SOCOM 3 Public Beta
After a little game of tag with UPS, I finally picked up my SOCOM 3 Beta package this morning. My dedication to the PlayStation has wavered drastically in the last year or so, and just powering up my PS2 is going to be a rare event in itself. However, seeing as the SOCOM franchise is the PlayStation’s only real online venture that’s seen any success, I’m definitely looking forward to getting back into the fray, even if just for a little while.
Since the actual testing began on July 20th, I’m going to have to do a little catching up in getting to know the game and how much it’s changed since the last one. Now there are vehicles, larger maps and up to 32 players in a single game. That’s some improvement over SOCOM II, which pretty much stayed the same as SOCOM, but with some newer maps and different weapons. Of course, this is a beta test, so I expect to have my hopes dashed as I encounter bugs and network issues and who knows what else.
Account and network set up was pretty much the same, but just went to reinforce my notion that Sony took the wrong approach with their online scheme. Not only can you not take your handle/name across all games, but you can’t take them from one game to the next in a series. I had to recreate my account when moving from SOCOM to SOCOM II, and again from SOCOM II to this beta.
My first impression of the revamped interface is that this is clearly a game for people with BIG TVs. Text is much smaller and a icons and graphic elements are a little less intuitive than in SOCOM II, and so I can only imagine the struggle people with a small television set are gonna have. Having 32 players in a game is absolutely awesome, but trying to read everyone’s name (and remember them) was certainly not as quick and easy as it should be.
With my first game, I spent most of the time re-learning the controls, since I hadn’t played SOCOM II in nearly a year. Most commands are pretty much the same, but the new additions and small changes were enough to send me into button panic when landing in an unexpected firefight.
Now I understand that this is a beta, and even still, the graphics don’t look so bad. I can’t say it’s a massive improvement over SOCOM II, but it’s consistent, even in progressive scan mode (480p). The big hitch right now is in the framerate, which get’s ridiculously choppy with multiple players and vehicles on-screen. I can’t say whether it’s the game engine itself or network latency, but it becomes hard to hit anything when you can’t keep up with your target.
One new addition that I really like is the new extensibility of the weapons. Now instead of a bare-bones M16, you can add a variety of scopes, grenade launchers and even a laser sight. There’s more, of course, depending on each individual weapon but it adds a cool new level of customization for players to suit their individual styles of gameplay.
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