SOCOM FANS FORUM
Would you like to react to this message? Create an account in a few clicks or log in to continue.
WELCOME TO THE SOCOM FANS FORUM "HOME OF THE ORIGINAL SOCOMERS"

Go down
PAUL-AWOL-
PAUL-AWOL-
KAHUNA
KAHUNA
Join date : 2010-05-23
http://beerclan.forumotion.net/

For the love of Socom. LOL Empty For the love of Socom. LOL

Tue Aug 24, 2010 12:28 pm
Destructoid - Elsa's Blog: Socom: I want to love you

http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/Elsa/socom-i-want-to-love-you--181368.phtml

When I joined my first gaming community everyone was playing SOCOM 2. The blogs were filled with fun accounts of these games - who killed who, who won what game, the comraderie and fun of this team-based shooter. I was jealous. At the time I only had a PSP and eventually I picked up SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 2. I tried the single player mode, but in all honesty I can't even remember if I completed the campaign, so apparently it wasn't memorable for me. I do however clearly recall the fun of the online play. The PSP version had an incredible female avatar, online lobbies, voice chat and wonderful graphics - what was not to like! I played many, many online hours... though got a little tired of the preference for Thin Ice and Marketplace as the only maps that people seemed to want to play.

Eventually I did get a PS3 and it had backward compatibility. A friend sent me a copy of SOCOM 2 and I did manage to try a couple games, but not enough for me to really get a feel for the game. Next up was SOCOM: Confrontation. It had no pesky single player mode to distract me and I was really amped for the game... until I got into the beta/demo that pretty much everyone was in. I found the game very slow compared to most of the other games I had been playing... my character tended to lurch around and I had problems with the whole lean and peek thing. R6:Vegas actually had a pretty slick cover system, and SOCOM's use of the sixaxis lean/peek system seemed inherently flawed when my muscle-bound war dude avatar didn't seem to realize that there was a wall in front of him, or when he suddenly glommed onto a wall that I didn't want him sticking to. I also found it was very much a game of "who sees who first" because it took so few bullets to kill you. Essentially if someone sees you first, you're dead. This makes sense if you're playing with a team and people are talking tactics, but most of the talk in the beta seemed to be SOCOM vets whining about how nobody was manning up and playing the "no respawn" modes and how the game was being dumbed down for **bleep** like myself who wanted to actually play and not watch other people play. It was difficult to find your friends online and with all the server issues and PS3 freezes, I gave up and passed on buying this game. From what I understand, the patching process was pretty intensive and many of the problems were eventually rectified, and by all accounts Confrontation is now the game it should have originally been, but frankly this was too little, too late and I had moved on.

... Which brings me to SOCOM 4. I want to like the game. I want a fresh start with this franchise. I want to have a team based shooter game that requires group tactics and strategy, but I have several concerns:

1. Each SOCOM game has sold fewer copies than the previous game
(excepting SOCOM:CA... which apparently just sucked):



See that graph I made.. yeah, it's based on data from VGChartz which isn't 100% reliable in terms of exact figures... but I think the trend is pretty obvious. Socom 4 may well buck this trend, but if it doesn't, this game may end up fading into oblivion faster than Bioshock 2's online mode. Granted the PS2 had a larger install base, but enthusiasm for the franchise seems to be waning and even the metacritic scores seem to reflect an inability for the games to satisfy the consumer. Socom 1 and 3 had a metacritic score of 81, with Socom 2 having a slightly higher score of 87. Combined Assault and Confrontation showed a hefty dip in metacritic scores with Combined Assault garnering a score of 72 and Confrontation dipping to 63.



2. Zipper is the developer.
Don't get me wrong... I love MAG, a recent game released by Zipper, but I also don't deny that they essentially released a beta copy to the public and we've endured six months of patching, problems and promises. They also don't seem to be listening to the community. They are constantly patching things that don't need patching (the constant weapon nerfing and un-nerfing) while they seem to ignore the bigger issues. They don't even seem to really"get" what their game is about. They bring out a perfect team based game and then mess it up by giving medals/ribbons and trophies for essentially screwing your team by either teamkilling to get a medal or going solo/ninja to get the ribbons. Most of the ingame awards simply don't reward team-based gameplay which is what attracted people to the game in the first place. They seem equally lost on the SOCOM 4 boards and most every release of new information is greeted with negativity by the existing community. Which brings me to....



3. The community is aggressive.
"Health regen caters to n00bs and that's not what SOCOM is" - direct quote. The existing SOCOM community emmanates a "n00bs are NOT welcome in SOCOM" vibe that is overall detrimental to the survival of the franchise. If you didn't play SOCOM 1 and 2, then you're a n00b. If you don't like SOCOM 2 best, you're a n00b, and your opinion doesn't count. Ironically it seems that on the SOCOM forums there is more interest in an HD remake of SOCOM 2 than there is in a new game. This attitude makes it difficult for someone new to the franchise to try the game. At this point I'm almost convinced that maybe Zipper should do a re-release of SOCOM 2 to appease the vets and do a total reboot of SOCOM 4 to attract newer players. This likely won't happen and it's a shame that anyone expressing an interest in the game is turned away so vehemently. If Zipper doesn't manage to kill SOCOM, then their fans might.

At this point I don't know that SOCOM 4 can please the old fans, the critics and still garner badly needed new fans. The franchise seems to be on life support and is barely registering a heartbeat. SOCOM 4 will either be a fatal blow or it may be a defribrillator that re-starts the franchise.



SOCOM... I want to like you, but damn you make it difficult! I'm hoping that maybe SOCOM might make an appearance at PAX or that more information (and less speculation) will be forthcoming. I'm trying to keep an open mind, but SOCOM feels like that ex-best friend that swears she's changed and wants back into your life... but sometimes you feel that it might be better to just walk away and go play KZ3 instead.
avatar
[>B<]B1LLYBAD
REAVER
REAVER
Join date : 2010-08-18
Age : 58
http://b-con.darkbb.com

For the love of Socom. LOL Empty Re: For the love of Socom. LOL

Tue Aug 24, 2010 2:50 pm
SO true great write
Back to top
Permissions in this forum:
You cannot reply to topics in this forum