1up said: "To be fair, the coup with Fire Team Bravo has little to do with actual innovation this time, as it's more about precedence. With the arrival of the PSP and its built-in Wi-Fi adapter, we knew that, at some point, portable online gaming was just a Starbucks away. Fire Team Bravo is amazing simply because it's broken through first. The team at Zipper have done an admirable job of shrinking their larger-than-life, third-person shooter package onto a PSP without losing much in the translation. The most obvious and expected sacrifice comes at the expense of graphics. While the character animations bear the smooth and seamless trademark of the series, the game looks less refined than its console counterparts; soldiers are noticeably blockier and less detailed, and environments lack the organic luster we've come to associate with SOCOM. Still, if you compare oranges to oranges, Fire Team Bravo looks completely respectable for a handheld game.

But the real story here is how Zipper managed to figure out a one-joystick solution to the control scheme where the console version has traditionally used two. In Fire Team Bravo, you have the ability to quickly track and lock-on to an enemy by holding down the right shoulder button. Whereas it's the "dreaded lock-on scheme" in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, the tap-hold-then-shoot mechanic works in Fire Team Bravo simply because it's an aide and not a crutch. Since the camera stays glued to the backs of your land warrior at all times, it's easy enough to track enemy targets on a horizontal level, and then very instinctively tap the R button to keep a bead. But where's the skill in a game where two people run around firing at each other locked-on? To give Fire Team Bravo some depth, the game requires you to stand still (or better yet, crouch and/or go prone) to shoot auto-locked with any accuracy. So instead of simply running around with the R button held down, spraying bullets and zig-zagging with impunity, the required skill now involves getting a feel for your weapon's rate of fire and kick-back, and firing in bursts in-between dodging enemy fire. There is a learning curve, to be sure, but this is by far the best implementation of a first- or third-person shooter on the PSP. Does the auto-lock function make SOCOM an easier game? Undoubtedly so -- but as a result, the game is also imminently more playable.

Since every PSP supports Wi-Fi connectivity, and wireless networks are supposedly everywhere (and in many places, free), the whole "some people might play this game only for its single-player" logic doesn't carry much weight anymore. Like nearly all online squad-based shooters, Fire Team Bravo is online-centric at the expense of its single-player campaign. If you've played any previous SOCOMs, you'll feel that familiar disappointment creep in after the first few missions. Dominating the solo proceedings are enemies that, more often than not, sit idle as you plug their buddies, or uninspired and clichéd mission goals that require you to painfully search out five waypoints before running your ass back to checkpoint Zulu for extraction. Insofar as how Fire Team Bravo nicely resembles its console brethren, its single-player portion also serve as practice fodder for the real deal online. The game offers up unlockable bonuses (e.g., weapons, instant action maps, and more) in single-player for those who beat certain missions in SOCOM 3 on the specified difficult levels. Luckily, most of these goodies are accessible from the get-go when you hop online.

This really brings us to the conclusion that Fire Team Bravo is an online game first and foremost. Remarkably, most of the user interface for navigating through menus and lobbies look strikingly similar to its PS2 counterparts. Even more impressive is the fact that SCEA managed to implement voice chat to enable team-based strategies for its various gameplay modes, be it hostage escorts, bomb defusal, or simply the chaotic free-for-all with 16 heavily armed combatants (many of whom will camp spawn points indiscriminately). Although the headset itself will set you back 20 bones, the important thing to recognize is that it works great, essentially making Fire Team Bravo the complete multiplayer package. In fact, getting online with your PSP will prove to be much easier and hassle-free than on the PS2.

What keeps the game from being authoritatively better than its PS2 counterpart are still issues that are (presumably) hardware related: Although the game is quite playable most of the times, it does suffer from irritating slowdown during intense firefights, especially involving the great indoors or when lots of players are getting in your face. Additionally, due to memory limitations, multiplayer maps on this PSP version lack the size and complexity of the console SOCOMs, making this much more of a run-and-gun experience than a tense stakeout between two teams. But know that you're essentially getting the SOCOM experience on a handheld -- and getting it online, no less. Fire Team Bravo is an excellent portable debut of a beloved franchise; fans should swoop it up instantly, while those on the fence can now finally play SOCOM online without the PS2 hassle. "