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jp's SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy Seals (PS3)

[November 13, 2019 07:11:26 PM]

I played this over the weekend (the campaign, all but the last three missions) and it was a more interesting experience than I had anticipated. I bought the game a looong time ago when the PS Move controllers were the hot thing and I was curious about how an FPS would play. I recall trying it, thinking it was terrible, and then setting it aside. It definitely was not terrible with a DualShock in hand.

It took me a while to get used to the tactical nature of the game - in this case reflected in the fact that for most of the game you have two pairs of soldiers following you around and that you can direct to go to places, engage with enemy, and such. At times this felt a bit cumbersome, but overall it was interesting to play the game and having to think about where I'd like the other soldiers to go that could help and so on. It made me think that the game was tuned harder such that you have to rely on your team, which definitely makes for an interesting experience that was new to me. I enjoyed that side of it for sure.

The story is weird/interesting and I thought it would go places that maybe it didn't. So, the name of the game includes "Navy Seals" but I'm not sure I understood what the connection if any was. One of my two-soldier teams was asian (with the main character South Korean if the patch on her uniform is to be believed). The other two were American... but the whole setup was that you're some sort of UN force? Or there are other UN soldiers that you coordinate with? I don't know it has a gung-ho US military vibe from the title, but in playing it felt more like "We're International Military Good Guys".. I'll probably have to look stuff up on wikipedia to see what the official story/premise is...

Anyways, the main character - the one you control - seems have some past (dark) in the area and at one point we destroy a dam that floods a significant part of an area and, at least according to the warnings/disbelief of my fellow teammates, results in the death of a lot of civilians, villages wiped out, and that sort of thing. All of this to stop the baddies... Once you destroy the dam you get a cut-scene showing the aftermath - but it's only enemy baddies (all dead/drowned). I thought this game was going to go all SpecOps:The Line, especially with the other characters objecting to what the main character wanted to do, and his reaction (very negative and a bit aggressive) to their objections to the plan.

Wow, this will be really cool, and unexpected I thought.

And then nothing else happened. Oh, what a missed opportunity!

It turns out the baddies are just being manipulated by a militarized corporation and your commander, assumed dead, is actually running that show. So, I guess there might be more to it?

I didn't play all the way through the campaign, so maybe I'm wrong, but I was looking forward to having another example of an anti-war FPS game, but alas...it was not to be.