The Socom games greatly remind me of Trey Parker's and Matt Stone's Team America: World Police-America going around policing the world, killing the baddies and ultimately saving the day. This recipe has not only been used (successfully) for Team America, but for countless other movies and games. Obviously, Socom: U.S. Navy Seals for the PS2 was one of these. Socom: Fireteam Bravo is the PSP version of one of the most popular PS2 online games. A fair warning: if you aren't a fan of the United States or if you don't like anti-terrorist games, then you won't like this game.

To be honest, I was rather skeptical about this game. I am not a huge fan of Socom games on the PS2 (although I didn't invest too much time into the first two, but I am eagerly awaiting the third installment's European release), and I wasn't expecting much of this game. The only reason I got it was to try it out, to see how this TPS works on the PSP, after the horrible controls of Battlefront 2, and of course, to review it. To my great surprise … the controls are excellent! They are easy to get used to and easy to use-not to mention comfortable.

The game works like the PS2 version, but instead of having four team members, you only have two (probably for the sake of convenience). The character you control is called Sandman, while your team member's name is Lonestar. You can command Lonestar to do various things, such as open doors (so he gets shot at instead of you), place C4s or satchel charges, disable whatever needs to be disabled and so on. There are a variety of commands to give to him.

There are a bunch of weapons available to you. Snipers, shotguns, SMGs, different types of grenades, rocket launchers, you name it. They all work differently and sound differently. Shooting works differently than most games. For the sake of convenience, shooting works like this: you pres the R button, and you lock onto your target, and press X to shoot. Of course, you can aim manually or zoom in with a scope if you want to be more precise.

Environments are varied. You start off in Chile and go through Egypt, South Asia and Poland. You'll be in sunny outdoor places, but often you are in darkness outside, or in a building somewhere. Your mission objectives are different, ranging from hostage rescue, capturing enemy leaders or just taking down the enemies of the U.S. Each mission contains several bonus and hidden objectives, such as killing all the enemies, gathering some intel, staying undetected, etc.-which, other than being fun to do and increasing your campaign stats, often allow you to unlock Socom 3 content … which brings me to my next point.

The game is compatible with the PS2's third Socom, and once you beat the game, you can unlock quite a few things (weapons for single-player, different characters for multiplayer). This is a great addition, increasing the replay value of both games. I just hope that the U.S. version of FTB is compatible with the EU version of Socom 3.

The graphics are pretty good with some nice effects; however, I don't think the game matches that of GTA: Liberty City Stories. But then again, graphics don't necessarily make the game.

The game supports multiplayer, as it is standard with Socom games. Sadly, I am not able to try out the online mode, but from what I heard, it is great.

About the replay value, there are a few ways to play the game: a) rush through the campaign and not bother with secondary objectives; b) take your time playing, be as thorough as possible with the campaign, then replay missions in instant action mode, and hook up Socom 3 with this game for more fun; or c) play online non-stop. I lean towards option B, but if I could, I know I would be playing this game online, non-stop.

Socom: Fireteam Bravo was a positive experience for me. The game demonstrated that shooters do work on the PSP, military games are still fun and the PSP does have awesome games. If you can make use of online play or love military shooters and own a PSP, go buy this game ASAP. Even if you don't have online capabilities, you should buy this game because it's one of the best PSP games out there at the moment, and it will keep you hooked for a while. Overall, it's a great game!

Jan 26, 2006 | 0 comments
Mate Bors