SOCOM 3: U.S. Navy SEALs E3 2005 Hands-On Report

The first two games in Zipper Interactive's SOCOM series have been insanely popular, mostly due to their fantastic online play for up to 16 players. This year, Zipper and Sony will release a third game in the line, and as you might expect, the third game is bigger, offering more options and lots of interesting enhancements.

Some of the big new ideas for SOCOM 3 are common-sense enhancements that really do appear to make the gameplay deeper and more varied. You'll be able to swim in SOCOM 3, which opens up a lot of stealthy water routes. You can submerge underwater for periods of time to avoid detection by nearby enemy patrols, too. The game will have a handful of different vehicles, including fast-moving assault trucks and armed boats. Each vehicle will have multiple mounting points, so you can enter as a driver or just pop right to one of the turret spots and start taking care of business. You'll find turreted positions that contain miniguns, grenade launchers, and so on. This makes the vehicles pretty deadly when they're full of troops.

SOCOM 3 will contain around 30 different weapons, including assault rifles, submachine guns, shotguns, pistols, mines, and grenades. Additionally, you can customize many of these weapons with 20 different attachments, which will include supressors, optic systems, and grenade launchers. You'll also be able to employ an air burst grenade launcher, which locks onto a target, then explodes a few feet above it, sending the shrapnel raining down on any enemy foolish enough to duck behind cover.

Teamwork has always been a big part of the SOCOM single-player game, as you're always rolling with three other soldiers. Commanding those troops will be easier this time around thanks to a radial menu. You can also use one button to give specific orders. The breaching system has been enhanced a bit, and now you'll be able to lead a breach yourself, rather than always let your team do the work. Artificial intelligence has been improved on both sides of the gun. Your teammates will react more intelligently to orders, and enemies are much better about not standing out in the open and letting you put holes in their heads. Enemies will be quick to flank you and will attempt to find cover. On top of that, SOCOM 3 allows for more enemies to be active at the same time, so you'll encounter much more resistance from your foes.

With the addition of vehicles, SOCOM 3's maps and missions will be much larger--up to six times larger than the maps typically found in SOCOM 2, in fact. To address the potential problem of wicked-long missions, SOCOM 3 will have in-mission checkpoints. When you reach a checkpoint, you can save your game and heal your troops before continuing on.

The multiplayer is also getting larger--twice as large, since the player count is going from 16 to 32. Again, you'll see vehicles and much larger maps here to accommodate the increased player count, though smaller versions of the maps are available for lower player counts. The SEALs-vs.-terrorists team-based gameplay that the series is famous for is present and accounted for in SOCOM 3, and there will be an additional two gameplay modes. Convoy puts one team in control of a series of vehicles. Weak, unarmed cargo vehicles need to get across the map, and one team will protect the convoy while the other attempts to blow up the cargo carriers. Control mode puts five control points on the map, and it's up to each team to quickly claim all five points. You won't necessarily be battling back and forth in control mode, as both teams can claim the same point. You won't "steal" a point from the enemy by taking one of their points; it's just the first team to get all five. The game will have 12 all-new maps, and seven of these maps include support for vehicles, though you can disable vehicles entirely, if you like.

Another interesting addition to the game is a slew of community features that will bring in a lot of ways for SOCOM players to connect. You'll have an e-mail account, and the game will have built-in message boards. The developers of this game will use this to answer questions about the game, take any reports of bugs or exploits, and conduct polls about things such as new maps. The team is currently looking at ways to include downloadable content for the game (though it wouldn't say whether the game would include support for the little-used PS2 hard drive), and if enough players demand it, the team would likely be able to bring back some of the old maps from SOCOM and SOCOM 2. SOCOM without Desert Glory and Frostfire? Say it isn't so!

The community features also include what sound like some pretty robust clan and ladder features, too. When you register a clan, you'll be able to enter that clan into ladders based on the times that your clan is available to play. So if you're all unemployed, get into the "anytime" ladder. There will be ladders for weekend warriors, and they'll even get as specific as, say, 5:00pm to midnight. Ladders will be added and removed depending on popularity.

SOCOM 3 will "talk" to the PlayStation Portable SOCOM game, Fireteam Bravo. Essentially, there will be bonus goals in SOCOM 3's missions that, when completed, will have an impact on a mission in the PSP game. So, for example, if you clear out a level of enemies, you might encounter less resistance in a mission that takes place in the same area of operation on the PSP.

From a graphics and sound perspective, SOCOM 3 definitely improves on the previous game. The environments look a lot more realistic, with great-looking textures. The game will have support for progressive-scan sets and 16:9 displays, too. On the sound side, expect to hear nicely realistic sounds for vehicles and gunfire. Like the previous games in the series, SOCOM 3 will have Dolby Pro-Logic II support.

SOCOM 3: U.S. Navy SEALs will be released on the PlayStation 2 this fall.