SOCOM: Confrontation (PS3)

Late-'90s PC gaming revisited
10/21/2008 6:38 PM | 3 Comments | Page 1 of 3

Remember the dot-com bubble? When every man, woman and child was investing in the future of this crazy series of tubes Al Gore dubbed the Internet? That's the era of PC gaming that Sony's SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation seems to have come from. In those halcyon days of computing, it seemed like every PC game was unfinished -- arriving with a little note regarding missing features or hungrily downloading a giant patch on day one to get you to the start screen. It made people hate PC gaming so much that many turned to consoles. Enter PlayStation 3 and this iteration of SOCOM: a game so perfectly broken and lacking in content that it might just send PS3 gamers happily scurrying back to their PCs.

What you get in the Confrontation box is about as much as Splash Damage and Activision gave away for free in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. Confrontation is online-only and features seven maps of varying sizes, some of which have expanded terrain to support up to 32 players. A remake of a popular map from the previous SOCOM games and some all-new battlegrounds are set in North African villages, towns and war-torn urban centers. There isn't much variety in the color palette, but that keeps with the series' traditional focus on realism. Despite this, the over-the-shoulder camera provides a terribly unrealistic line of sight that allows you to see things your character cannot. Use cover properly, and you always get the drop on enemies because you can see them coming to a doorway long before they know you're on the other side. Never mind that the eyes of your commando are looking at a stone wall.

The shooting comes in at slightly above average. Whether you end up a commando or a mercenary, there is a wide variety of guns to choose from, including assault rifles, pistols, shotguns, heavy machineguns and sniper rifles. Many of the weapons are faction-specific -- an odd, artificially limiting design choice seemingly intended to better differentiate the sides. Then again, assault rifles (which crackle to life with superb audio) are the number-one weapon choice for either side. Map size dictates this unequivocally; you almost always end up competing at a range either too close for long-range rifles or too distant for shotguns. Making shotguns less appealing violates an unwritten rule of engagement, as far as I'm concerned. Nothing packs a greater visceral punch than pumping out lead with a USAS-12 autoshotty at close range, but Confrontation makes this an irresponsible weapon choice. Because it only takes one or two bullets to put you down, the higher firing rate and relatively high accuracy of an assault rifle will almost always win out.

There is a meager helping of game modes. The maps seem too big for deathmatch unless respawning is on, but elimination play is there if you just want to shoot people and forget about them. If you dig more complex objectives like planting bombs or rescuing hostages, some maps offer these game types, and are easily the high point. However, the capture point mode ("Control") feels broken because most don't understand how it works -- and those that do will capture each point within a few minutes of round start.