User Rating: 9.7 | SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs PS2
By bellz666 | Review Date:
Well we waited and here it is. Socom II has been released and the hype has been satisfied. Now, I'm not into stealth combat games so I cannot review the single player campaign as I have yet to even begin it, but we all know that this game is about the multi-player aspect. If you played the first game online, you are familiar with the excitement of seeking out and killing either terrorists or SEALs depending on the side you've chosen. Now the exact same thing has been recreated, and vastly improved upon. The new maps are phenomenally detailed. They are larger and have a ton of new features. Fortresses that need to be breached via c4 explosives, gun turrets to take out enemies, thermal sites in the maps that are dark and so forth. The new maps are plainly HUGE. I've noticed a lot more draws on the new maps, as there are just so many places to hide. If you don't believe me, spend a set of rounds on "Shadow Falls". The new maps feature tons of ground foliage to hide in, abandoned buildings, the new turrets. All of this hiding leads to a heart pounding time as you lie in wait, praying that your enemy will show up and get his chest blown up. The old maps have been upgraded as well, and whereas I haven't yet played them all on II, I've seen enough to know that they look good and have some new changes, such as all the tunnels being connected on "Frostfire" and "Rat's Nest" being changed to a nighttime map, which makes it look much cooler. Speaking of the enemy, it does take a bit more to kill them. In SOCOM I a simple 2-4 shots would leave a dead body before you, whereas now it takes 4-6 shots to down the opposition. This is a double edged sword. You take more hits so you can survive a bit longer, but so does your opponent, so make sure you have red crosshairs for quite a few seconds, or you're cycling through teammates for the next 4 minutes. The online menu has been expanded as well. A friends list makes it so easy to find the people you love to play with, just check your list and find the room they're in. If theres a slot, jump in. If not, join as a spectator and wait for one to open. The rankings have also undergon a dramatic change. No longer do you guess how you did and who is the MVP. The game keeps a score for everything done. 6 points for surviving a winning round, 5 if you died but your team won the round. 5 points for being the player whom plants the bomb or frees the hostage, 2 points for a kill and -2 for suicides.....so dont fall of cliffs or throw grenades into the wall that land at your feet. Of course, I do it all the time. All of this score keeping determines the MVP of the round. Very simply, most points equals MVP. It also cuts down on the MVP coming from the losing team as they dont get the same points for winning rounds. Speaking of cutting down on things, the cheater factor is supposedly eliminated. I have logged approximately 8 hours online, and have yet to see anything constituted as cheating, and after playing SOCOM one for 8 months, one can tell what that consists of. We'll see how it unfold as more and more people purchase the game in the coming weeks. Overall, I love this game. I loved the first one, and the improvements are top notch. It truly seems that Zipper was listening when fans requested things to be done right.

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