enjoy these types of games but I really did get annoyed with a lot of the stealth based missions.

Story - 7/10
Graphics - 9/10
Sound - 9/10
Control - 8/10
Gameplay - 8/10
Replay Value - 9/10

Final Score - 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/08/05