SOCOM II: Know Your Enemy

SOCOM II: Know Your Enemy




The online world of SOCOM II can be a hard place for weekend warriors. We earn killed so you don't have to.

SOCOM II is without in stores now, and I was reluctant to review it because I'm just no advantageous at the game at all. I quickly established back in the days of the original SOCOM that, while it was a great game and an important title for the PS2 it wasn't my thing. Which is fair much the reason there is no 1UP review -- I just left it up to the folk at OPM and GMR

Instead, I move rounded my inexperience and rank incompetence into virtues through going out into the field and doing a little recon for associate SOCOM newbies. Given that the server are teeming with nation who've been playing the original for a year now, I wanted to find out...do we stand a chance?

My first match is a one-on-one game against Vega, a recruit from our real own PS2 message boards. Vega's a SOCOM vet who's been in it since day 1 of the first game. "I like the game because of the amount of skill it takes to play," he explains. "It's not just individual of those get on and be awesome games." Which is real true; SOCOM II is not a game race like me are able to pick up and play. It takes practice, either online or in single-player way before you grasp its compounded control scheme and understand the subtleties of shade strikes.

To demonstrate this, we start up our first game. SOCOM matches are compos of a number of rounds; each circular is complete when all members of a team are dead or, in a certain quantity of gameplay modes, when a team consummates some other objective. Since there are just the sum of two units of us, we choose a fairly straight-ahead Suppression game where the alone objective is to eliminate the opponents

In the first circular I make the most elementary mistake, drawing from my experience in other first-person shooters: I step quickly straight out heedlessly, looking around upon all sides to catch a glimpse of him with equal reason I can open fire. Result? I'm dead instantly, because you can't diocese experienced players when they don't want to be seen He's calmly sitting there right there upon the same screen as me cloaked extraordinarily well in the foliage.

Round sum of two units This time I put a little bit of musing into my approach, but not enough. I make progress back to the same general area, hoping Vega will tend hitherward around to where our last clash had been. This time, I obtain the high ground and find a machine-gun small tower Sure enough, he crosses the quad, and I render free of access fire. Seconds later, I'm dead. My mistake? When none of my initial flight of shot of shots hit, Vega was smart enough to plunge out of my range. My answer to this was to stay at my pinnacle waiting for him to draw near out again so I could blast him again, on the other hand of course he'd found an alternate course to my position and capped me while I was still uselessly scanning the quad.

It just gains worse from here. I'll not go on into the gory details (except to note that after a certain point, Vega starts celebrating his kills by means of tossing grenades onto my corpse), on the other hand here are the mistakes I made and in what way you can benefit. Don't assume the enemy hasn't seen you just because he didn't unclose fire--I thought I was tracking Vega silently from behind, on the contrary when I turned a corner I walked right into his ambush. Make fully convinced you know how to use your weapon; the single time I finally did earn the drop on him, my weapon was a mark that only operated in short cracks designed for maximum stopping power if you know in what manner to aim well. I didn't, he move rounded around after I missed with the initial split open and I was on the floor. Don't do the same thing twice. After this screwup I hurried back to the same place, hoping Vega would underestimate me and assume I would get back to where I just died. Instead, I extremityed up underestimating him, when he anticipated my rudimentary strategy and used an alternate path to get to the same place from a different angle--one ideal for blowing me away nevertheless again. Final score: 6-0

I'm not fully convinced I've learned much yet, on the other hand Vega suggests we try a public game now. "The community is great, too. Playing in clan matches is definitely the best part," he points on the outside Who am I to miss without on the best part? in the way that we abandon the private game and proceed out in search of a larger conflict.

We go into the Epidemic game on individual of the US West server in a Demolition match, where the couple sides have to find a bomb and plant it in the enemy base. There's something a little Eltingville-ish about the players (or at least what I could hear of them above the Logitech headset) but their SOCOM skills are as beneficial as advertised. I have the honor of being the first to die upon the first round, of course, as I move for the first SEAL I diocese in a repeat of my first mistake from the 1-on-1 match. Another well-hidden SEAL uses teamwork to claw on my flank. I died for a like reason early that I got to respawn to die again in the same match. Oh the ignominy …

For the next to the first round, I decide to I go in the rear [i]or[/i] in the wake of Vega, who's also playing a terrorist. I figure either I'll learn from the tactics he uses, or he'll gain shot in front of me and I can diocese where the bullets came from to fire-arm down his attacker. Instead, I find my have a title to SEAL! I killed someone--and it was the last SEAL upon the other team! We won because I killed someone! Wow! on the contrary in the next game, I just die.