SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs

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SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs

Developer(s)	Zipper Interactive and the U.S. Navy
Publisher(s)	Sony Computer Entertainment
Release date(s)	November 4, 2003 (Original and Deluxe Versions) March 5, 2004 (Original and Deluxe Versions) June 29, 2004 (Original and Deluxe Versions); October 6, 2005 (Big Hits Series) August 5, 2004
Genre(s)	Third-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Rating(s)	CERO: 18+ ESRB: Mature
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2
Media	DVD-ROM
System requirements	PlayStation 2, USB Headset for VOIP chat, PS2 Network Adapter for online play.
Input	PlayStation 2 controller, PlayStation 2 Headset, USB Keyboard.

SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs is a third person tactical shooter video game for PlayStation 2 and the sequel for SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs. The game was developed by Zipper Interactive in collaboration with the Naval Special Warfare Command and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. SOCOM II was released on November 4th, 2003.

1 Gameplay
2 Commands
3 Trivia
4 Weapons
- 4.1 Terrorists
- 4.2 SEALs
5 Single Player
6 Online Play
7 External links

[edit] Gameplay

SOCOM II is a third person tactical shooter for the PS2 that combines the elements of strategy, stealth, reflex and hand-eye coordination. There are 12 different single-player missions: 3 in Albania, 3 in Brazil, 3 in Algeria, and 3 in Russia. There are 5 different ranks that can be played in the game. From easiest to hardest, they are: Ensign, Lieutenant, Commander, Captain, and Admiral. The player starts with the first three ranks unlocked, but must must finish the entire single player game on Commander to unlock Captain, and must finish the game on Captain to unlock Admiral. Players can unlock new models for multiplayer, as well as movies, music, concept art, and credits from the game by completing certain objectives. For example, beating the Albania missions on Lieutenant unlocks Pius skin for multiplayer. Each mission has Primary Objectives, Secondary Objectives, and Hidden Bonus Objectives. Players have to complete all the Primary Objectves to win the mission, and Secondary Objectives are optional, but add to the overall score for the mission.

Hidden Bonus Objectives usually help to make other missions easier. For example, finding a map in one mission means the player will not have to look hard to find the place in the next mission. Grades are received at the end of a mission. It is a letter grade based on the average percent of the 4 categories of score: Stealth, Accuracy, Teamwork, and Objective Completion.

[edit] Commands

In single player, commands can be administered to the rest of the team. When opening the command menu, the player can choose WHO, WHAT, and WHERE for the three columns (example: Fireteam, Attack to, Charlie.) Commands can also be spoken using the USB headset.

[edit] Trivia

Wardog and Vandal are not seen or mentioned in Socom: U.S Navy Seals 3. Socom: U.S Navy Seals. Combined Assault reveals Vandal was later promoted and was transferred to operations in Asia. What happened to Wardog remains a mystery.

[edit] Weapons

SOCOM II features an array of modern day armaments (most of which carry their real world names). Both teams—Seals and Terrorists—carry distinct weapon sets with only a few similarities. When selecting the weapons, the player chooses a primary weapon, such as an assault rifle or sub-machine gun, a secondary weapon (pistol), and is given three slots to fill with various tactical devices (such as a thermal scope for sniper rifles) and grenades. Upon completing the single-player campaign on a selected difficulty level (Ensign, Lieutenant, Commander, Captain, Admiral) the player will unlock certain weapons for use in the single-player portion of the game, along with playable characters for the online missions. During on-line play the following weapons are available:

[edit] Terrorists

Primary weapons

Pistols

Other

[edit] SEALs

Primaries

Pistols

Mark 23
Mark 23SD
"SP-10"
"9mm Pistol"
M11

Other

For legal reasons, several of the weapons representing real life counterparts have had letters of their real life name replaced with initials of the real life manufacturer. Such as the F90 representing the FN P90, and the HK5 representing the H&K MP5. Other weapons have been renamed in other ways, such as the Model 18 representing a Glock model 18 and the 9mm Sub representing an UZI submachine gun. The OICW is a primary weapon only obtainable through illicit methods (such as a codebreaker or through glitching), but is available for use in single player once the game has been beaten on the "Admiral" Difficulty level.

[edit] Single Player

The overall gameplay has stepped up a notch with smarter A.I. on both sides. For example, terrorists will now side-strafe and prone into foliage. Zipper stated that they integrated some tactics from the online portion into the new A.I. as well. The health meter has been improved, with a life-bar as opposed to a color-changeing dot. Although the team A.I. is reliable, there are a few problems in which the team mates run into walls if the player gets too far ahead. There were also a few additions to the TCM menu (a Tactical Command Menu which allows you give orders to your squad) such as "GET DOWN", which orders your teammates to drop to the ground and hold position when out doors. There are also secret commands which are not listed on the commands list, such as "intimidate." The game features 12 missions in countries such as Albania, Brazil, Algeria, and Russia.

[edit] Online Play

The online multiplayer portion of Socom II requires an ethernet broadband connection for play. This mode sets two teams of eight each, SEALs and Terrorists, against each other with default play settings of a round time of 6 minutes, with each game being decided by the first team to win 6 of 11 possible rounds. In a room created by any SOCOM II user, factors such as number of rounds, round type, round time, weapon restrictions, and friendly fire can all be adjusted to the creator's liking.

Each round plays out in a manner similar to the popular online game Counter-Strike - Each team "spawns" at opposite sides of the map, and proceed to pursue their respective objectives. When the character one is controlling dies, that player must wait for the next round to begin in order to resume play (apart from "respawn" games - see below). While dead, the player may view all other living team members and their actions, however they are not permitted to monitor members of the other team. The only in-game time for changing a character's weapons load is when a character is dead and waiting for the next round to begin, although weapons can be picked up from dead players of either team.

SOCOM II supports voice chat in game lobbies and between teammates during gameplay. Voice chat is not permitted in server lobbies or while in the armory of game lobbies. There are in-game options to mute certain players if one does not desire to hear their contributions to the chat, or to switch to a different channel of communication (offense, defense, etc.), although that feature is rarely used in the average game.

Problems with locating acquaintances in the original SOCOM online lead to the development of both a Friend List and a Clan Roster. If one is a member of a clan or recognized friend of another player, he/she may view the statistics, status and server and game location of anybody on the respective lists, as well as the other user's "Description" and "Hometown" at that user's discretion.

[edit] Online Maps

All of the Original Socom maps were carried over for online play with a few minor changes such as:
Turrets
Breaches
Previous maps that were day are now night (Rat's Nest, Abandoned)
Some paths have been blocked (Rat's nest), while others have been opened (Frost Fire)

Frost Fire- Suppression- Alaska- Night, but well lit
Blizzard- Demolition- Alaska- Presumably Day, unknown due to cloud cover, Snowing
NightStalker- Demolition- Turkmenistan- Night
Desert Glory- Extraction- Turkmenistan- Day
Rats Nest- Suppression- Turkmenistan- Night
Abandoned- Suppression- Thailand- Night
The Ruins- Demolition- Thailand- Day, Raining
Blood Lake- Extraction- Congo- Day
Bitter Jungle- Demolition- Congo- Day
Death Trap- Extraction- Congo- Day
Sandstorm- Breach- Algeria- Night
Fish Hook- Extraction- Algeria- Day
Crossroads- Demolition- Algeria- Day, Previously evening
Fox Hunt- Escort- Albania- Day
The Mixer- Escort- Albania- Day, Raining
Vigilance- Suppression- Albania- Day
Requiem- Demolition- Russia- Night
Guidance- Escort- Russia- Day
Chain Reaction- Suppression- Russia- Day
Sujo- Breach- Brazil- Night, Raining
Enowapi- Breach- Brazil- Day
Shadow Falls- Suppression- Brazil- Night
After Hours- Suppression- Seoul, South Korea- Night
Liberation- Escort- Algeria- Day
Last Bastion- Breach- Albania- Day

[edit] Problems with SOCOM II Online

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Hit Detection: The detection of bullets on the characters during a game is something that has been complained about since its release. Zipper has admitted "dead spots" on character models where enemy shots that are on target just don't register, and don't diminish the health of the person hit. Latency (or "Lag") is related to hit detection insomuch as that data packets are dropped with increased latency in a game, possibly causing hit detection problems that are worse than normal. (More information on lag and connection quality at Comparison of latency and bandwidth )

Glitching: As with all online games, glitches are found and exploited. Known glitches include multiple ways to get through walls and be protected inside them while shooting others who are outside the wall, and throwing grenades through walls. Some glitches are so powerful that they overload the Playstation 2, causing it to reset. In fact, glitches have become so popular, that some rooms are deemed "Glitch No Kill" (which is often shortened to GNK). In these types of rooms, one is not allowed to kill, but explore and exploit many game features and bugs. ^{[citation needed]}

In early 2006, the glitching issue became massive, now dubbed "Code 9". Hackers have managed to find a way to bypass DNAS and use completely new cheats, such as infinite health, automatic grenade launchers/sniper rifles, and other serious problems. ^{[citation needed]}

Offensive User Names and Text Chats: While there are minor anti-profanity measures in place for keeping language in SOCOM II Online clean, the automatic filters for profanity are unable to detect simple alterations of profane words, such as replacing the letter "A" with "@", or using the alternate characters such as "Á". Also, until recently, the letters "FK" together would "Star out" all the following letters in the word. Certain words such as "Breifcase" and "KFC" would also cause Starout.

Gameplay Bugs: On many occasions there will be a major flaw in gameplay during a game. Issues include players being immune to bullets and explosives ^{[citation needed]}, a member of one team spawning at the spawn point of the opposing team/ under the map^{[citation needed]}, only certain members of each team being able to shoot or throw grenades (which normally occurs after a player's gun shoots grenades instead of bullets and bringing up the message "fire in the hole!" for each shot.)^{[citation needed]} Also, sometimes the player will just freeze permanently for seemingly no reason whatsoever. ^{[citation needed]} Other things include players coming alive at the end of the round,^{[citation needed]} talking to people on the live channel when dead, ^{[citation needed]}invisibility to certain players, ^{[citation needed]}all players going through their own rounds at an alarming rate without anyone else but them spawning^{[citation needed]}, and reciving the wrong rank insignia at start up^{[citation needed]}. The most fascinating glitch so far is where one person on the team is actually playing a different map entirely and can see their team-mates name tags but cannot do anything to help the game.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Updates and Authentication

In order to play SOCOM II online, one must have their "DNAS Data" authenticated. This process scans the user's Playstation for added internal chips that modify the Playstation's functioning (mod chip), hacking devices (Gameshark, Codebreaker), and unoriginal versions of game discs that may otherwise affect online play, possibly giving the user an unfair advantage over other online players. While Sony scans the hardware of each user logging on to SOCOM online, there is no evidence that they will take any action against anyone with unauthorized modifications or peripherals, although many SOCOM online players have expressed opinions in favor of Sony banning the hardware address of anybody found cheating in-game or using a cheating device so that they could not play online.

SOCOM II online is updated by Sony occasionally through the use of patches - downloadable updates to the game saved to a memory card. The patches released as of 24 June 2005 include fixes for bugs in the game such as exploits allowing players playing as terrorists to carry twice the maximum number of mines, and what was deemed "wall-jumping" where a player would run along a wall and hit the jump button in order to move much quicker than a normal run.

[edit] External links

Community & Multiplayer Competition

Official Links

socom2.playstation.com - official site (USA)
socom2-game.com - official site (other countries)
"Bringing the War Home: The New Military-Industrial-Entertainment Complex at War and Play" by the journalist Nick Turse (October 18, 2003)
"SOCOM II: US Navy Seals - PlayStation.com Forums" - official SOCOM II forum
SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs at MobyGames

v • d • e SOCOM video games
SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs • II • 3 • Combined Assault • Fireteam Bravo • 2 SOCOM Online Map List • Zipper Interactive

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