SOCOM could've been a great shooter, but is ultimately an underwhelming experience.
Before jumping online, you can customize your mercenary or commando to your liking. There are a large variety of options, allowing you to tailor your character to your liking. Head gear ranges from tactical helmets to baclavas, which can be further complimented by different kinds of goggles, shades and war paint. Your actual equipment isn't just for aesthetics either. Different armor is available with different protection and mobility statistics, which allows you to cater to your own style. Night vision goggles aren't just for show either, showing the depth and relevance to choosing your gear. You can save several different presets for your mercenary or commando, which gives you the benefit of creating classes to suit different tactical needs depending on the situation or the map you're playing. There are also many different camouflage patterns for you to choose from.
The selection of weapons and their associated upgrades is equally impressive. Each gun can be fitted with 2 attachments, giving you access to grenade launchers, reflex scopes, sniper scopes and a variety of other options (this includes pistols). Whether you prefer submachine guns, rifles, shotguns or light machine guns, there are a plethora of weapons to choose from. Unfortunately, the differences between weapons are rather subtle which mitigates the wide selection the game presents to you. It doesn't take much to put you down either. SOCOM aspires to be a tactical shooter and so it takes only a few rounds from any gun to kill you.
To worsen matters, the actual shooting mechanics leave much to be desired. The gunplay isn't particularly exciting, especially in comparison to other modern shooters. The weapons lack a certain oomph when firing. To further draw out these flaws are uninspired maps with drab colour palettes and level design that simply isn't very creative to say the least. The controls can also seem very awkward. For example, reloading is done by clicking in your right trigger rather than hitting any of the face buttons. Admittedly, this is rectified by the fact that the controls are completely customizable. Still, one can't help but wonder as to why the default control scheme is set up the way it is.
Navigating the menus and finding a match is relatively easy. You can choose which team you want to play on before each match begins, though this can occasionally result in severe team stacking. Team work is actually very important in SOCOM, but most of the players online lack a headset to actually coordinate their efforts and take advantage of the team-based gameplay the game was designed for. If you manage to organize a clan or a steady group of friends, this makes the game more manageable but doesn't make up for other flaws. Latency is also an issue online. Despite consistent patching since the game's release, it's not very unusual to quick match yourself into a lobby with high ping.
In the end, SOCOM feels like an incomplete product that was pushed to meet the holiday season. With more polished gameplay, some inspiration in the level design and a more vocal community that actually uses headsets, SOCOM could've been an easily recommendable tactical shooter for any PS3 fan. Instead, it's a laggy and lifeless shooter that comes off as incredibly generic and tired. It tries to borrow the tactical atmosphere of Rainbow Six and infuse it with the visceral shooting and action of Call Of Duty, but falls flat on its face in bringing everything together for a solid, cohesive game. If you absolutely must try SOCOM, definitely rent it first and then make a decision.