Category: Game On

Since TimeSplitters 2 was getting a little long in the tooth, I was eager to find myself another PS2 based first person shooter to get my teeth into. And, over the last couple of weeks, I’ve solely been playing Socom II due to its immersive single player mode and addictive online play.

I assumed the headset control was going to be gimicky at first, but in single player mode it really does draw you into the game. A whispered warning through the earphone from your team mates as an enemy passes close by can have you holding your breath and freezing to the spot in a way that just wouldn’t carry the same weight through the main tv speakers. Additionally, the chat that goes on during online play can be both helpful and amusing, although you do get the occasional assclowns on there, who can thankfully be muted if they prove to be consistantly annoying.

An example of a comedy conversation from an online session early on a Saturday morning:
Player 1:*I think I can see some movement over by the gate*
Player 2 : Cool. Why are you whispering, by the way? They cant hear you.
Player 1 : *Because my mum is asleep!*
Player 2 : Not wishing to pry, but why are you playing Socom in your mum’s bedroom?
Player 3 : ..yeah – don’t tell us you sleep together!
Player 1 : NO! No! It’s just that the walls are very thin!
The voicecomm’s really does help you get to know the personalities of the people you’re playing with, and is essential for organising the tactical side of things during the game. I’ve had terse warnings hissed from a team mate who can see I’m about to step on a pressure mine, for instance, while feedback about enemy locations has helped secure a win against a team with a three man advantage in what looked like a lost battle. A team who talks together wins together in Socom II, while a team of freelancers who don’t communicate can be embarrassingly dismantled by even an average team on the opposiotion, so long as they help each other out.

After seeing the game in the bargain bin at my local games store for under ?15 I decided to give it another whirl. Previously I only had the game on loan, so when we got stuck half way through the second series of missions I just gave it back and that was that. We did keep the save on our memory card in anticipation of giving it another try, though, so it wasn’t as if we had to start from scratch.

Sadly we couldn’t get any further than that same level, coming close a couple of times, but just running out of time before having to start all over again. In frustration, we gave up, bemoaning the difficulty of aiming the gun sights with a Dual Shock controller.

A few days later, I had the chance of picking up a Namco GunCon 2 at a reasonable price. Since it came with Time Crisis 3, which is a fun if samey diversion, I snapped it up in the hope that Fliss and I would stand a better chance of completing Starsky and Hutch into the bargain.

First results were promising – we managed to pick up better scores in many of the earlier levels while learning the driving / light gun combination, and we were looking forward to besting our nemisis once and for all.

Sadly, after many attempts, we just couldn’t seem to get past it. We came pretty close on more than one occasion, but since each attempt means having to sit through cut scenes of cheesy dialogue you cant skip, it really was wearing and sometimes it’s better to admit defeat than to make a hole in your tv with a fake gun.

What sucks is that there’s so much more of the game that we’ll never see, and I know this because we’re stuck right in the middle. To my mind this is poor game design, as there’s not even an option to change the difficulty setting, and having searched on the ‘net for hints it turns out we’re not the only ones who’ve hit a brick wall at this point in the game. Shame, really – playing it through with the light gun would have been fun.

After falling completely out of love with Madden 2004 only a few weeks after I bought it, I’m now right back in the mood again for some reason.

Maybe it’s the fact that the NFL play-off’s have been very exciting so far, or maybe it’s the fact that I found a great set of AI slider settings after some good advice over at the Madden Mania forums. Whatever has re-newed my zest for the game, though, I’m really enjoying it at the moment – and with the new-found balance in the game that the sliders have brought, I’m experiencing some really close games compared to the shoot-outs that were so common in Madden 2003, or 2004 with default sliders.

There are still a few bug-bears in there that stop it from being the perfect game, though. The interceptions that the AI linebackers can get are simply ridiculous – snatching bullet passes out of the air from five yards away, for example. I could cope with them deflecting the ball and then it being picked off, but the ninja style reflexes need toning down and unfortunately there aren’t any sliders to control that.