SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo

"Best 3rd person shooter for the PSP so far"

It's not that I hate the Socom series. I think it's a decent enough series, but the first two on the PS2 just didn't do it for me. Objectives were too glitchy and confusing at times. 2 had some huge maps and let's face it, the maps sucked. No enters Socom to the world of the PSP. The PSP hasn't had a grand track record with shooters so how does Socom fare? Read on!

As usual some terrorists are planning to unleash some terror. What else is new? The funny thing is I was really interested in the opening movie. It was nicely done and reminded me of the movie Munich. Plot doesn't get deep or anything but it works and I liked it better than the plot in Socom 1 and 2.

Graphic wise I was really impressed with this game. The opening CGI movie looked great, one of the best so far on the PSP. The in game graphics are nice as well. The maps are fairly large. Buildings and everything are scaled nicely. Enemies might not be of the highest detail but they look nice. Our hero looks good and I like the how real the weapons look. My only problem with the game is that a lot of stuff feels empty. Buildings don't have a lot of items in them and all of that and I'm sure it's due to the limitations of the PSP.

Sound wise I enjoyed the game. Voice acting was good and used through out the title. The lip synch was pretty much spot on for the most part. Music is the typical Socom stuff which wasn't bad but it isn't exciting. Only seemed to kick in during action moments. The sound effects are great. Each gun sounded real and different which surprised me on this PSP title.

The PSP's biggest problem with shooters is the control setup because there isn't a second nub for aiming. Socom allows you to move the camera but doing so is stiff and brings game play to a stop. They fix this by allowing you to lock onto enemies. This is a plus and a minus. Locking on fixes the camera problem but the distance in which you can lock on is just absurd. You can just tap the lock on button and if there is an enemy near you, as in a spot in the far away distance it will lock on. This makes the game fairly easy but oh well. I found the control to be very responsive and the game is very playable.

Socom this time around plays just like it did on the Playstation 2. Some minor things have been changed but nothing drastic. Instead of a team it's just you and a partner. I found this to make it easier for me to do everything. The next thing is the way of giving commands. Hold circle will tell your partner to go to the spot that's in your crosshairs. Tap circle will open a menu, which stops everything in the game and you just select the command and hit X. Very simple and not as overly complex as the stuff in the console versions.

Socom is a third person shooter. Each mission, there is 15 or so, has you going through fairly large maps and completing objectives. They range from collect Intel to clear areas. The typical stuff. I found that the map is much easier to look at and understand this time around but the first level had me lost because I kept getting turned around and not realizing it.

Enemy AI is actually fairly well. I had missed a sniper on the second level and was crossing the river to suddenly find myself dead. Yes, the game has evil 1 hit kills and you never want to do get close to an enemy because if they hit you with their gun it's almost always instant death. The lock on makes it usually easy to find snipers and stuff though.

I really don't know what else to say about the game play itself. It still has secret objectives and stuff but it seems that due to the PSP's limitations the makers seemed to make everything work more compact and to me it makes it better than the console versions.

The game offers 8 player local multiplayer. Everyone needs a UMD and all of that jazz. The game also has online play and offers 6 modes. As usual I can't access that myself but my reading makes me believe the three most popular modes are make from the console versions and some new ones are here that seemed pretty basic in a normal online shooter. The game also isn't as long as the console versions, took me about 5 hours to beat the game.

I actually recommend this game. Fans should enjoy it on the g but don't expect everything from the console version. I rented it and I'll be sure to buy it as soon as it hits Greatest Hits status this fall. It's a solid title and if you own Socom 3 for the PS2 you can hook it up with this game and unlock options in each title. A cool feature and this was the first PSP title to do it. More recent games have done it as well though, like Daxter.

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

Final Score - 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/02/06