One of the Best reasons to buy the Network Adaptor, Socom II improves upon the addictive simplicity of its predecessor
User Rating: 8.3 | SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs PS2
After the runaway success of SOCOM, there was a lot of back and forth on its obvious sequel. Would it be a true sequel, with new maps, mechanics, storyline, etc. or just an expansion pack of sorts, with a couple bug fixes for existing maps and a bunch o new ones? It turned out to be both, which was for the most part a very good thing. A lengthy new Single Player storyline was fleshed out for those poor saps without the Network Adaptor. The action is rather linear and not incredibly exciting, but Zipper pulled out the stops, scripting in-character yet goofy foreign-language audio cuts that highlight the stealth aspects of the game and improving AI voice commands. Michael Clark Duncan also shows up as one of the new SEAL team member voices, though his is one of the less annoying AI's that will squeal in your headset when shot or blowed up. The Single Player campaign can be a bit frustrating, but will yield unlockable player skins for Multiplayer, and is a great introduction for beginners before they jump into an unforgiving Multiplayer game. The real attraction here is the Multiplayer, which boasts a ton of new features (vs. SOCOM). New maps and updated, debugged versions of old maps provide ample opportunity to kill folks in a variety of settings, familiar and otherwise. New guns, including RPGs and AT-4 shoulder-fired rockets are a great touch. Turret placements are better on paper, an easy target for RPGs and thermal-scoped sniper rifles. In general, the weapons have less power than those of SOCOM, so aim has a higher premium. Other new features include improved voice chat, which now identifies the idiots screaming into your earpiece, a better leaderboard, clan stats, LAN options (also better on paper than in practice), blah blah blah. And did I mention that there is no additional charge to use the Sony servers? One other new feature that aims to make Sony a bit more money while reducing cheats is the copy-protection software installed on all online-capable PS2 games post-EQ Online Adventures. So now you can't use gameshark to load up a pirated copy of the game, but you can't use gameshark to run through walls and slaughterfy the entire map with a rapid-fire sniper rifle either. In a nutshell, SOCOM II is a worthy successor to SOCOM, and has some great features. It's a no-brainer for PS2 fans, though you can expect to take some heat from your XBOX buddies about the graphics. But what else is new. 
