SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 2
It's official, folks, the PSP version of SOCOM is now officially the better offering.
Published: December 18, 2006
Single-player is all well and good, of course, but SOCOM has been, since its inception, a game that effectively carried Sony's fledgling online network, and it's really no different with the PSP's Infrastructure play. 16 players can go at it across a dozen maps and more than a half-dozen game types, including the all-new Tug-of-War (think capture and hold nodes), Intel Grab (capture-the-flag) and Target (king of the hill). More gameplay types are cool, but I'm still in love with Fireteam Bravo's freeze tag-like Captive option more than any new (or, uh old with new name) modes that were added.
It's one thing to have visuals that look like they came straight out of 2003 when it's on the PS2. It's quite another when it's being pumped out of the PSP. While FB2 is by no means a looker (I said it before and I'll say it again: SOCOM is a pretty fugly game for the most part), the muted colors and stiff animation actually don't feel nearly as bad on the PSP. Whether this is placebo or more actual work on the PSP version of the game I don't know, but regardless, FB2 looks solid. The framerate isn't nearly as good when you get more enemies on screen, and the texture work and modeling for enemies is obviously going to be a bit on the modest side, but overall it's a fairly impressive looking game when things like great draw distance and massive map sizes come into play.
Likewise, the audio manages to be eyebrow raisingly good. It's not so much that it does anything particularly well, but the sheer amount of radio chatter, quips from locals and enemies alike, and the aural bravado from James Dooley and Justin Burnett (who actually contributed to The Rock and Metal Gear Solid 3, IMDB tells me) is great stuff, if a little on the sparse side. Explosions, the staccato report of automatic gunfire and even some nice footfalls all make for some solid stuff to let your ears dig into so long as you're listening though headphones; a lot of it is lost just coming out of the PSP's speakers.
Thanks to tighter AI, newer online play, and a portable experience that handily apes that of the more established console cousin, Fireteam Bravo 2 ends up being the better of the two SOCOM games released recently. It's not perfect, and there is still room to improve things, but as a portable version of the addiction that Zipper Interactive created, it makes for a fantastic reason to pick up a PSP.
