SOCOM: Confrontation

Reviewed by:
Gerasimos Manolatos

Price: $59.99 (game and bluetooth headset), $39.99 (stand alone game)

The Skinny: Despite the past seven years of relative calm in the U.S., terrorism has been at an all-time high on video game consoles. Gear up for another go at the evildoers.

The Good: With Call of Duty 4 dominating the wartime shooters market, there are a lot of things on SOCOM: Confrontation that might warrant at least a peek. In fact, there probably isn't a tactical team-based shooter out there that's more realistic than SOCOM. You start off at a player customization screen that gives you a wide variety of options to trick out your online avatar and then it's off to war. The game is a slower-paced experience, so you'd best learn how to really maneuver yourself around a battlefield. For example, running out into the open, while maybe a better tactic in other games, will get you sniped or shot at quite easily. To that extent, you'll be able to lean around corners and duck underneath rubble with the use of the PS3's SIXAXIS motion controls.

The Bad: We were expecting a lot from the sequel to the popular PS2 title, but this one just falls flat overall. It took about 20 minutes from us inserting the game into the console to get into "the shit"—there's a lengthy install and a patch update (already?) that you'll need to get through before playing. The actual gameplay was underwhelming, as well—there was a lot of walking, running, looking, and nothing going on. (One online associate even shouted into his headset: "Where is everyone?") Also, this is a multiplayer-only game and, while the PlayStation Network is free to play on, you're going to have to endure being shot repeatedly by five-year veterans of the series.

More Green For Blue: Our experience with the official PlayStation bluetooh headset was a good one—for 20 extra dollars, it's worth it.

Buy, Rent, or Disembowel? Rent this and hope Sony comes through with patches to fix up some of the sloppiness.