SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo

The venerable squad shooter goes portable.

SOCOM is the PlayStation 2's squad shooter franchise of choice. While other games fumble the transition between the big and small screens, this series' first assualt on handhelds is surprisingly competent.

War Outside Your Living Room
The militaristic spirit that infuses Fireteam Bravo will put any veteran at ease. Snazzy cinematic sequences introduce the game's four locales, fourteen missions each begin with the customization of your two-man team's gear, and orders are issued via an intuitive point-and-press interface and a game-pausing orders menu.

Platform-specific irritations crop up immediately, though. Control is crippled by the PSP's inherent lack of a second analog stick, so you won't be pulling off critical moves like circle-strafing. Worse, you're only allowed to slow down your already somewhat pokey look speed, and pathfinding bugaboos occasionally snag your AI comrade on rocks and walls. SOCOM compensates by being a shade too forgiving, even at the highest skill level, resulting in enemies too stoic for their own good.

Fog of War
These issues can't obscure Fireteam Bravo's strengths, though. Missions seem fluid based on your circumstances and performance, and objectives vary from the stealthy gathering of intelligence photos to the rescuing of hostages. The illusion, when it works, can be enveloping and intoxicating. That the game also talks to SOCOM 3 via a USB cable and "cross talk objectives" only deepens the effect, since each game can unlock goodies and alternate paths on the other. The online component is absorbing, with full clan, stats, and even email support, over either the Internet or an Ad Hoc connection, but lock-on aiming tends to oversimplify the affair.

Fireteam Bravo isn't the best looking game, with it's simplistically tiled textures, and it doesn't have the natural feel that a DualShock controller offers, but it plays to its strengths well enough to overcome its weaknesses. The Navy would be proud.

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