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Nov 13 2005
SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo Review
PSP Game Review | FPS
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| Summary: Don't pass this one up! A fantastic shooter loaded with features.
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SOCOM: Fire Team Bravo is a fantastic shooter for a handheld. Heck, it’s a pretty good shooter for any platform. Zipper Interactive has delivered one of the most fully featured games available for the PSP in terms of connectivity and overall quality, and is a must buy for FPS fans who want to bring a tactical shooter on the go.
You play as Sandman, an elite member of the US navy Seals. Backed up by your partner (only one teammate in the PSP version) Lonestar you will spend most of your time infiltrating enemy encampments, rescuing hostages, and blowing things up. While the setting and themes are nothing new, this game delivers on the experience. Single player is quite well developed. Before each mission you are given a briefing complete with intel reports, maps, and enemy briefings.
You and your partner will be able to select from a limited assortment of weapons and accessories of destruction including sniper rifles, assault rifles, and shotguns, grenades, mines, anti tank rockets, and satchel charges. Combining your weapons with silencers, scopes and even grenade launchers adds more variety to the tools you can bring into combat. Once you are loaded out the mission begins in various hot spots all over the world.
Enemies speak in foreign languages and are animated well, cut scenes have all the quality and finish of thier PS2 counterparts, and mission variety in location and objective is quite good. The AI is a little loopy at times. While they will generally dive for cover and engage you when they see you, their sight ranges can be a little awkward. Some times you’ll be able to almost walk right up to them, sometimes they see you from miles away. They also suffer from the 'oh look, my friend just got dropped like a sack of dirt, let me hang around and look confused' syndrome (although they do become more alert when this happens), which makes them feel pretty stupid at times. Despite this, the shooting and sneaking is fun and engaging, with rewards given to the elusive player that uses silenced weapons and back stabbing knife kills.
You can issue commands to your partner to breach doors, cover areas, and place explosives all of which he does competantly. However, he seems to have the same problem with his eyes that the enemy does so don't expect him to see things that you don't. This give your comrade more of a robotic drone feel than an actual partner.
Many people were worried about the control scheme, the Zipper as done a great job translating the controls from the PS2 versions of the series. The analog stick works in two modes. Either you can use it to move around and use the are button to target enemies, or you can switch to “Freelook” mode where the stick controls your view. In Freelook you can still move by holding the L button, but it makes getting around a little more clumsy. What’s that? Auto Targeting enemies? What a crock? Well, actually, auto targeting makes you take a pretty good accuracy penalty, and when fighting someone that is targeting using free look, you’ll probably get wasted in multiplayer, so switching from freelook to movement on the analog stick has to become part of your strategy. It actually works out quite well.
Multiplayer is where this title pulls away from the pack. Using Wi-Fi and broadband access, there is little lag and the games moves along well. There are lots of players online so finding people to play against is a snap. Here’s where the feature list gets impressive. You can access profiles online, browse and post to forums through your PSP to discuss the game, you can use the fully functional game browser of course, add friends to your friends list and find them online and a slew of other online features never seen on a handheld. You can even get the optional headset and use voice coms in game! While these features aren’t new on consoles, sitting in an airport, playing SOCOM with live voice chat all through your little PSP is damn sexy (to us geeks).
Well, they are certainly serviceable, with great animations when the bullets start flying, but the textures and models are a little low poly. This is offset by the relative size of the maps, which take some time to get around and can become pretty complex. Don’t get this game to show off the raw visual beauty of the system, but once you start playing the game, you’ll be having so much fun you won’t notice.
One word, awesome! Having fired real versions of some of these weapons, I can say that the sound coming out of your headset is pretty accurate. Audio processing is also pretty good, and firing inside reverb different than outside and the audio environment is there with water and wind noises adding to the effect. This game sounds great.
With a fun and engaging single player, and a deep and full featured multiplayer, this game has a lot going for it. Add to this the fact that missions you have played in the campaign can then be tailored in Instant Action mode with randomly placed enemies and objectives and the replay value of this title goes through the roof. Also, if you happen to have a copy of SOCOM 3 for PS2, completing extra mission objectives on your PSP will unlock extras in that game and vice versa. A cool little extra feature, and in the end that is what makes this game really shine. All the little extra features and well though out additions make this title a hard one to pass up. Graphical pretty boys will slam the visuals, and shooter purists will hate the auto aim, but don’t pay any attention.
This game is fun and well worth your time.
REVIEW IT
PRODUCT INFO
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Comments
FINALY A REVEIW THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
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I want this very badly.
It works online right?
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...if u happen to read the review. you will find ..Multiplayer is where this title pulls away from the pack. Using Wi-Fi and broadband access, there is little lag and the games moves along well.
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I would still like to hear more about the controls. Are they as crappy as Coded Arms?
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I didn't mind CA controls, but SOCOM's are WAY better.
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Krad:
I didn't ask for your sarcasm. I was commenting on the game, not the review. I didn't read the review yet, I'm terribly sorry. I don't have half as much free time as you must.
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No. You didn't intend to read the interview. Why read a couple paragraphs when you can just ask questions already answered?
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damn, good review snuggle ! Thank you so much... I`m planning to get this game soon enough....
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Awesome. Plain and simple
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Great review.
I was involved in the beta test of this game(mutliplayer only) and I was very impressed with what I experienced playing it.
The controls were fair superior to Coded Arms, and will probably set the bar for FPS or 3rd person shooter on the PSP(or any handheld for that matter).
I was happy to hear headset support was added to the game, and finding out that it also had an in-game browser and a friends list is icing on the cake.
I'm torn between getting this or Infected.
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My only complaint about the controls on this game involves stairs. It makes viewing where you are going on stairs very difficult to check in advance without going into freelook, and then you cant move while looking.
When you are going up or down stairs I think the camera should auto tilt the same angle as the stairs are going up or down.
JMO.
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Ticky, you can move while in freelook. Hold down the L button while in that mode, your view will hold position and the analog stick will move you "strafe" style. Let go and the pad will again control your view. It can melt your brain a bit when you are switching back and forth between freelook and normal mode and using the L button to modify both motions, but once you get used to it it actually works pretty well.
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Good review, I am really considering getting this game.
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GET THIS GAME...NOT TOM, NEXT WEEK, NEXT MONTH OR LATER ON WUTEVEVR...GET IT NOW!!!CRAZY GAME.ONLINE ROX...
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"Many people were worried about the control scheme, the Zipper as done a great job translating the controls from the PS2 versions of the series. The analog stick works in two modes. Either you can use it to move around and use the are button to target enemies, or you can switch to “Freelook” mode where the stick controls your view. In Freelook you can still move by holding the L button, but it makes getting around a little more clumsy. What’s that? Auto Targeting enemies? What a crock? Well, actually, auto targeting makes you take a pretty good accuracy penalty, and when fighting someone that is targeting using free look, you’ll probably get wasted in multiplayer, so switching from freelook to movement on the analog stick has to become part of your strategy. It actually works out quite well." Just look up.
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