E3 First Impressions: SOCOM NAVY SEALS 4 + E3 Trailer
I've been on the Socom Navy Seal bandwagon from the very beginning, when it came out on PS2 back in the day. I have played and owned every Socom game since it made its debut. This is just one badass war video game franchise. Socom is definitely my favorite video game that involves war. I love the look, the feel and the precision. This is a game you can't run around shooting people in. This is a game that requires a skilled hand and a sharp mind.
I had the opportunity to play the Socom 4 demo at E3 2010, and as a fan of the franchise I was extremely impressed with the development of this game. I breezed through the demo easily without dying once in front of the huge crowd I was playing in front of, which I was surprised by! I won't brag too much though because they probably had the settings on easy. I'm just happy I didn't make a fool out of myself by dying multiple times.
The graphics are the best I've seen in the Socom franchise, and I had a blast playing it. Here is a short video I took of some of the gameplay from the demo to give you an idea of what to expect.
E3 Trailer:
Plot:
SOCOM 4 is set at an undisclosed location in Southeast Asia. The player controls a character unofficially called the "Ops Commander," the leader of a 5-man NATO special forces squad deployed near the Strait of Malacca. He is accompanied by two Americans named Schweitzer and Wells, as well as two South Korean operatives, Chung and Forty-Five. One of the first female combatants from the first SOCOM, Forty-Five is reported to be "vital to the story." The plot stretches over a six-day period in two main acts. The special forces squad is said to face an indigenous revolutionary group known as the Naga. Zipper reports the story to be "beyond the typical bounds of military shooters." The commander is Cullen Gray and he gives orders to other 4 soldiers.
Gameplay:
Similar to previous games in the series, SOCOM 4 is a squad-based tactical shooter. Players are able to give various commands to team members real-time such as setting waypoints, issuing squad commands, setting behaviors and commanding the squad to take out multiple targets on the way to their objective. In addition, as the player is the Ops Commander, he will be able to use Command Mode which allows him to see points of tactical interest that cannot be seen in regular mode. In Command Mode, the action will slow down slightly and the screen will become grayish as the player decides his choices though combat will still continue.
At times, the action will be a full-on firefight while other times require the player to infiltrate locations silently and undetected by enemy forces. Players will be receiving intel on the battlefield and will also be able to call in air-strikes and strafing runs on enemy targets in the battlefield. According to Zipper, they want to make SOCOM 4 "the pinnacle of tactical shooters" on the PlayStation 3. The SOCOM 4 single-player campaign is built around 14 missions that unfold over about 12 hours of gameplay. The team says they've focused more on artificial intelligence this time around. They're programmed to use suppressing fire, flanking and bounding maneuvers, cover and enemy commanders are also able to call in airstrikes.
Apart from the single-player mode, the game will also feature an online mode which supports up to 32 players and has been described as an "an all new experience" by Zipper. No further details about the multiplayer mode has been given out by Zipper.
On March 10, 2010, at the Sony GDC press conference it was revealed that SOCOM 4 would be playable with the all new PlayStation Move controller. The Move controller allows players to use motion sensor technology to play PlayStation 3 games. With the unveiling of the new Move controller, Sony also showed a demo of Socom 4 being played with the controller.