Last year's PlayStation 3 shooter, Warhawk, proved that Sony could publish an online-only video game available via Blu-ray and through PlayStation Network. Its latest entry in its SOCOM franchise, Confrontation, follows suit, as the publisher plans to roll out a multiplayer focused tactical shooter with eye-catching community features, a bevy of weapons and maps and even SIXAXIS motion controls. Suit up soldier. It's go time.
Similar to previous games in the series, SOCOM Confrontation is a slow- paced and team- dependant third- person shooter, where two sides suit up and wage war across varied terrain. You'll log on and create a soldier from the ground up, clothing both his upper and lower body, applying camouflage to his face and clothes, giving him boots, helmets and other apparel. Then you'll select from 37 real world weapons, including handguns, assault rifles and grenade and rocket launchers. In addition, the game sports 15 attachments, so feel free to slap a laser sight or grenade launcher onto your M4 or even a grenade launcher.
Joining a team (or forming a clan) is the next step, and it's this ishere where the game shines. Sony and developer Slant Six shoehorned a ton of impressive features designed to further immerse you in the game's community. This includes the ability to create clan logos and slap them on uniforms, create a My SOCOM profile, post comments in forums, check out the latest SOCOM news, read the SOCOM blog and schedule matches via the community calendar. That long list also includes, and all of that doesn't include the team tournaments, clan ladder and player progression, which tracks your SOCOM history and displays stats, position on leaderboards, medals won and rank. You could spend numerous hours tweaking your character and interacting with the community.
From there, you'll choose join one of five special forces to join, such as the German KSK and the United Kingdom's SAS. Each has unique attire and weapons, which should encourage you to sample each of them.
In the field, you'll enjoy multiplayer matches for 16-32 players, set in seven maps that take place in North Africa. Each features day and night environments and scale depending on the number of players involved. Kasbah (working title, and smallest map) is a fortress with a huge temple and plenty of chokepoints. It also features the ability to detonate some of its towers, causing terrain deformation that cuts off previously reachable areas, and likely creates new places to explore. Quarantine, on the other hand, is the game's water map, a symmetrically designed environment that gives neither team an advantage, with color- coded locations that inform you where the enemy will come from. Furthermore, you can go for a swim and discover hidden areas and shortcuts.
SOCOM's biggest addition is the lean system, which works in conjunction with the SIXAXIS and DualShock 3's motion sensitive technology. Tilting the controller left or right causes your character to lean in that direction, while quickly bringing it down instructs them to crouch. It's a neat feature that takes the place of traditional cover mechanics, where a character snaps against a wall, and it works well. That said, we had some trouble leaning and keeping our aim, but we think it's just a matter of getting used to it.
As for the shooting, Confrontation's developers have done a good job immersing you in adrenaline charged firefights. Thanks to the game's bullet penetration system, you can shoot people through some walls and other structures, and or you can also take them out by blowing up cars --, so we don't recommend taking cover behind one unless you're stuck.
In the end, That said, this is definitely a SOCOM game., a A slow moving and methodical shooter that encourages team play to survive. It is not Call of Duty 4, and fans of Activision's fast-paced first person shooter may have trouble adjusting to Confrontation's methodical pace. Soldiers don't reload with lightning quickness, nor do they walk like they're on speed. If you run out of ammo, you should either attempt to knife your opponent or back peddle and find cover until you're ready to go.
All of this combines to form an intense shooter with plenty of strategy, though Sony still has tons of work remaining. We played an early build riddled with issues, such as players teleporting around the maps, character models that didn't sport as much detail as we'd like and poor draw distances. Even worse, several games crashed, so it's obvious that Confrontation has some stability issues.
Thus far, however, the game plays well and SOCOM fans should enjoy what is has to offer, especially with the bundled Bluet Tooth headset, which will let them easily communicate and plan strategies with their clans. Although we didn't get to use it, the nifty little device has a mute button, audio recording capability and is backward compatible with other PS3 online games. In fact, Sony likes it so much that it plans to make it the PlayStation 3's official headset.
It's still early, but SOCOM Confrontation looks like a welcome addition to the PS3 library. Sony's dedication to authenticity, combined with input from U.S. Navy Seals, should make this one of the system's best shooters. Whether it'll sell systems, though, remains to be seen. On the flip side, SOCOM has a rabid fan base, and they'll most likely pour over the impressive community features and punishing combat.
Reader Comments (0)