A jewel in the PSPs crown, a definite recomendation for any PSP owner!! If you dont have it, you MUST BUY IT!!
The game play is surprisingly smooth. You can easily see what is happening on the screen. The Graphics are easily some of the best for a PSP game i've seen and as good as some for the PS2!! And what takes me aback the most, is the internet play, which doesnt slow down your game accept about a 10 second loading time inbetween rounds!!
Compared to even the bigger brother game, this game still runs beautifully. You have only one partner in this game, codenamed Lonestar, and even though that gives you less tactical advantages, I still think that its a good improvement. This is a tactical shooter game, and therefor tactics are obviously key to playing. Your partner, though he aint to 'smart' at times and you obviously cant send him halfway accross the map to a waypoint, he still gets the job done if you order "Kill Target". The enemy AI isnt the best, because on the easy mode they will walk out, look around, yell about you being there, then finally shoot you. This makes it alittle less challenging, but you cant expect perfection in the first PSP Socom game.
Of course the main reason that someone will mostlikely get this game, Infrastructure Mode Internet gaming!! This is possibly the best part of the game!! To access this you have to download a small file (quickly) accept a user agreement, and your in. You join a region of the world that you want to play with, and pick a game to join. Depending on game type, and your timing, you may have to wait to join a game if its already in progress, you may have to wait a short period of time to be spawned into play. Once into a game you can simply sit and play, without pestering loading times. The mic is a great addition allowing players to take turns speaking by pressing a button, and usualy the speach is understandable, even halfway accross the world!! Take it from me, I got so into playing online, i forgot to check my battery life level, twice now i was disconnected cause of this, but its easily remedied. Great stuff.
This game has good sound, maybe not the best though. The guns have an assorted set of sounds, and when something blows you up, you get that ringing noise courtousy of the game. When your playing online, you take it for granted everyone will use different guns, so you got a huge variaty of sounds giving nice battlefield FX. This is great cause it realy brings you into the game, like good FX always do. Unfortunatly i cant say the same about the campaign mode, because you seriously arent supposed to run crazy all the time. It is a sneaking game, or supposed to be. This doesnt mean you cant have fun running around high, killing everything!! This is a quick way to win a level, and its rather effective to.
This game has an almost infinite amount of replay value, and it has alot of fun to be found. The game is very effective at being portable and home based. Like most internet games, it has endless replay just from the online, becuase every game is different. On the go, this game still has great replay value. Each of the campaign missions can be replayed at anytime, and an instant action mode is also there, which basically means it uses a map that you have unlock, and adds enemies to the game based on the style of game you choose (stealth, action, hostedge, objective, and combinations of these). this game becomes perfectly portable because of the convenient Sleep Mode of the PSP so you can simply leave it in the middle of a level, and come back later.
This game is great, any true gamer should recomend this game. So do the courtosy of atleast renting it for awhile. As i say these words, the become your will "BUY THE GAME, PLAY THE GAME, TELL PEOPLE ABOUT THE GAME!!!"