Decent tactical shooter, but sluggish controls and muddy graphics holds back potential.
+ Great headset if you buy the bundle.
+ Character customization
Cons
- Controls sluggish
- Muddy Graphics
- Camera
Controls are arguably what makes or breaks a game.
After spending a couple hours with the latest socom and fiddling around with the various options for controls I still couldn't find a 'comfortable' middle ground. When the game is first loaded and you jump into your first game aiming feels constricted and slow. The addition of motion sensing seemed like a very unique concept, finally us console gamers will be able to peek around corners without first having to attach ourselves to a wall. I found the motion controls to be a bit cumbersome and not intuitive.
I usually favor third person type gaming, because I get a better feel for my surroundings. Although the camera can be manipulated slightly the differences are quite minimal. You can either be directly behind your avatar at a bit of a distance, or on either side at a much closer perspective. During game play it felt as if my character was always in the way. This really took away from my situational awareness drastically. I would often miss someone walking up to me because my guy was blocking my view.
The graphics had to be the second biggest disappointment. Call of duty 4 had amazing graphics and still had solid frame rates. Everything in socom seemed to mush together and characters were difficult to make out. All the textures looked washed out.
One thing I did enjoy was the character customization. Changing your character to be more specialized for tanking or stealth is a really nice option, but alas this isn't a dress-up simulation.
I really wanted to like this game. I have played past socoms and enjoyed them all very much. I don't like run and gun games as much as tactical shooters, but the best shooter right now on the market is cod4 and I was hoping that this game would have replace it.
I would strongly recommend that you rent this title first before purchasing this title. For me I got a really nice 60 dollar headset and a title that I hope to hock off on craigs list very soon.