As I mentioned in a previous post I have now got my PS2 online. Although I really have other things I should be doing I bought SOCOM II on Saturday. SOCOM comes with a headset that consists of a speaker and microphone so that you can shout voice commands to your teammates in the game. I thought that it would have trouble with voice recognition as you don’t have to configure it but it copes very well and I’ve yet to have the troops misunderstand an order. It’s not the sort of game that I would usually play but the gadget factor and the idea of online play persuaded me to try it.

I found it quite a hard game, partly due to the control system and partly due to the style of gameplay. My only previous experience of stealth games were Metal Gear Solid II which I thought was fantastic, Metal Gear Solid which I’ve not played much of and the demo of Splinter Cell which I hated. The game places you as the captain of a squad of four men, you carry out various missions against terrorist groups. They generally tend to be of the infiltrate and secure variety and they are good fun. I still get a kick out of picking off enemies from an unseen vantage point with my trusty sniper rifle.

The online side of the game seems fairly flawless to me. You choose a server and you can see a list of all the games that are in progress. Then you choose a game and decide wether you want to join as a player or spectator. During the game you press and hold square to speak to your teammates. It works just like a push-to-talk radio which in my mind adds to the immersive element of the game. I look forward to having time to play it some more so I can survive more than five minutes online.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 16th, 2004 at 8:47 pm and is filed under Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.