Let's get this out of the way fast: if you aren't planning to play this game online, you shouldn't bother buying it. The bulk of the game is dedicated to playing online matches while communicating with your teammates via the headset that's packed in with the game. There are three types of matches that you can play: Extraction, Demolition and Supression. Extraction matches revolve around the SEALs attempting to rescue three hostages, while the terrorists try to fend them off. Demolition matches involve a single bomb on the map that both sides must fight over in order to blow up the base of each team, and Supression is your standard deathmatch mode. You can choose from a variety of options when creating a game, everything from choosing your maps to selecting friendly fire (the ability to attack a teammate). Overall the experience of playing SOCOM online is great. The lag isn't noticable in most cases and there are always people to play at any time of the day. It's great to log on and see over 2000 people playing the game at any given time. The whole atmosphere of SOCOM online is terrific, because it really does attempt to foster teamwork among players (unless you're playing with friendly fire, of course). Most matches can become massacres if a team can't communicate with each other and if both sides are truly working together in a match, it can become a very tense affair. Unfortunately for Sony there are a bunch of glitches in the game that can make the experience of playing SOCOM online unbearable at times. These glitches can range from running through walls to weapons doing no damage to anyone, and cannot be patched by Sony. While these glitches occur very rarely, they can make for a very frustrating match, especially if your opponents start to exploit their newfound powers.

For players who haven't been able to find a network adapator, SOCOM offers up a single player mode with 12 missions that take you everywhere from the tundra of Alaska to the jungles of the Congo. Each mission has you doing something different, whether it's to secure a compound, obtain intel from terrorists or extract a hostage from enemy territory. But despite the clever level design in the single player mode, it's almost wrecked by your clueless AI squad, who needs to be held by the hand for just about every command. It's amazing how great most of the game turned out, yet creating a somewhat intelligent computer player was seen as not necessary when rolling out the finished product. Nevertheless, the AI can be used as cannon fodder, so all's not lost. One odd feature that SOCOM has is the ability to unlock difficulty modes when you finish the game. If you finish the game once, you get one difficulty level more, and you can continue completing the game multiple times to unlock all the difficulty levels. It may be understandable that games should have some cool little secrets tucked away somewhere, but difficulty levels? That's not what I would call a 'cool secret'.

The play mechanics in SOCOM are fairly simple to understand. You use the analog sticks to control your character and his pitch, while up and down on the d-pad takes care of switching between third person, first person and sniper/night vision mode. By pressing left and right, you can also lean to each side, which is very useful in tight quarters. Your squad can be commanded by accessing a menu with various options, or you can use voice commands via headset to control them. The shoulder buttons are used for shooting and selecting your weapons, with the L1 and L2 buttons regulated to hotkeys for your primary and secondary weapons. Believe me, when you're playing online, you'll be very glad that you have these hotkeys so you can go from grenades to your rifle in a matter of seconds.

Unfortunately the graphics in SOCOM aren't up to snuff with the rest of the game. The character models and the environments aren't the greatest, and there's a lot of fog and draw-in in several levels. However, the level design is simply amazing in SOCOM. It's obvious that while the engine that's powering the graphics isn't up to the job at times, the way that the levels are constructed more than makes up for it. The online levels are cleverly designed, with multiple sniper points for those who love to be the marksman and open areas for players who have a little Rambo in them. Additionally many stages favour a certain side depending on the type of match you're in (Extraction favours Terrorists, Supression favours SEALs, Demolition favours neither), which adds some challenge to the game that's not available in single player. The attention to detail is staggering too, with even the simplest of tasks getting the full treatment. You'll see blood stains on the ground beneath you, your character will wave his hand to his squad members as a signal, terrorists (and SEALs for that matter) all have multiple death animations, everything from simply slumping over dead to slowly falling to their knees, and then keeling over.

Save for Madden 2003, Sony couldn't ask for a better online game to introduce the network adapator with than SOCOM. It's not going to win any awards when it comes to graphics, but it's a fun, simple game that reminds everyone that playing online doesn't have to be a cold, sterile experience. The enjoyment of playing online with people you can actually communicate with as if they were sitting right beside you makes SOCOM one of the best online games you can play right now.

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· · · Reno