SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs Hands-On Preview

One of the most anticipated games for the PlayStation 2 being released this holiday season is SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs, Sony and Zipper Interactive's follow-up to last year's superb online action game for the PlayStation 2. While only a year has passed since the first game's release, the development team at Zipper Interactive has been hard at work to ensure that there is enough new content in SOCOM II to call the game a full-fledged sequel. After playing the single-player portion of the game extensively, we're happy to report that this most certainly looks to be the case.

For those who missed out on the excitement surrounding the release of the original game, SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs was the first game to deliver on the PlayStation 2's promise of providing online tactical competition that rivaled the experience PC players had enjoyed for years with games like Counter-Strike. The original packaging for SOCOM was a cool oversized box that contained the game as well as a USB headset that you could use for speaking with opponents online and for issuing verbal orders to your virtual teammates when playing the game's single-player mode. Needless to say, there was no doubt that SOCOM was an extremely ambitious game for the PlayStation 2. The only negative aspect of the first SOCOM was that the online mode turned out to be susceptible to cheat devices, which of course spoiled the online competition for many players. Addressing this cheating issue is just one of the things that the team at Zipper Interactive hopes to do with SOCOM II, which looks to be all the first game was, and lots more.

To begin with, you have a choice of online competition, LAN play, or the game's single-player campaign. The online mode lets you play with up to 15 opponents online via the PlayStation 2's network adapter. This time around you'll be able to play the game online only if you have a broadband connection, but if you don't, the LAN play option lets you connect up to 16 PlayStation 2s together for multiplayer action. The mission types included in the game's multiplayer mode allow you and up to eight teammates to take on an opposing team in five game types including demolition, extraction, suppression, and two new types: breach and escort. As the names of the game types imply, the multiplayer goals include hostage rescue missions that task the SEALs with trying to rescue hostages being held by the terrorists, planting explosives at a specific location, and simply eliminating all of the members of the opposing team. These game types set up goals for the two teams to try to accomplish during a round of play. The round ends when one team completes the goal, when both teams fail to do so before the time limit is reached, or when all of the members of one team have been eliminated. The team with the most victories at the end of the designated number of rounds to be played wins. Included in the game are 12 new multiplayer maps in addition to updated versions of the 10 original multiplayer maps that were included in the original SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs.

If multiplayer isn't your style, SOCOM II does include an all-new single-player campaign that features 12 new missions that take place all over the world in both rural and urban settings in locations like Algeria, Albania, Brazil, and Russia. In the single-player game, not only do you take out bad guys as you roam the countryside completing objectives, but you also lead a four-man SEAL team to help you do so. You can command the team to perform various actions, including planting explosives, clearing rooms, and moving to locations independently. You can issue orders using an onscreen command system that's structured in the style of "who, what, and where." If the onscreen menu cramps your style, you can use the USB headset to issue the orders verbally, as in the original game. Your team is, of course, equipped with the most technologically advanced weaponry available, including M4A1s and MP5s, as well as handguns and sniper rifles. Probably one of the most exciting things about SOCOM II for fans of the original game is all of the new weapons that have been added. In all, there are more than 15 new weapons, including new handguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns, submachine guns, machine guns, grenades, and, of course, RPGs.

Other gadgets are included in the game, like antipersonnel mines and laser designators that let you target an object or structure for an air strike. New this time around is the addition of stationary gun emplacements that you can commandeer and use against enemy troops. All of the weapons in SOCOM II have been realistically modeled after their real-world counterparts, as was the case in the first game. This means that the recoil and accuracy of each of the in-game weapons are as true to life as possible and that such actions as firing while running will throw your accuracy way off. To make sure that these weapon physics and everything else in the game are authentic, Zipper Interactive enlisted the Naval Special Warfare Command to check over the mission design and gameplay.

The gameplay in SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs feels very similar to that found in the original and is a unique mix of action and stealth. Basically, the mix of action and stealth is what you make of it, meaning that if you can handle the action and you're good enough, you can often get away with going Rambo on the lower difficulty settings. Ultimately, though, it's all about crouching and even crawling into enemy camps, taking out guards with silenced weapons, grabbing or eliminating who you came for, and making your way to the extraction point. The first level in SOCOM II U.S. Navy SEALs tasks you and your team with blowing up a small weapons cache in a village. Infiltrating the area is easy if you go slow and don't let the guards become aware of your presence. Later in the game, you and your team find your way to an industrial factory where you must recover evidence like a digital camera and terrorist training video, plus take out everyone there.

Visually, SOCOM II U.S. Navy SEALs is an improvement over the original game. New models have been added for the SEALs and enemies to make them look even more realistic than they did before. The faces of the SEAL team look especially impressive and almost appear photo-realistic when you get a good look at them. The animations for the SEALs have also seen some additions, which makes them look a bit more natural when they move. Also helping to make the game look better, for those with televisions that can take advantage of it, is the addition of progressive-scan video output support.

In the audio department, SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs has seen some technical enhancements to its Dolby Surround Pro Logic II support, and the game sounds quite good. The game also has a new dynamic soundtrack performed by the Norwest Sinfonia Orchestra. For the voice work in SOCOM II, the designers have already recorded more than 10,000 lines of dialogue, most notably featuring the voice of actor Michael Clarke Duncan, who appeared in the films Armageddon and The Green Mile.

Based on what we've played so far, SOCOM II U.S. Navy SEALs is shaping up to be a more-than-worthy follow-up to one of the most innovative games released last year. The graphics are impressive, and the gameplay seems to be deeper and more challenging. We'll have to wait to see how the final game turns out and how the multiplayer performs, but it's safe to say that fans of the original SOCOM should definitely be excited for SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs.