When I first thought of giving impressions on this game, I knew I was going to take some serious heat.  The game in my eyes just wasn’t well adjusted and didn’t have that style that made it worth playing to me.  It didn’t appear to have any redeeming qualities at all.  But I also didn’t want to pull a Metal Gear Solid 4 and review a game in a series of which I’ve never played a previous game.

Then I played again and learned not to suck.

By now I’m sure you’ve heard that it takes a while to get into a BETA game, that the servers are overloaded and I am here to tell you that while the initial wait is annoying (I’ve waited a full minute or 2 on a loading screen) the game is well worth it.  SOCOM is the first multiplayer game where it really feels like you need to work as a team to be effective.  Now that I’ve played a few sessions of SOCOM I think I’m ready to give some basic impressions for those of you that don’t have the beta to try out yourself.

The Graphics:
I know this one has been on the streets for a while now.  The graphics aren’t great.  They serve their purpose however and that is all that matters in my eyes.   The gritty look gives some realism since the places I played were all in deserts (Maybe they will get improved, meh).

The Sound:
This is good stuff, the gun fire sounds realistic from a distance and if you hear someone shooting, a mark comes up on your HUD so you can get an idea of a position.  It doesn’t gurantee a kill at all, but does aid in finding an opponent just firing rounds for no reason, or trying to take down your team mates.

The Controls:
My initial impressions were going to be bad due to this.  The voice chat has to be activated with a button similar to Warhawk which I hate.   Additionally, it seems that opposing players can hear you if you aren’t using the button to speak (Perhaps? I don’t know what causes it, but I could here the other team at times.  Maybe it’s just proximity).  Without full closed circuit communications, the game will need to be played by folks who know each others battle style to minimize telling radio chatter.  Standard game controls are easy enough, using the D-Pad as a zoom function (something I didn’t find immediately either) and even using sixaxis controls in order to tilt a player in viewing around corners (which were also a pain in combat as tilting makes aiming lopsided and much harder to do).  My personal favorite, the knife is a quick punch on L3 and is very effective at close range.

Overall:
Again I’ve never played a SOCOM game before, and if Confrontation weren’t due soon, this game would be making me take a look back at some of the series.  The Weapons are varied even for the beta and the controls are solid.  People will call the graphics a flaw and to a point I agree.  While it doesn’t detract from gameplay, it would be a nice feature especially since like most I’ve been spoiled by other current generation games. If you’ve never played a SOCOM game before like me, Confrontation may be the place to start.  See you on the battlefields soldiers!