SOCOM 4 Game Review

When it debuted in 2002, the third-person tactical shooter SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs was the title that placed online console multiplayers on the map. At one point, the military marvel was so popular that Sony boasted that its fanbase spent more time smiting terrorists than Xbox Live users spent on the service’s entire worldwide library. You can imagine, then, the level of anticipation when Sony announced the development of a PS3 sequel, despite reservations from fans regarding a change of developers.

Fear quickly turned to disappointment when Confrontation stumbled out of the gate with numerous bugs and a sloppy user interface, leaving many longtime fans of the franchise clamoring for the folks at Zipper to return to the helm. As a hardcore SOCOM player who’s logged over 20 hours on the latest installment alone, I was right there with them.

Thankfully, we’ve now got a Zipper-born sequel in SOCOM 4. Billed as a tweak on classic SOCOM sensibilities with a Modern Warfare makeover, S4 is a competent action title with a ton of admirable features. But is it a game worthy of the time-honored tea-bagging, trash-talking, gun-toting tradition of the PlayStation 2′s legacy? The answer is a resounding no. It’s certainly not a bad game, but for a title that promised to hold true to the spirit of one of my favorite franchises, I can’t help but wonder why S4 is so unabashedly indifferent to everything that made the series great.

For starters, let’s talk about combat. Gone are the game’s signature gun battles centered around balance, tension, and timing. In their place is a headshot-happy shooting gallery born of constant, unavoidable conflict, due largely to key changes in the game’s design philosophy. Maps are much smaller than in previous iterations, making them more akin to wide-open paintball arenas than battlefields, and there’s typically no less than a dozen potential points of exposure from any given cover spot, meaning that anything short of a corner camp in an actual corner leads to complete exposure, with or without something to “hide” behind.

Speaking of cover, one of SOCOM 4′s key additions is a Gears of War-style system that falls short of the Epic game’s five-year-old standards. Swapping between cover points is a cumbersome liability and, when coupled with the fact that objects in the world often fail to provide protection from the game’s omniscient enemy Al, you end up with a system that had me begging for d-pad leans and Confrontation’s simple Sixaxis system.

There’re plenty of reasons for kids to keep playing Star Wars games online, with a plethora of characters, special Lego Star Wars games pieces and extra features to unlock. Lego and Star Wars is definitely a match made in marketing heaven.

Author: Ken Li
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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