Day 2 on the SOCOM Confrontation beta, I got my clan invite yesterday. Today I spent some time with the character creation features. Merq's and Commando's have about seven different head styles, then you can customize your soldier with facial hair, scars, voice style, head gear, mics, and eyewear. Then for the body you get light/medium/heavy gear, which affects your soldiers encumbrance (mobility), after that you can choose your camo patterns and styles, choose from Night/Urban/Desert then go thru a multitude of patterns for each body part (head/body/torso). Next is the Armory the most important section! Choose your primary weapon, secondary weapon, attachments, and two sub weapons like nades or C4.Issues I've noticed so far;
1. Occasionally I get a big red X with two arrows pointing in opposite directions on the top center of the screen which mean the game is trying to stableize your connection.
2. The game did take unusually long to load, I'm sure Slant Six is working on the servers so no big deal.
3. For the most part the lag was non existant, but one game was so bad that I lost mic capability and framerate dropped significantly. I logged out switched to a secondary account and viola problem solved.
4. Radar in upper right corner didn't seem to be working
~Controls are a bit different from OS SOCOM, I kept bringing up the taunt menu by accident, but like I just gotta get used to the button config.
~I like the map, lots of detail, lots of nooks and crannies, and heat distortion in the distance is a nice effect. This new Crossroads map is amazing the tower diagonally across from the lion is sweet! The new areas and slight changes make it feel like a brand new map.
~Gameplay speed is good, faster than MGO, slower than COD4 I think it lends itself to tactical gameplay.
~Character movement is smoother than I expected, the characters tend to float when near edges though. Jumping seemed very limited but that may be due to my encumberance ratio.
~Guns sound terrific and those with 5.1 or better surround sound systems are in for an audio daydream. The other really evolutionary aspect was the proximitty speach system, members on the same team will be able to communicate the traditional way via the mic by pressing L2 or you can speak freely and if a teammate is nearby (above, below, infront, behind) you'll hear them thru your surround sound system from their location in relation to you, distance and objects also affect the volume of their voices! VERY COOL feature! But be careful what you say or the noise you make in the comfort of your living room because you could be heard by an enemy in your vicinity!
~Once they iron out the kinks I think this is gonna reignite the SOCOM community!
I agree that the beta looks very promising. The load times seem longer than they actually are because there's really no loading feedback at all - just a spinning disk.
ReplyDeleteGameplay is great, very tactical -- communication is key. And I love the fact that you don't have to press the communication key to use the headset. If you're in the immediate proximity of a team member you can just speak into your mic. However -- when you don't use the mic key, a player on the opposing team (if nearby) can overhear the conversation!
I discovered this while hiding (as I am apt to do) and some enemy soldiers ran past. Very interesting idea.
Something else I noticed -- the clan warfare commands are a step up. I noticed a clan calendar, so you can tell when you have a planned match against another clan. If you can set up matches using this system that will be a godsend to the SOCOM community.
Glitches aside, it looks like the new SOCOM is going to rock.
Hey Krog, I haven't gotten as much game time with this beta as I'd like...work and all that jazz. I like the calander and all the clan options, don't worry if you haven't gotten the clan invite yet everything will be reset once the game launches next month. Funny aspect of the proximity voice chat feature is when I'm camping in my spot on X-rds and an unsuspecting person runs by me with the radio playing in the background or they're kids crying I know I have a tango coming!
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's amazing how much background noise the mics can pick up. I played a match and listened to some guy get henpecked by his mother or wife for the entire match!
ReplyDeleteMy headset has a toggle switch for my microphone, so I switch mine off when not communicating.
I'm not worried about not getting my clan tag yet - it's probably a glitch. I haven't played much this week, but had a great breach match with some fellow Kontract players.
And you, camping? For real... who'd have guessed? I want to play a match with the following rules (gentleman's rules):
One team has just 2 or 3 people, and that team gets to choose a camping spot, and gets 3 minutes of every round to set up claymore, get into sniping position, etc.
Then, after the three minutes are up the other team can run out and try to take the castle, or the building, whatever. They can't win unless they kill all the members of the other team.
I'm picturing 12 people up against those 3 people. That would be a great match!
Also, I've found some fantastic sniping positions on Crossroads (Large) that I have to show you.