Tango Down – SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals

Squad-based shooter SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals is not the first game Super Chart Island has got to with online multiplayer. It is, however, the first PS2 game I’ve reached to have a blue-and-white infinity symbol and ‘with network play’ banner on the front of the box. It’s also the first to have the top gameplay bullet point on the back of the box, right after the blurb about defending freedom wherever it is in danger, to be its ‘groundbreaking Network (Broadband) gameplay in separate multiplaye [sic] missions using the Network Adaptor (Ethernet) (for PlayStation® 2)’. With Microsoft’s Xbox offering built in connectivity and Sony now pushed to join in, console gaming and online were starting to come together in a bigger way.

That jumble of words and random capitalisation that formed the necessary additions to access part of the game is a clue to why online gameplay won’t be a really major part of the story until another generation on. The other one is a wider question of numbers. As of 2003, 11% of UK households had access to broadband internet, somewhere around the world average and well behind some other countries. The number of UK households with PS2s was lower but of similar magnitude, and climbing fast. Though not as fast as the broadband numbers, which had quadrupled to 44% by 2006 when the next console generation (minus PlayStation) was getting into full swing. 

Still, while SOCOM‘s multiplayer was aimed at a small audience, it was an increasingly viable one to focus on even on consoles, and it had some new ideas to do so. One version of the game on sale came with a headset mic. It came with voice recognition to give out your orders to Bravo squad in single player, a clever if totally unnecessary gimmick when the system of pausing to select commands from a menu works about as efficiently as could be hoped for. The real key function, though, was to talk to your teammates in online multiplayer. 

The online aspect of the game was ahead of its time even for its later UK release, and is as good a place as any to confront a shortfall of this project. I’ve had encounters with games that were difficult to access already, but as more and more games moved to having significant online elements, I’m going to be unable to recreate the ephemeral a lot more often. Some of it is going to have to rely on memories, mine and others, and on recorded evidence of the weird collaborative, short-term cultural artifacts produced through online multiplayer.

For the most part, I will be talking about single player, and for SOCOM that was still pretty significant, not least to players without broadband or a Network Adaptor (Ethernet) (for PlayStation® 2). You take your squad of four nameless marines into various places around the world to take out assorted enemies of freedom who are helpfully referred to as terrorists as often as possible so you don’t have to worry about sneaking up and killing them. The enemies and team-mates are not perfect AIs, but both much smarter than those of, to name an obvious peer, Conflict: Desert Storm. That allows for much more sophisticated stealth and strategy. It also meant that I enjoyed it even less.

For all of Conflict: Desert Storm’s many flaws, it did at least quickly get me up to speed on its action and getting some use of the squad. SOCOM feels more high tech, and the regular flow of information in my headphones (“tango, three o’ clock”) is a neater way of presenting a lot of information fast. By my twentieth time getting killed in the dark on a boat by a couple of shots from an enemy I couldn’t even see, it was clear it has a more realistic and harsh approach to death. It also left me feeling like I was at the helm of a complex system that I had no chance of mustering the necessary work to master to an extent which I haven’t seen since Armour-geddon on the Amiga in 1991.

Putting off lots of people isn’t a problem if you have the means to capitalise on a dedicated audience segment though, and online multiplayer with its synchronised movement of players onto sequels was going to be a great means for just that. From all that I can tell from reviews, the multiplayer of SOCOM was well-received, so it was a good test case. SOCOM II made #7 in the UK charts less than a year later, two places behind Norton Internet Security 2004. The numbers just weren’t there yet. But more than many of the more celebrated games of 2003, this one points to the future. 

---

Top of the charts for week ending 28 June 2003:

• 

• 

• 

• 

•