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Review: SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs SOCOM: Confrontation caused quite a stir due to its mixed reviews. Many praised the potential it had, but lamented its notorious network problems and glitches. Now that series creator Zipper Interactive is back in the driving seat, SOCOM has a chance at some crucial redemption. So ... what's the excuse for the exact same issues plaguing this one?
SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs (PlayStation 3) The first thing you'll notice about SOCOM 4: US Navy SEALs is that it's fond of a loading screen. In fact, when you boot the game up, you're treated to the obligatory PlayStation Move warning screens, then a glorified desktop wallpaper that sits silently on the screen for just long enough to be too long, followed by a saving icon, followed by a second screen telling you what the saving icon means. Once you've sat through all this and canceled all the corporate splash screens, you're finally able to choose from a menu and enjoy the game's three distinct modes -- the single-player campaign, co-op missions, and competitive multiplayer. You'd be best served by avoiding the narrative campaign altogether. Even calling it that is disingenuous, as the "narrative" barely exists and seems cobbled together from every generic, trope-laden military game you've ever played. There are no characters -- simply unhappy men with guns that snarl at everything. The protagonists and antagonists might as well be the same people, and there's simply no attempt to engage or include the player on any level. Simply put, there's no reason to care about these static, one-dimensional homunculi other than the fact that their preservation is required to beat the game ... and that's not much motivation at all.
As far as the gameplay goes, SOCOM provides a fairly bog-standard third-person squad shooter experience. It does absolutely nothing to differentiate itself from the brood of shooters already on the market and in many ways it's notably inferior. For one thing, interacting with anything requires your target reticule to point at specific, arbitrary areas on whatever object you're attempting to engage. Healing teammates is unnessecarily difficult because you won't get the "Heal" button prompt simply by being near, or even looking at, your downed ally. You need your reticule to be at an exact distance, and pointing at an exact spot, the co-ordinates of which are never communicated to the player. Even worse, "successfully" healing an ally simply doesn't work sometimes. On several occassions have I healed a squadmate and he hasn't gotten up, requiring me to repeat the process. The game is full of these minor grievances that should have been easily ironed out. Taking cover near a resupply box means you're no longer able to reload, since the reloading button becomes the resupply button. Zipper could have made the game differentiate between tapping and holding down a button, thus solving that issue, but nobody's bothered. The game's cover system also feels archaic, with enemies that can shooter through solid concrete and unresponsive controls that often see the main character not snapping into cover when commanded to. At the very least, commanding your squad to attack, mark targets, and take positions works satisfactorily. Allies generally obey commands and setting up co-ordinated attacks can be somewhat amusing. Nevertheless, there are still old fashioned problems that shouldn't be in such a high profile game. Allies will get stuck in cover or try to rejoin the party by infinitely running against a wall, too stupid to walk around it. They cannot really be trusted when left to their own devices, frequently running into the player's line of fire or refusing to efficiently defend themselves from enemy attack.
What's more, the campaign is simply boring. The missions are beyond linear, the combat is nothing that we haven't seen before, and there are even a few utterly dismal stealth missions that basically consist of slowly walking from Point A to Point B in the dark areas of the map while enemies blindly wander around, totally oblivious. There's barely any intensity to any of the repetitive battles and even when the action does start to ramp up, the damp sound effects and randomly suicidal enemy AI fail to give the game any sense of immersion or excitement. It's a "by the numbers" shooter with the kind of problems I'd have expected on the PlayStation 2, but not the PlayStation 3. SOCOM 4's campaign is the pits, but the inclusion of three other players for co-op missions gives the game some extra mileage. Co-op levels are shorter and infinitely sweeter than the main game, with a focused approach on specific goals and friendly competition between players based on their kills, deaths, and completed goals. The problems of healing and snapping into cover still remain, as does the fairly uninteresting combat, but the pressure and the tactical opportunities afforded by human allies add some much needed depth and mental investment to the whole game. Frankly, it would have been in Zipper's best interest to scrap the single-player entirely and work on making co-op a more central and lengthy experience. The general problems with reticules and control response would be far less noticeable had they not been given pride of place in an unengaging experience. As it is, despite co-op's significantly greater appeal, there's not much meat on its bones. There are several maps based on reworked single-player levels, and the general missions don't feel varied enough. Once you've collected and uploaded data samples or assassinated generals the first few times, you've pretty much done it all. There are custom missions as well, but don't get too excited. The custom game mode is basically a single-player version of the co-op feature, in which you get to toggle the amount of enemies on the same maps. Nothing to write home about.
Which leaves SOCOM 4's competitive multiplayer as its saving throw and ... Zipper didn't even roll a one. In fact, the dice fell off the table and rolled into a pile of stinking feces. The problems that plagued Confrontation are back, and may very well be worse than ever before. My first play attempt had me spawn into a match, fall through a hole and get stuck walking around outside of the game's map for about two minutes before my character suddenly keeled over from a suicide death. This was the beginning of what would be a catalog of glitches and connection errors that seem to typify the SOCOM experience. SOCOM 4 is laggy to the point of comedy. I once emptied an entire supply of ammo into a player before he finally fell down -- not just a clip, either. I'm talking about a freshly spawned character using every last available bullet. It's like playing a game against a team of ghostly apparitions, strange echoes of human activity that do not exist within our mortal constraints of time and space. It's utterly astounding, and this is coming from a guy who's seen gameplay lag in all its forms over the years. In my short time with the online (and it was short, because I couldn't keep playing what was, essentially, unplayable), I saw grenades hovering in mid-air, never moving or activating. I saw bodies floating five feet off the ground. I saw people dying from explosions that didn't actually happen. I've seen disconnections and game kicks of every description. In short, I've seen every major problem an online game could have, all magnified to absurd levels.
What was most telling about these issues is that they would disappear when enough people gave up and dropped out of a match. I had one match whittle down to just me versus two guys, and all the problems magically disappeared. Same goes for co-op, which also works quite well. It seems to indicate that, at the time of writing, SOCOM 4 just can't handle as many players as it allows. Anything over four of five combatants seems to destroy it. For the record, I can see a fairly decent online shooter underneath the lag, if a fairly unremarkable one. Most of the game modes are of the common garden variety, but Bomb Squad, a mode in which one player is a bomb disposal expert and has to defuse explosives while being protected by his team looks to be compelling. SOCOM 4 includes an obligatory ranking system and weapon mod unlocks for those that need their Call of Duty fix. Again, nothing spectacular, but at least it would have given the game more to show for itself had it been working properly. Which it isn't right now. PlayStation Move support is included for those still trying to justify the money they spent on one, and it's the same story as any other traditional game with Move support thrown in. Moving and aiming is fine, and feels pretty satisfying, but the button layout on the motion controller makes anything else, from healing to issuing orders, feel uncomfortable. As is often the case, traditional controls work better overall. As far as I can tell, this is yet another game that doesn't separate severs between DualShock and Move users, so yet again expect to see a massive player imbalance from those users that can force themselves to use Move and take advantage of the extra aiming precision and enhanced target reticule.
This is SOCOM 4. A game of three parts, two of which are awful/broken and one of which is too shallow because of the time spent developing the others. At best, it could hope to be a functional, if archaic, shooter. At its worst, it's a glitchy, laggy game that seems to be facing the exact same problems as its prequel, released three years ago. Worse than that, SOCOM 4 just doesn't feel like a game that should exist today. Even without the online problems, you're left with a game that is, at its core, aged and outclassed by so many other modern shooters. It doesn't even look all that great, with graphics far outmatched by other recent PS3 exclusives such as Killzone 3 and LittleBigPlanet 2. There's none of the basic polish and flare that one would expect from a Sony-published title. It's an antiquated shooter that's trying to hang with the new blood and failing at every turn. The fact that it's thoroughly broken serves only to rub salt in an already stinging wound. Score: 3.0 -- Poor (3s went wrong somewhere along the line. The original idea might have promise, but in practice the game has failed. Threatens to be interesting sometimes, but rarely.)
THE VERDICTLegacy Comments (will be imported soon)Inb4SexualChocolate and general Sony Defense Force™ Apologists.
J/k. I played the Beta and liked it, which leads me to believe, after Homefront, and other FPS' in general, Dtoid is just doingitwrong.jpg awww, I was hoping this would be a return to form. SOCOM 1 and 2 had some of the best multiplayer I've ever played. It's unusual to see lag as an issue. Zipper usually makes smooth online experiences even when the game isn't very good. Is the multiplayer slow paced and methodical or just a fast paced 3rd person CoD? The latter is the impression I got from all the previews. To be fair, this game was doomed from the start. I mean, coming out the SAME day as Mortal Kombat and Portal 2?
Epic Fail. That sucks. Already preordered and paid for the full deployment kit.
At least I get Move & the sharpshooter with it. An engaging game would have been a plus though. actually you might not see much hate from sony fanboys...already hardcore socom fans have pretty much said F you to this game way before its released lol. not surprised about the score, while SOCOM online was big back in the day on PS2 but only because it was pretty much the only online shooter. Now there are many other and better games around. I don't see any of these problems in the beta as I'm able to be omnipotent in almost every match, hit a body with every bullet, and land every grenade with ease. If Zipper made the beta "better" than the retail copy I'm sure there will be a day one update. And hopefully a re-review by you Jim. I know you made similar remarks about Black Ops in regard to it's online problems but I've never had a problem with that game either even on launch day.
Anyway, the beta is great and I'd be happy to keep playing it if the physical game isn't up to par. I guess we should make it a rule from now on to avoid Zipper's games at launch. I'll hold off and see if things improve for the game. Also, of course after we got all the DICKTITS knocked out of us from BulletStorm I can't see any seriouscat.jpg shooter games having an interesting story. Just sayin' knew it would end up that way since the announcement when they showed the game. it looked like 2-3 year old title and played like one. then i saw the beta vids with Move that didn't work at all(at some point guy was throwing a granade that flew in the completely oposite direction than intended not to mention guy was spinning all the time and could turn his character at all).
seems like Zipper as a developer is done. Socom 4 seems to suck, Mag sucked and both psp Socom games were just average at best. "a mode in which one player is a bomb disposal expert and has to diffuse explosives"
Diffusing a bomb is dangerous. On the other hand, DEfusing a bomb is not. :P Now I feel like a goof complaining to people about the quality of SOCOM 4. It's too bad the fans have outright rejected any game that isn't SOCOM 2. Maybe they really should go with that SOCOM 2 HD idea... Can never trust jims reviews when so many other reviewers contradict his opinions with more solid reviews. I shall wait for other reviews before I make my judgement. And if all reviews are shit then zipper you fucken suuck! Hah SDF will be here shortly! Epic fail SOCOM. I am done with this series, I had high hopes for this one! Let's put SOCOM in the box with Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero. Just let this franchise die, while it still has an iota of dignity from the nostalgic people. Sorry to hear you didn't enjoy the game, Jim. Although I believe when you say it suffers from a buggy online component, it sounds to me like you went into it with gloomy expectations and made sure they were met. with current state of 2011 ps3 line-up it makes me wonder will there be at least one decent exclusive game from sony this year aside of Uncharted. i mean come on Killzone 3 sucked, both Motorstorm 3 and PlayStation Move Heroes were completely trashed both by fans and reviewers and then we got titles like Socom 4 and LBP2 that got delayed for months and still felt like dirty and lazy cashgrabs. really terrible year for Sony. That is a real shame. I think the reason why you dumped a clip into that guy that just spawned is that there is a bit of an invincibility window, to try to help against spawn killing.
...still no excuse for the other issues. I enjoyed the beta. Probably will still get it. Don't know if it'll be on day one though now. I played 18hrs of the beta... didn´t find the multiplayer so bad, but I haven´t touch it in days I already have the socom I needed. Shame the campaign is so bad. @Typhonic
Pretty sure I'm the King bitch. LOL. All joking aside, I am a huge Killzone fan and I, well, shouldn't have to say much more than that to make my point. Good day, sir. You also awarded Killzone 3 a 10/10 score, which in my opinion was one of the worst single player campaigns I have ever played. And what with it being 6 hours in length on Hard Difficulty while taking my time, I can't say it was money well spent. The multiplayer is SO buggy and such a downgrade from it's sequel.
Forgive me, but I'm going to have to read other reviews to properly form my opinion. wow. I'm shocked lol. I played both the private and public beta, but I never came across a floating grenade or bodies hovering. Wow......... Sounds about right. Having played the beta, however, I'm surprised you didn't get more into the genericness of the Multiplayer. Let me tell you, you weren't missing anything. It has less features and maps than SOCOM 2, an 8 year old game. The snap-to-cover does not work in this game. And then there is knifing thrown in along with a single 3-kill streak airstrike. Overall Multiplayer is trash compared to other current online shooters and even worse when compared to its 8-year-old predecessor SOCOM 2. @sofik
Normally I just sit back and laugh at your troll-tastic comments, but I feel like I have to interject here. Killzone 3 has a metacritic average of 84 which is awesome, Motorstorm Apocalypse has an average of 78, and LBP2 has a 91 which is amazing. Playstation Move Heroes has an average in the 50s, which isn't great but I don't think that qualifies as "trashed". If you don't like a game, that's fine. But don't go around spouting your narrow-minded bullshit like it's fact. As for decent upcoming exclusives: Infamous 2, Twisted Metal, The Last Guardian, Portal 2 with Steamworks (not technically an exclusive but it bears mentioning), Resistance 3, Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One, Journey. None of those catch your eye? from my short time with the beta, I didn't see a lot of lag or glitches, but I did find the game to be somewhat boring and generic. I'm also having a hard time adjusting to the third person view and I hate that they made the female character an unlockable... female gamers don't want to "unlock" their own gender - making it no different from a gun you unlock. It's an immersion issue and the character should be a choice we can make from the beginning of multiplayer.
I had some interest in the co-op, but it doesn't sound like it's the full campaign on co-op, but rather the usual - throw a bunch of short missions together and call it co-op" thing. Kind of a shame. The one thing I did like about the game was that there seemed to be the ability to put together customized game types for multiplayer - but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be an easy way to create a custom game and play it just with friends. Maybe this will change in the retail release, or maybe I just wasn't looking hard enough - but it seems that a game like SOCOM is ideal to play with friends! ... too bad they got rid of the server browser and went to the stupid matchmaking system. I miss the days of simply looking for the "Dtoid" game on a server, using the password, and jumping in. I'm surprised no one did an inb4sofik thing, because that was just as inevitable as the Sexualchocolate one. @Andrew Venner: "You also awarded Killzone 3 a 10/10 score...forgive me, but I'm going to have to read other reviews to properly form my opinion."
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11:00 AM on 04.12.2011
