As you may have heard, the PlayStation Network has been hacked. Not only has this been a security scare for folks who have registered their credit cards with the service, which lets PlayStation 3 owners play games online for free, the timing has been terrible. The system shut down just as the premier multiplayer action franchise had a new entry hitting stores, leaving Xbox loyalists everywhere cracking, “Without the PSN, it’s more ‘so calm’ than ‘SOCOM.’ ” Clever as they may be, they’re also wrong. “SOCOM,” usually the sole domain of dudes in dorm rooms shouting words like “flank” and “bogey” into headsets, makes its first real foray into the single-player world with “SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs.” This greater emphasis on accessilbity has, predictably, had Sony loyalists worried that their symphony of strategy would be dumbed down into just another run-and-gun “Call of Duty” clone. Right as they may be to fret that disastrous eventuality, they’re wrong too.
“SOCOM” fans champing at the bit for the PSN to come back online are in for a surprise. The 10-hour single-player campaign, fought in a majestically rendered Malaysia (the game’s developers didn’t learn the lesson of “Zoolander,” which got in trouble for mentioning this country by name), keeps the tactics alive. This is thanks to a sophisticated team system that, borrowing from the overlooked classic “Freedom Fighters,” lets you easily command teammates to attack targets, hold their position, defend an area and more, by simply aiming at a person or place and hitting a button. There is, however, one twist: the execute command. With this, you can give a bunch of orders to different people all at once, but they won’t execute those orders until you’re completely ready. This builds a wall of separation between the planning and fighting phases of each little skirmish, so you’re not too busy micromanaging your cohorts to get a few shots in yourself.
If only the single-player mode weren’t also so obsessive about constantly interrupting the natural flow of the game to travel to waypoints, some laughably close to one another. The game holds your hand so tight, sometimes even giving sophisticated commands feels like you’re the one following orders.
| ‘SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs’ |
| » System: PS3 |
| » Price: $59.99 |
| » Rating: 3 out of 5 stars |
The heart of the game, then, remains multiplayer, and if you have a few friends willing to buy their own copy of the game alongside yours, the five-player cooperative missions and 32-player firefights are an unmitigated blast.
“SOCOM 4” will please the headset crowd for a long, long time, but if the developers had had the courage to match their brilliant command system with the tactical, ahem, freedom of “Freedom Fighters,” they’d have something truly special on their hands.
