Socom Confrontation Demo (Public Beta) Review

[Drunk_Couzens]

As most (if not all) of you know, the public beta started this past Friday.

Right off the bat there was a rough start for it was unclear when users would receive emails from Sony to be able to log in and download the Beta. The beta keys were supposed to be sent out in "waves" starting at 6 am Friday, however, it seemed like a good bunch of people received theirs at like 1pm, and a couple more at about 3 or 4, then nothing further. I, myself, had issues as well for I still have not received my Beta code.
After 20 min of " Does anyone have a spare code" to all my buddies, I was finally able to obtain one and DL the Demo. The download was 1.5 gb , but went by very fast for a file that size. Cable internet seemed to download in about an hour, and DSL i heard was about 3-4 hours.

After the game was installed, it was GO time. The intro was clean and fresh for the Slant 6 Developer Clip, and the THX Surround sound clip made this game feel very professional.

The title screen , although simple, was impressive. Straight and to the point. Simply press start and log in. After doing so however is a whole different story. You attempt to initialize a connection and connect to the servers. However it fails. It may taken up to a dozen times to initially connect. (As of yesterday though, it was getting on in 1 or 2 times which is a great relief) Once connected you have the standard terms and conditions, and then the recent updates screen, which seems to be the same as the socom.com blogs, but we'll see in future updates.

As soon as I logged in the first thing i wanted to check out was the character customization. I was not disappointed. The amount of options is phenomenal. Note: it is not anything like Tiger Woods game face or anything ridiculous like that, but you have some of the following to work with:

About 6 or 7 default faces (that you can customize further like tiger, but i didn't go into it really, just kept a default)
A Dozen or so Hats, headgear & Helmets
3 Mic types
3 types of Ski Masks better known as Balaclavas
6 or so types of eye wear
3 Types Of Body armor (heavy, med, and light)
3 Types Of leg armor (heavy, med, and light)

After which, you can choose your camo of choice for each piece of equipment (clothing wise) you want. There are separate camo options for Chest, legs, shirt, headgear/hat, and 1 or 2 others i cannot remember right now. I thought it was awesome to be able to make a GI Joe Snake Eyes looking , all white commando.

I was unable to see if there was a difference in actual equipment between clans, for they were not working at the time. They later worked but they only let you Use seals or ksk commando type. So now it was time for me to enter a game with my buddies. But wait, how do I find them? I go to my friends list (on socom) and after a few moments, everyone from my PSN friends list is showing up showing them offline, online, in game, or pre/post game lobby. I was not happy about that for 2 reasons. 1. I could care less if a user is offline. 2. WHERE ARE THEY, In game / In lobby, but where? East 1, Clan games 2? I’m hoping this is a temporary Beta thing. So we resorted to changing out PSN comment to say what room we were playing in.
So Now we are in the lobby, Chat was a little rough and broken at times, but I believe this was due to the connection issues they were having. Upon starting the game, it was a 50/50 shot whether you made it in the room or not. If you were lucky to make it in then Hooray, if not, you had to hard reset your ps3, and start over. Once again, this has nothing to do with the game, but the server issues they are having.

[Drunk_Couzens]

(Continued..)

The game play , IMO, was excellent, the movement was very fluid, graphics were very clean, and it seemed like everything was interactive and shootable. I found out the hard way by covering behind a small barrel and accidentally shooting it, instant explosion. The hit detection is SPOT ON, where my cursor was is exactly where the blood shoots out of. However hitting them is another story. The aim is very difficult to use. While standing and scoping, the cursor is all over, Kneeling is a little less bouncy. The only real way to keep it very steady is prone. Within 20-40 m zooming is not necessary, but even outside 50m, and low scope or medium is deff a plus. One thing I was impressed with, is after scoring a headshot on an enemy , I left 2 bullet holes and a good amount of blood on the wall. 7 min later (respawn game) that same blood and bullet holes were still there, this served no purpose, but was cool to see the blood was still around.

The weapons all seemed to have their pros and cons, which was a very good balance on Slant 6’s behalf, they really hit the nail on the head with the heart of the game (movement, hit detection, and weapon realism). I was unable to use a sniper rifles, and scoping was pretty hard because of the small lags in the game, but with an m16 it took very accurate and times shots to get a head shot, or multiple body shots.
There were numerous small items that impressed me while playing as well. For one, their attentions to laggers. Pretty much, you lag, you freeze. At any point if someone’s connection drops beyond socoms threshold, that player, and only that player will be affected by it and stand in place. Shots look like they still count while this person is frozen. Also, no reloading while jumping (or sprinting also I believe), no more jumping around until your gun reloads, your butt better find cover and fight smart. You’re either very lucky or dead. There is no real noobish way to jump your way out of a fight. Also, the detenation of the bridges is very cool, You actually see you player interact with the detonator, by opening the box, turning and pulling up the handle, and then slamming it down, with an instantaneous sub woofer loving explosion not too far away. After which, the smoke/debris fill the air, flowing in the wind between the terr spawn and the garage bomb plant, really cool.
All in all, I LOVED THE GAME, and its getting better by the day. The only real thing that is holding it back now is the connection issue with gameplay and rooms, and not being able to use all of the community features and options because of it. All the recipes for Game of the year are there, there just needs to be some overhauling of the game before release, and you will have the best socom released by far.

My Ratings On IGN Scale

9.4 Presentation
The game is very dark a serious and it is the way socom titles are intended to be. The game was built for multiplayer only, and they gave almost every multiplayer option in the book for you to customize everything just the way you want it.

9.0 Graphics
The explosions are quick and exciting and bullet hits are as realistic as they come. The animations and character models are good. But what you may forget is, you created that person, it is not a model to choose from out of 4 options. Map detail is very nice and above average for a PS3 game.

9.8 Sound
Sounds is always coming out of your speakers. When gunfire is not present by players, it is coming fro the ambient background of the map (but sounding on the map), When fire fight are happening the guns sound exactly as they would from the distance you would be from them in real life.

9.5 Gameplay
Everything is interactive, and the ability to tell your opponent your about to kill them when you right behind them (thorugh proximity chat) is very fun, and different from the socom series.

9.8 Lasting Appeal
Online = Never ending enemies and a different challenge each game.

9.7 Excellent OVERALL
(out of 10 )
The game leaves much to be desired, and after some server and coding maintenance to fix connection issues, this game will leave all others in the closet collecting dust. Go out and buy your PS3’s guys, because you do not want to miss out on this come October.

[DatGuy]

glad you like it Drunk!

[Drunk_Couzens]

Yea you guys really put out a winner Dat. When the connection issues are a little more friends later this weekend, im going to have to add you and show you how the m4a1 is used haha

[harley7]

thats some serious scoring you got there, very good review. what did the russian judge say, where is the spesnatz?

[Tagger]

Harley you mentioned the graphics as compared to MGS4 and CoD4 in another thread. I agree, they aren't breath-taking. I also agree that it doesn't really matter. SOCOM is about gameplay and it's in there.

Sound: I freaking love the surround sound - it's really cool to hear gun chatter from across the map. You can really pick out the sound of the AK's versus the MK48 and others. Explosions sound right to me.

Lag/Freezing Up mid-game for a half to full second - I hope Slant 6 addresses this in the full game. If not, that will be a monumental let-down.

Views: OTS view isn't all that. I prefer the classic view but we do not have the option to use the D-pad for peeking as far as I know. A first person view for looking out of windows would be very helpful too. Hopefully Slant is working on incorporating the feedback on the PS boards regarding the view options.

Community Options - I like. I do not know what to suggest about adding to this part. But, I like the setup so far.

Gameplay - All I can say is that it is good to be back in SOCOM again. I really like the gameplay. I held myself over some playing CoD4 (still do occassionally) and MGS4. But, all along I was hoping SOCOM would come and give me the fix my addiction required.

Overall - I think Slant 6 has done a pretty good job overall. This is my first beta on any game ever. So, I don't know what to expect in the transition from this to the full game release. Seeing more than one map will be great. More important to me though is that Slant 6 does everything possible to accomodate/incorporate user feedback from the PS boards.

[VanilaGorila-x-]

Good review DC, I also am enjoying S:C bery, bery much.