SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals
Platform: Sony Playstation 2
Developer: Zipper Interactive
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
SOCOM, U.S. Navy Seals is meant to inspire the user to become a Navy Seal and the military doesn't make any effort to disguise this goal.
There is a 25-minute "documentary" that is basically a recruiting video complete with patriotic Seal recruits and informative Web sites. I wouldn't have a problem with this if it weren't so blatantly obvious that the game was designed for recruitment.
The Seals come fully equipped with lethal weaponry and cheesy sayings such as, "That's just one less bad guy," and "Yee Ha." It's as if the military went over the top to make the characters appealing to young men. However, I'll admit that it was cool when I took out a guy with my sniper rifle and my partner said, "Got 'em."
The game starts out with a mission to take over a barge full of black market goods run by a Russian terrorist ring. It's a pretty standard military plot; sneak onboard, kill as many people as possible then blow everything up.
This program could have been very simple and still served its purpose as a recruiting tool, excuse me, shoot'em up game, and no one would have cared much. These designers, however, took the time to make the game one of the best out there because of the details.
When I read the map for the first mission I was shocked to see the schematics of the boat were labeled in Cyrillic. I was even more shocked to hear the guards I was about to cap in the head speaking in Russian. My Russian professors will be proud to know that I could understand what was being said with ease.
Most video games either don't bother with foreign languages or insert gibberish instead of recording the accurate language.
From there the player goes to a remote Alaskan town with the same Russian terrorists and the area that the Seals team is allowed to explore makes the level challenging and also entertaining. This also forces the player to use more teamwork to accomplish the mission.
The subsequent levels change with each terrorist group but the game play remains the same. To succeed, the player must use their team and stay true to the mission. Simply running into the mission with guns blazing will not work as the drones have been programmed to detonate bombs, execute hostages or destroy intelligence once the Seal team has been discovered.
It was a good change of pace to play a more "realistic" game even if I could practically hear the Navy recruiters in the background music.
Reach the reporter at cameron.eickmeyer@asu.edu.
