A must buy for anyone with a PS2 and online capabilities.
User Rating: 9 | SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs PS2
Great games come along every so often, and leave a mark in gaming history, remembered forever. Let's face it, we all played our fair share of remarkable games, or at least they seemed so at the time. Pong, Pac-man, or more recently, Metal Gear Solid. And now that the new gaming generation has come and the next one is already forcing it's way in it's $500 price tags, I can safely say SOCOM has left it's mark in this generation. With spine-tingling stealth action in single player and an online mode which has shaped today's idea of a good online game, SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs is a must buy for anyone with a PS2 and online capabilities. Before I do begin, methinks it's best that you know SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs was only in development for a little over a year. Therefore, the developers (Zipper Interactive Inc.) looked at this as more of an "expansion" on the original, rather than a stand alone or squeal. Of course the one year things not to say it's a bad game, but rather to warn you not to expect anything too revolutionary out of this game. Basically, SOCOM II is SOCOM dipped in a few extra coats of polish, on top of the original coats. But hey, if the HTML works, just change the CSS. That's basically what happened, new levels, new missions, not much else. But as for more detail... Gameplay: 8/10(Overall) For almost any game, you can divide it in to two parts; Online and Offline. This is also to say that they are usually two very different modes, almost different games. This case is just about brought to an extreme in SOCOM. Low profile stealth action in single player and online is like GTA; it's what you make it. You can easily turn it in to a run and gun, or a military and tactical style game. Both are found online, although it never gets as run and gunish as Halo or other games can be. For the reason of diversity, I've divided gameplay in to online and offline. Online: 9/10 The online for this game deserves special recognition. It is, after all, considered by more than the masses to be the very best PS2 online game out there, and even now, almost 1 1/2 years after it's release, there are still 30,000+ people playing SOCOM online (And if you have played other online games, some barely even have 1,000, such as Killzone). And as a fair warning, it is extremely addicting. What makes SOCOM II's online portion so special is the pure amount of interaction between players. As you probably know, many online games for the PS2 now have headset capabilities, SOCOM is no exception. In fact, thanks to Zipper's wonderful idea to release the orignial game in a special headset and game package, (literally) more than 90% players have a headset online. This of course allows an awfully large amount of teamwork to occur, nothing too tactical, but just talking to other players drags you in. With the huge mass of players online your bound to find someone you like. Then, the friends list comes in. The friends list and clans are what make SOCOM tick. A clan, in case you haven't played an online game, is basically a team or group of players you regularly play with. Of course, the big addition is you can actually find players now, unlike SOCOM's mediocre system of only being able to see if someone is on or not. The clan leader has many options, posting clan news, sending invite, kicking people out, ect. And as for the friends list, it basically like a clan except without all the fancy news features which wouldn't even make sense to be on a friends list,a dn the biggest difference which is that you can be on more than one person's list. Another great feature; The ranking system. It's hard to believe some games don't even have a ranking system. SOCOM has almost perfected it. There are two kinds of ranks, a numerical ranking, which ranks you in order out of all the players, and a medal ranking, which groups you in to 5 groups (Ensign, Lt. Commander, ect.). This is a much more general form of ranking, the worst players are Ensigns, whereas the top few percent are Captains and Admirals. These ranks also allow rooms to be restricted to certain ranks. You can, of course, join rooms that are open to everyone as well. The stats are also better, you can view a player's accuracy, kills, deaths, rounds won, bomb planted, and a bunch of other statistics. You could write many pages describing some of SOCOM's other online features, such as customizable taunts, or downloadable content, but just trust me, there are a lot of community features included in SOCOM II, describing them all would qualify this as FAQ, not a review, don't ya think? Anyway, there are many other more minor options online. While making a room, you could restrict it to Sniper Rifles only or make a resprawn, as opposed to those lengthly rounds of Shadow Falls. Don't want 11 rounds? Chop it down to 7 or even 3, 1 if your feeling anxious to finish a game. While were speaking of maps and rooms and such, there are 12 new maps on top of the original SOCOM's 10, making for a total of 22 maps. Thankfully, we now have some Urban maps such as in Crossroads, and wide open Sniping maps like Foxhunt. The returning veterans have underwent some minor changes such as more brush (Yay!), and the addition of an extra tunnel in Frostfire. Don't worry about your favorite map getting ruined, there basically the same thing, except with more cover added. Along with the new maps...new game modes. The original Extraction (Save the hostages), Demolition (Plant the bomb in the enemy's base), and Surpression (Team Deathmatch) are included, but Breach (SEALs have to plant the bomb in the Terrorist's base) and Escort (SEALs have to escort 3 VIPs to an extraction point, Terrorists have to kill them) were added. New weapons help each team achieve there objective. There 16 players allowed in each room, yet it still manages to lag like hell, even if are not 32 instead of 16 players. But that's only on some maps, maybe about 40% of them, such as Fishhook where you'll notice some big slowdown. You can cure all this by reducing the number of players or removing bomb, thus reducing all those grenades which have some devastating effects on frame rate if used excessively. All this action and 16 players puts some strain on the connections of players, so unfortunately, it's Broadband Internet Connection only. SOCOM's other dark pastime besides lag was glitching and cheating. Compared to SOCOM, SOCOM II is heaven. The cheaters in SOCOM are now virtually eliminated with addition of DNAS which detects any cheating devices before they can get online. It's worked 100% of the time for almost 2 years, so cheaters are out of the picture. The lesser of the two evils, glitchers, are still around, but not nearly as numerous as before. With all the different features like jumping and claymores, there are bound to be a few holes in the system, but Zipper hasn't let us down yet! There were already a few patches that just demolished glitches. More keep coming up, but 96.3333% of the rooms you go in to will be glitcher free. So that's the online mode for ya. A little thing I like to call Socaine. It's just that; addictive. If you can get over the lag, which mostly everyone can, SOCOM is perhaps, the closest you can get to being perfect online, for the PS2. A must buy. Offline: 6.5/10 Offline is liked much less by the SOCOM community, mostly because it seems so medicore compared to online, and because of the insane difficulty. Playing the first level is just as hard as the last level. Of course, that's how it is in real life. I personally had no problems after the first 3 hours. Yes, I spent 3 hours on the first mission, on the easiest difficulty. After a few days of practice though, I was cruising though missions in a half an hour. The first few missions might take a while, but after that you'll finish up the rest in a couple days, maybe even a day. It's clear they spent the most effort on the online portion. The multiple difficulties do give some more challenge, but it's basically the same thing, but with better AI for the enemies. While were on the subject of AI, your teammates, Jester, Vandal and Wardog, have decent AI. Compared to the days of SOCOM one when Boomer decided to try to shoot through walls. What makes these men seem so smart is that you can order them around. An array of commands, from "Fire at Will" to "Stealth to..." allow you command your team just as a real SEAL commander would. Before a mission, you have to prepare yourself. Your general preparing routine consists of an overview of the mission, objectives, looking at/reading intel (If any) and then getting the boys ready. For each SEAL you can choose his weapons and equipment before you deploy in to the combat area. Once in the mission your objectives can range from defusing bombs to assassinating an enemy leader. There are also bonus objectives which aren't listed and you have to find them yourself. It usually carries over to the next mission, meaning if you find a map, it would be listed in the intel section of the next mission, or if you found blueprints of a bomb you would be able to defuse it faster if you were to run in to it during the upcoming mission. All your stats, civilians killed, teammates wounded, are recorded in to a career statistics display. This allows you review your progress and simliar things. Unfortunately, besides some interesting missions, single player is pretty dull and barren, good luck next time Zipper. Graphics: 9/10 There good, but not great. Some games out there...are better...and some worse. But trust me, there liveable. Smooth textures, eyes blink, overall good. Don't expect Metal Gear, graphics wise. And it's a small step below Killzone as well. They're just about as good as they can get without having major slowdowns though. You could hide from an enemy using your camoflauge, but you still stick out a little (To a real player online, the AI is programmed to not see you if you hide yourself well enough). You'll just have to find certian spots where it is hard to see you. Glitches come along occasionally, nothing that effects gameplay though. When crawling you character's leg will get buried in the ground halfway, and you can reach out and open a door without actually touching it. But glitches like these hardly subtract from gameplay. No worries at all. The only thing that could make the graphics better would be rag doll physics. That might be a gameplay thing though, I don't know. It be nice if wasn't for how awful they look if done wrong. Sound: 9/10 Woot! Fully orchestrated music! Recorded straight from Zipper Studios, or maybe Sony... Either way, it sounds nice and quality is magnificent. I can't believe people turn the music off on this game. Tracks range from the main theme to victory music and suspense music for when your crawling in the mud, avoiding an enemy patrol. The default music level is a little loud though, you may want to tune it down in the options menu. It just sets the mood perfectly and it's pretty catchy too. It won't get old too quickly. Voice acting is also great in this game. In my opinion, much much better than SOCOM's voices. I found Kahuna, Boomer and Miss HQ lady in SOCOM I a bit annoying. Playing SOCOM II, I don't know how I could stand it. Realistic, with emotion too. The enemy's voices are also clear and they even speak in their native language. This helps you immerse yourself in the SOCOM universe quite a bit. The guns sounds are unique and sharp. Players how really pay attention online could tell what gun is what just by it's own unique sound. The reloading riffs are also quite cool sounding and metallic sounding. Whether it's the pitter patter of a silenced weapon or the roar of a machine gun, the sound of these guns never ceases to amaze me. Controls/Other Coding: 9/10 Controls in this game seem natural. Unfortunately, you can't customize completely for each weapon, but there are 5 pre-sets. Five! You have the ever growing R1 to shoot pre-set and the traditional X to fire pre-set, left analog move, right analog aim. The others one's are slightly altered versions of the previous 2, designed for leftys and other stranger people who like to talk with the L2 button. There a few glitches in this game as mentioned before. Sadly, some of them you can actually do on purpose. Sometimes server lag will cause you to go in to the ground while sliding down a ladder (This happens rarely, but still happens), or the fact that you can't turn while prone up against a wall (a bit unrealistic). Overall, the game isn't plagued with glitches, but there are a few. Replay Value: 9/10 There are things to unlock, but each time you play a mission, it's has the virtually has the same objectives each time, and the same number of enemies, only smarter. There are bonus objectives, but only two or less on each level. Sometimes none. What saves the game in replay is are the unlockables. These have a fairly good range, from music to skins (For online use only). Each difficulty played unlocks a few more things. There's a few documentaries on the game and some weapons. The best part of all is how you can use some for these items online, like the skins (Well, actually, that's all you can unlock for online). Overall: 9/10 You have to get his game. Even if it's only for single player it's rent. It was well worth the $50, but now that it's a greatest hit it's only $20! So now, there is no possibility, what-so-ever, that you can get ripped off. Buy it! Now! 
