SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo (PSP)

With the massive popularity of the SOCOM games on the PlayStation 2, it was only a matter of time before the series found its way over to Sony's portable platform, the PSP. The platform's wide-screen view and online capability seem to make it an ideal showcase for the tactical shooter series from Zipper Interactive. With Fireteam Bravo, the SOCOM series has established a firm beachhead on the portable front. The game offers hard-hitting offline and online gameplay, impressive map sizes, and a pleasantly intuitive shooter interface, all while maintaining the feel and intensity of combat that is so familiar to fans of SOCOM.

You're in charge of a two-man, instead of a four-man, SEAL team in Fireteam Bravo.

Fireteam Bravo puts you in the role of "Sandman," the leader of a two-man SEAL duo. This is a bit of a departure from the PS2 versions of SOCOM, which gave you control of a four-man squad of SEALs (but in practice, this doesn't appreciably change the experience of playing the game). You can still command your partner, Lonestar, in much the same way as you did in other SOCOMs. Pointing your crosshair at certain hot spots, like a bomb or a doorway, will bring up context-sensitive commands, such as "defuse" or "breach," which you can issue to Lonestar by holding down the circle button. You can also issue other commands via a menu system by tapping on the circle button. These commands include changing Lonestar's disposition between defensive and aggressive, having him follow, or issuing more-complex breach maneuvers like bang and clear.

The control you have over Sandman should also feel pretty familiar to SOCOM veterans. You can change your stance between standing, crouching, and prone, which affects your accuracy and speed. You can't jump, but you can climb over low objects or open doors with an action button. You can also zoom your view in if you have a scoped weapon, and change between night vision modes with the up and down arrows on the D pad. Switching between weapons is accomplished by tapping left on the D pad and then selecting. Also, you can quickly select grenades by holding down the triangle button. Of course, the big question that remains is: How do you aim and fire your weapons without a second analog stick? The answer is that Fireteam Bravo relies largely on a lock-on system in both the single-player and multiplayer modes. Toggling the right shoulder button will lock your aim on to any enemies within your sight line. You can cycle through multiple enemies by hitting the left shoulder button while holding the right one down.

Locking on isn't just a free pass to a headshot, though. For one thing, the distance at which you're able to lock on varies depending on the weapon you're carrying. If you have a sniper rifle, you can lock on just as the enemy figure comes into view. If you're carrying a submachine gun or a shotgun, however, you'll need to get up pretty close to engage a lock on. Just because you're locked in doesn't necessarily mean you're going to hit anything, though. Your accuracy seems to vary depending on range, your stance, movement, your weapon, and the enemy's awareness of your presence. If you sneak up, while kneeling and carrying a rifle, to an enemy sentry who is a couple of yards away, your odds of getting a headshot just by locking on to him are pretty good. However, if you're in a firefight at the extreme range of your submachine gun while you're running around and circle-strafing your target, then it's likely that you'll need to unload a few bursts before you can connect. It is possible to fine-tune your aim by zooming in and going into free-look mode. In fact, if you're sniping, you'll probably end up doing this. But for the most part, the action moves fast enough, especially online, so that you'll mostly rely on the lock-on feature. It does take some skill out of the equation, but not entirely--you still need to be very aware of your surroundings and try to get the drop on your enemies. In the end, Fireteam Bravo still feels and plays very much like a SOCOM game.

The campaign will take you across four different continents.

The single-player campaign stretches across 14 missions in four different areas--Chile, Morocco, South Asia, and Poland. The latter three areas overlap with the campaigns from SOCOM 3 on the PS2, which plays into the cross-talk functionality of both games. By completing missions and bonus objectives in each game, you can unlock multiplayer skins and new weapons for use in the single-player modes of both games. You can also affect how certain missions play out, opening up new objectives or making certain areas easier. You unlock all this stuff by connecting your PSP to your PS2 via a USB cable, and by enabling the sync functionality within each game. The process is a little convoluted, but not too difficult to figure out. As for the missions themselves, they run the usual gamut of military-style objectives, such as clearing out bases, gathering intelligence, rescuing hostages, or destroying vehicles and weapon caches. One of the more interesting missions has you tailing an enemy operative, requiring you to photograph him as he meets with people and record conversations without being detected. The missions tend to be on the easier side, at least at the default difficulty, because the awareness and reaction time of the enemy artificial intelligence isn't all that great. Even with that caveat, the missions are still pretty fun, offering multiple objectives on maps that can be surprisingly large for a PSP shooter. Once you're done with the campaign, you can go back and play any of the single-player maps in instant action mode, setting them up for hostage rescue, terrorist sweep, or sabotage objectives.

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