SOCOM 3: U.S. Navy SEALs
Better online, better offline, just plain better.
Published: November 18, 2005
Despite this, though, the overall look and polish of the game helps the missions feel more interesting – so much so that your men are staring at all the purdy effects or something. The increased map size and streaming that the developers implemented means entire villages can be navigated before charging out into the open on the way to the next patch of buildings, and all if it smoothly textured and with a fantastic framerate for the most part.
You probably won’t take stock of things like draw distance or model details after a few missions, but they’re certainly competent, particularly the former, and the animations in place, for what little they are most of the time, certainly don’t look bad. Even enemy death animations are fairly varied.
The audio, however, is simply amazing. I can’t recall a game that had such throaty, high-fidelity effects in place, and the continued adherence to using the native foreign dialects for enemies and the general quips from your squads are a blast to hear. Because firefights happen in intermittent bursts, it’s nice to hear some of the ambient effects hold up so nicely.
James Michael Dooley’s score instantly recalls movies like The Rock, and I’m sure that was the intent. It’s brassy, high-energy notes reach for each other with long crescendos and pumping percussion backbones. I know it’s a little much to donate so much space to even commenting on something that’s more or less cookie-cutter action movie stuff, but it really is good, and it helps set the tone of the game very, very nicely.
SOCOM 3 fixes a lot of things with single-player missions that feel fuller and more interesting and multiplayer matches that, while still stilted towards the die-hard players of the series, offers some modes where it’s possible to get your feet wet without having them shot right off six seconds into the match. You’ll still have to deal with the same complete douchebags online that love to vent because daddy won’t play catch with them, but at least you can have a little fun while you do it.
Having the AI take a nosedive and the voice recognition seemingly crap out after two games where it was a hallmark of the development team’s technical achievements seems incredibly bizarre. I can only assume the whole attempt to streamline things meant something go broken in the process, but it’s really broken, and it sucks a lot of the fun out of what would have been the best game in the series.
When it’s good, though, it’s still very, very good, and there are more instances, both online and off, where the game feels as close to what the developers have tried to deliver as the series has ever been. Just watch out for those kids online, man, and weep silently as we do at the fact that they are the future of this country.
