Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

100 or More Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Broken"

Upon initial inspection this game had me at awe. The first aspects of the game that really drew me in were the sights and sounds. The graphics in the game are the best you will see in a shooter game right now. The sounds - just plain amazing. The battle sounds heard across the map make you feel like you're really experiencing the warfare. The second awesome aspect of this game is the extreme customization there is. There's probably seven or eight scopes to choose from, ranging from x1 zoom to a x12 zoom. You can also put attachments like grenade launchers, front grips, lasers, suppressors, you name it. Character customization is crucial in this game. You can either sacrifice speed in order to take a myriad of bullets by wearing heavy armor, or you can sacrifice all armor to become a super fast super-soldier that allows you to get to all the good spots first - or you can find a balance in the middle. Team-work is the final aspect of this game that I enjoyed. There's no "lone-wolfing" in Socom like there is in Call of Duty. If one person goes up against three, 9 times out of 10 the 1 person will lose that duel. Cooperation and tactical movement is required in this game.

Now that all the good stuff is out of the way, there is a single thing that dashes it all to pieces. The server, quite frankly, is easily the worst I have ever seen. You will constantly find yourself being killed in what you see as one or two shots (frequently through walls or around corners), people will be skipping around the map, making it impossible for you to shoot them, but they still can shoot you. You'll find yourself being dropped by invisible foes and you'll find yourself pumping another player full of lead and they'll still charge on to kill you. Complete neglect of the server is the ultimate downfall to this potentially incredible game. Despite various patches, the game play is still very laggy and riddled with bugs. And with the upcoming Socom 4, I see no hopes for the server being fixed, because all attention will be focused on Socom 4 instead of the much better Confrontation.