US SOCOM: NAVY SEALS (PS2)


Sony's next-gen shooter smells good

By MARTIN KINGSLEY

Ah, yes, the Navy Seals, pride of the American military. Ready to jump into skin-tight wetsuits at a moment's notice and go head-to-head with the worst of the global underworld, silenced .45s at the ready.

They can slice, dice, retrieve stolen nuclear warheads and also make a convincing veal parmagiana, and if you call within the next fifteen minutes, we'll also throw in these handy-dandy steak knives, for free!

The spearhead release of Sony's new online service, Sony Online (broadband only, boohoo!), SOCOM allows you to experience the day to day trials and tribulations of America's best known Black Ops outfit.

US SOCOM: Navy Seals (SOCOM for short, boys and girls) is the title which is spearheading Sony's new online service, cleverly nicknamed Sony Online. Broadband only though, dearie me, what a pity for those of us who don't have a hundred dollars a month just lying around waiting to be spent.

Sony, in case you haven't realised, this is Australia, not South Korea. We don't have cable installed in every second house. Hell, we don't have cable installed in every second suburb, let alone house.

Luckily, SOCOM's single player campaign will see you spending much time in front of the big black CRT box, screaming in frustration while snapping off shots with a fully automatic Glock 18 sidearm.

As Kahuna, leader of a four-man team of Seals, you will travel from the desert plains of Afghanistan to the middle of the Black Sea, fighting off terrorism and other ugly vehicles of anarchy as you go.

Apart from the multiplayer side of things, on which I shall voice my opinion later, the other big innovation that Zipper Interactive brings to the PS2 in SOCOM is voice recognition, via the rather nifty Logitech headset that comes bundled with the game.

Admittedly, this brings the price tag up a few notches, but the general coolness of the whole setup is worth the extra dosh, methinks.

For a piece of game related paraphernalia, the SOCOM headset is really excellent in terms of ergonomics; it's barebones, comfy, adjustable and crystal clear as far as actual sound production goes, which is all we really want from any kind of gaming gear.

Oh, it's just really…amazing…to be crouched behind a crate, sweating silently in the dark as swarthy Azerbaijani guards patrol merely meters away from you, just as the speaker in your ear hisses with static and an operator fills you in quietly on exactly how it is you're going to survive this without swallowing a 7.62mm NATO round in the process.

The GameBlitz Prettiness Monitor™ gave our copy of Navy Seals a solid eight and a half, and went on to say that, "While it could have used a bit more lighting in the darker levels, the general atmospherics and animations were top-notch, and especially impressive were the huge levels, which have been known to stretch on forever."

Things take a little bit of getting used to as far as controls go.

The left analog stick is used for linear movement (up, down and so forth), and the right is meant for aiming your various weapons, while interaction with the environment is carried out via a combination of shoulder button presses and judicious use of the X button.

The sensitivity of the joysticks seems a little high, but a good half-hour of practice should see you executing (no pun intended) silenced double-taps to the heads of baddies like you were born to it. Wheeeeeee.

My only real problem with SOCOM: US Navy Seals (besides the fact that there are no decent firearm descriptions or statistics) is the friendly AI. Artificial Incompetence is what that particular acronym stands for in this case, I tell ya...

Never would I have thought that Navy Seal pointmen (Read: 'You') have to routinely go back and push their team-mates out from behind trees and other obstacles they have failed to discover a way around, thanks to what can only be described as sucky pathfinding.

In this, SOCOM resembles Vietcong, which suffers somewhat from the same problem. Oh well, at least, unlike Vietcong, there aren't any two-foot wide trenches to get stuck in.

Then again, the opposition aren't exactly all that clever either, and suffer from what you might call a generic lack of attention. I have, on several occasions, walked straight past heavily armed enemies without being noticed. Admittedly, they only got about a second to register me, because after that point, they were invariably taking a dirt nap. Oh well. *shrug*

Multiplayer was an interesting experience, once I got my hands on (Read: nicked) a PS2 network adapter.

Lag was very, very limited, although that is generally the case when playing online with broadband (why else do you think cable users are generally referred to as "Low Ping Bastards" when encountered on a game server?).

The online code is pretty tight, if I do say so myself, and even I, with my highly jaded senses, couldn't find anything to actually complain about. I must be slipping.

But anyway…even if you don't have access to a broadband account, the single player missions will keep you occupied for several weeks at the very least.

Even those veterans of stealth-em-ups such as Metal Gear Solid 2 or Splinter Cell will find themselves intimidated by the sheer difficulty of SOCOM's campaign. Although having one of your teammembers walk into the line of fire when you're twenty minutes into the mission, causing a restart, could also be considered intimidating, or at least severely aggravating.

On a final note, the sound effects deserve a mention, due to their extreme realism and overall spiffiness. We now have a .45 that actually sounds like a .45 and not like a AK47 at close range; now that's what I call progress! On a related note, the voiceover work gets a shiny gold star for just being so damn immersive - rock on!

A solid game that could have used a little more work with the AI, and not much else, US SOCOM: Navy Seals is a great title from Zipper Interactive, and we at GameBlitz sincerely hope to see more from this developer in the future [Sequel's on the way - Ed].

Nice job, guys!

ORIGINALITY 80%
SOUND/GRAPHICS 85%
PLAYABILITY 85%
ENJOYMENT 90%
OVERALL 85%