Video Game Review: Flawed Tactical Shooter ‘SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy Seals’

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CHICAGO – Now that the PSN is back up, what are you going to do with it? You need a solid multi-player experience to try out the car that’s been in the shop for the last few weeks, right? I hoped that experience would lie within my review copy of “SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy Seals” but I’m sorry to say that this target misses just left.

Video Game Rating: 2.5/5.0

There are elements of “SOCOM 4” that work. First, it looks great. As moonlight glistened in the puddles of rain as I crept around deciding whether or not to enact a stealth kill or just move on by, I was impressed by the visual appeal of the game. There have been a lot of ugly shooters in the last couple of years and the best thing that “SOCOM 4” has going for it is the way it looks. Shadows, the fog left after an explosion, a bullet whizzing by — the game looks great.

SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy Seals
Photo credit: SCEA

Which almost makes how frustratingly it plays that much more upsetting. There are elements of “SOCOM 4” that just feel too unrefined in today’s market, in which a new shooter comes out every other week. There’s an essential element of a tactical shooter that just isn’t there in “SOCOM 4” — consistency. The year to date has seen some controversial multi-player offerings (“Homefront,” “Crysis 2”) and “SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy Seals” is likely to just get lost in the shuffle.

SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy Seals Photo credit: SCEA

Sony deserves credit for leading the way in terms of new technological advancements with their shooters. Like “Killzone 3” (a vastly superior game and one of the best of the year to date), “SOCOM 4” supports shooter mechanics with the PlayStation Move (which can be plugged into an awesome gun) and Stereoscopic 3D.

Here’s the biggest problem with “SOCOM 4” — everything outside of your control. The story of the game is heavily dependent on squad play but it feels like you’ve been partnered with a bunch of drop-outs. It’s like “In the Army Now” with Pauly Shore and you’re the only sane one. I understand the desire to place emphasis on squad commands. You have to order your A.I. partners into certain flank positions and play to their strength. But shouldn’t they have HALF a brain otherwise. Guys would walk right into enemy fire or get in the way of my shot and I would scream at the television. There needs to a balance between things I control in a tactical shooter and things that happen automatically and that balance is off in the campaign portion of “SOCOM 4.”

If it wasn’t bad A.I. that killed me, it was the level design itself. The game just feels too formally scripted. We’ve entered an era where games like this can be free enough to allow multiple solutions to a problem. We’re past the point where the way through a level is down one path and one path only, but “SOCOM 4” often felt they way. Missions based on hiding in shadows felt to me like they could only be accomplished one way and the modern shooter has come too far for that feeling. There were times when I had NO idea why I got killed and couldn’t move forward until I found the one-and-only path through the level. It sucks to feel like you have to take a specific cover instead of whatever you can find to get through a level. It’s antiquated.

SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy Seals Photo credit: SCEA

Modern shooters are rarely about the single-player, right? So, who cares? Let’s move on to the multi-player portion of the game, which is definitely more accomplished. Having said that, I’m just not that big a fan of 16x16 showdowns. They inevitably devolve into total random chaos as the map design can rarely hold so many players. If a good team gets together and camps a frontline spawn point, forget about it. You’re going to die every time. The upgrades are cool and, once again, the graphics are stellar, but this is not as refined a multi-player title as the market demands in 2011.

The game seems built for co-op, where five players can play through portions of the single-player campaign. Here the weak team A.I. falls away and, more than in any portion of the game, it feels like everything clicks. You can even create custom missions with unique objectives and enemy counts.

Still, one has to wonder who’s coming to a shooter in 2011 looking for co-op play above multi-player or single-player. Of course, the “SOCOM” games have always been about teamwork but shooter fans demand more than just co-op play in 2011 and the rest of the title just misses the target. Hardcore fans of the series will probably be more satisfied than casual ones and the game definitely does a few things right, but “SOCOM 4” is definitely a disappointment.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com