Gameplay
In SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs, you take command of small teams of elite Navy SEALs (the U.S. Navy equivalent of the Army’s Special Forces/Green Beret operatives) as they attempt to stop a terrorist group from causing the usual terrorist havoc. In all, there are 12 missions available, each consisting of a series of objectives that your teams must complete to continue to the next mission. Through the clever use of the voice activated headset, you can issue commands to your SEAL teams, sending them out to perform various tasks while you manually control one SEAL with the PS2 controller.

Each round begins with a mission briefing detailing the current situation, complete with tactical reconnaissance, maps and a list of objectives. After the briefing, you’re free to equip your troops, or stick with the default settings. Most of the time, you’ll find the default “kit” (weapons/tools package) is more than adequate. Once you’re geared up and ready, you’ll be dropped into the mission.

Once in the mission, you control the primary SEAL team with your controller. Basically, you control the main SEAL commander, moving him around in first or third-person while his partner follows him around. To control the secondary SEAL team, you can use either the menu system activated by the controller, or, for far more fun and realism, the voice activated headset. This voice control is a real plus for SOCOM, as you can quickly move your teams into position, open fire, or stage a retreat without having to work your way through layer upon layer of menus. There’s nothing more fun than simply shouting “Bravo, fire at will” into the headset and watching your secondary team open fire on every terrorist in sight. The headset also serves as a communications link between you, your SEALs, and your base commander. During the missions, your SEALs will let you know how/what they are doing by talking to you over the headset, all very realistically, including a little bit of hum and crackle effect. Your commander will let you know what your tasks are during gameplay by calling you over the headset, and she is likewise equally happy to let you know when you’ve botched a mission.

The levels themselves are well constructed and realistic, and give you plenty of room to explore. It’s important to explore the levels in SOCOM as they provide more than one way to sneak around or draw a bead on the terrorists. Rather than running into the level blasting away at anything in sight, you’ll find many hiding places and spaces to snipe from, thus keeping yourself from blowing your cover (and losing stealth points). Since you’re rated on stealth, it pays to explore every inch of every level so you can find the best way to sneak up on the enemy and quietly take him out.

Aside from the voice control, another nice feature of SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs is the ability to shift between first-and third-person perspectives. When you’re on the move, it’s easier to get an idea of your environment in the third-person view, but when you need to line up a shot, it’s a good idea to move to first-person mode. You can move and shoot from either perspective, but you’ll probably find, as I did, that each has a more appropriate use depending upon the situation. The third-person mode will remind a lot of Playstation 2 players of another one of their favorite titles, Metal Gear Solid 2. As a matter of fact, the smoothness of the animation is a lot like that of MGS2. When it comes to the need for stealth, SOCOM is nearly identical to MGS2, although it uses a more simplified stealth model than MGS2.

There is one problem with SOCOM that prevents it from reaching perfection in the gameplay department, and that’s the overall AI in the game. Your SEAL teammates can generally handle themselves pretty well, but in some situations they are just downright stupid, rushing into combat or slinking away from a firefight (that they’re in the middle of) in a hopeless attempt to make a stealthy knife attack. And while your SEALs may act a little thick headed at times, the enemy AI is absolutely moronic. Enemy snipers will stare you down, never lifting a finger to fight, standard foot soldiers will rush right into your spray of gunfire, and frequently, you’ll find they just stand in front of you, waiting to be killed. It really reduces the challenge of the game, since you rarely have to worry about your attackers, that is, when and if they decide to attack.

Graphics
The overall graphical quality of SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs is pretty good, though there are some glaring weaknesses. For example, your SEALs look great and move fluidly, but the terrorists look and move in a way that suggests they were definitely an afterthought (or modeled after wooden blocks). Many times you’ll just have to laugh at the poorly rendered enemies and their robotic movements.

All of the environments in SOCOM look good, from the deck of the oil tanker to the snow swept mountain ranges of Alaska. Snow, for example, kicks up when you’re running through it (which is a bad idea, since running makes obvious noise that will blow your cover) and other levels have small details like broken boards, open lockers and wind-whipped cables. The only problem here (and it’s relatively rare) is the lack of textures in some areas, causing them to appear flat and unrealistic.

The lighting and shadows are great in SOCOM. Your shadow will follow you around and be cast from the appropriate angle whenever you’re blocking a light source. It’s a good thing the shadows are so realistic, since you’ll rely on them frequently as hiding places from the bad guys. Lighting appears very realistic; as it grows dimmer the farther away you are from it. There’s none of this “light on/light off” feeling you get sometimes when you move away from a light source in other games.

Sound
SOCOM has a really nice soundtrack going for it. While it’s nothing to write home about, it’s certainly appealing in its own right, and appropriate for the theme of the game.

The game sounds themselves are right on the money. The loading of a fresh clip, the bounce of an empty shell casing against metal, and the groan of a bad guy taking a bullet are all spot-on.  Each weapon has its own specially tuned firing sound, so an AK47 doesn’t end up sounding like an HK or a sniper rifle.

Voice work is likewise good, though you can tire of the SEALs repeating the same line as a confirmation of your last order. It’s a toss up as to whether you'll get tired of hearing “moving out” every time you tell your SEAL team to move to a new area, or if you’d prefer no confirmation at all, which could prove disastrous.

Replayability
The single-player missions in SOCOM aren’t all that difficult, they just take patience, stealth, and the urge to explore to find the best approach vector when infiltrating an area. After you’ve played through all twelve of the missions, you might (as I did) go back and replay them in an attempt to complete every minor objective along the way, but even this doesn’t enhance the replay all that much. Where SOCOM gets 99.9% of its replay value is online multiplayer.

That’s right; SOCOM is one of the first games that was developed for Sony's online service and makes outstanding use of it. Up to 16 players can jump into an online gaming session with SOCOM, choosing from one of three gameplay types; Demolition, Suppression and Extraction. Suppression is a simple frag-fest, known to anyone who’s ever played an online multiplayer game like Quake or Tribes. Just hunt down and kill everything in sight. Demolition, on the other hand, has you and your team finding a bomb and planting it in the enemy encampment. Lastly, there’s the very cool Extraction, which has your team trying to save hostages from nasty terrorist captors.

While I’m a huge fan of Xbox Live, I have to say that Sony may have outdone Microsoft in the design of the online lobbies and game setup, at least as far as SOCOM is concerned.  I don’t know how they did it, but Sony made SOCOM’s lobbies a joy to use, easy to navigate and they are always stocked with games you can join. This may upset some of my Xbox Ghost Recon buddies, but SOCOM’s online setup outshines anything Xbox Live has so for outside of MotoGP. And unlike Ghost Recon, there are no problems finding SOCOM games at any time of the day, and while there are modem users on PlayStation Online, the lag is pretty minimal. If anyone at Microsoft and/or Ubi Soft (makers of Ghost Recon for the Xbox) is reading this, please, take a minute to study SOCOM’s online setup, and see how it should be done.

In sum, Sony’s SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs, is a winner. With a tight mix of stealth (remember to hide those dead bodies so the other terrorists don’t find them), action, and espionage, SOCOM is like a spy movie wrapped up inside a warm blanket of solid gaming fun. Once you take it online (if you can manage to find a PS2 Online Adapter in stores !) , you won’t be able to stop playing it for many months to come.

See more screens in the SOCOM media page