SOCOM Online

Online Play Heaven at last! God knows how long I've been craving to go online to play again. Ever since my xbox live's been banned, life has lost its touch... well okay not really. But hell, SOCOM: US Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo for the PSP took my breath away Online! At last, a good portable online multiplayer game! (sorry Twisted Metal) I can never regret buying it.

Let's get down and talk about it from the beginning shall we?

When you start, you get the main menu that shows: Instant Action, Campaign, Infrastructure, Ad Hoc, Settings, Extras & Tutorials.

Instant Action gets you in on the game without having to go through any of the briefings and stuff. Campaign speaks for itself, the one player mode (more about this later). Infrastructure gets you online and play up to 16 players via the PSP's WiFi (more about this later as well). Ad Hoc gets you connected up to 16 of your friends (or whoever) and play it offline via WiFi. Settings ... well that speaks for itself really. Extras gives you information about weapons, unlockable characters, movie intros etc. And Tutorials helps you learn the basics of the game such as the controls.

The Campaign is fun and plays well on the PSP for a 3rd person shooter. This is where you learn to get used to the controls. It takes awhile - but I don't have much to say about the controls coz once you get used to them, you'll be fraggin opponents in no time. The campaign takes you in on the story missions - you are given a briefing as usual, select your weapons, and then you deploy. Maps are great and surprisingly huge for the PSP - although strategy is limited due to the hardware's limitations. You are thrown in with a partner and you get to control your partner's action such as, breahing a door, clearing an area and killing a target. You also get to do various missions but most of them are get to point A and point B and complete your objectives. But this isn't the main part of why I love this game so much. This is only where you can train yourself and get ready for the...

Infrastructure online multiplayer. Fraggin everyone world wide! And guess what? This game has voice chat! Oh yeah... you can trash talk all you want but the main thing is for you to use it to plan strategies with your team mates.

Anyway, when you select Infrastructure the game will take you to the connection screen, connect to any available network, register your username, accept the agreements, view the lobby area, join a briefing, and then pick your game. It is that simple. Well, okay - that only happens on your first time through. Once you've registered, it's only a matter of loggin in, accept agreements and join a briefing. Then you'll be playing online in no time.

You have tons of options as well to the objectives of the game. I haven't gone through it all coz I havent tried creating my own game but you don't need to know that. All you need to know is that this game is worth playing online.

Cool thing about the dashboard of SOCOM is you've got other stuff to do than just joining a game. You can check out forum boards, news, view your profile, view other people's profile, search for a player, view the leaderboard etc. It's all fun stuff.

Now get your ass a SOCOM, go online and let me know of your existence. Look for SinAdam! May the best wins.