Bravo, indeed.
Current trends dictate that when a well-respected series hits a handheld, it amounts to a less than respectable port. Even the most intimidating, fearsome console icons are subjected to vicious self-parody at the hands of third-party developers, who in turn are given the unenviable task of translating something huge into something very small. But PSP trend buckers like Wipeout and Grand Theft Auto have survived the quantum leap, bringing great big worlds of playability to the little system with a monster screen.
We didn’t think this was going to be the case with SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo, and we were dead wrong. Instead of handing off one of their most coveted series to an unknown team and letting the name do the selling, Sony delivered this bullet to Zipper Interactive, turning play that should be broken into an unlikely score.
Fireteam Bravo delivers the entire SOCOM payload, including the bad single-player campaign and intimidating suite of online features to the starving PSP masses. While Zipper had to make some big gameplay concessions, overall they sacrificed surprisingly little in their quest to provide you with the same kind of tactical online action previously seen only on consoles.
Logging in is easy and takes you to a big menu with more features than you’ve ever held in your sweaty little fists. You register and create an account, and then are free to create a clan, make posts in the forums, check out the leader board, add people to your Friends list, host a game or join one of hundreds going on across the various servers located around the U.S.
Matches can include up to sixteen players in both Infrastructure and Ad Hoc modes, featuring SOCOM stalwarts Suppression (Team Deathmatch), Extraction (steal the hostage), Captive (a Team Deathmatch where defeated players can be resuscitated), Demolition (set up us the bomb) and Free For All. Each can be tweaked along a decently deep set of parameters, although some definitely fit the PSP limits better than others.
Most of the twelve playable maps are compatible with at least three different match types, and the environments themselves are really impressive. While not nearly as large as those found in SOCOM 3 or Battlefield 2, these are still burly areas complete with warehouses, outlying fields, doors that open and close, avenues and sewers – pretty much everything you could want in a shooter.
The gameplay itself goes the distance, too. Before battle, you’ll outfit your soldier by selecting primary and secondary weapons, add-ons for both, and three miscellaneous items. Fireteam Bravo forgoes the console version’s encumbrance system in favor of freely customizable slots. In other words, there’s no reason not to arm yourself with the M16 plus grenade launcher attachment, the nastiest SMG plus a silencer, and a ton of rockets. Camping has never been easier or more explosive.
Still, the ability to load up on explosives makes sense in a game like Fireteam Bravo, where aiming is either automatic or really frisky. When you begin any game or match, you’ll find yourself in the normal moving/aiming mode in which pressing Up or Down on the nub will move you forward or back and pressing Left or Right will make you look in the indicated direction. If you hold the L trigger, looking is replaced by strafing. Alternately, you can enter Free Look mode, allowing you to aim freely with the nub. You can then hold the L trigger and the nub will move you forward and back or strafe left or right. It’s somewhat contrived and a little hard to get used to.
In either mode, holding the R trigger when an enemy is in view will lock you onto them. Provided you’re using your primary weapon, you just press X to automatically fill them full of holes. This obviously makes aiming a non-factor, but it also undermines your posture. In the console versions you would hit the deck to escape an enemy’s sights, but here hitting the deck is practically guaranteed death as you won’t slip out of their lock-on and you’ll be unable to shoot for a critical moment. Zipper should have taken the Star Wars: Battlefront approach and included moves that would break a lock, thereby making firefights slightly longer and more interesting affairs.
Instead, they give you tons of explosives, which is also fine. Aiming may be moot with a rifle, but it’s the only way to go with rockets or grenades because you can’t lock on with those. While the nub is still touchy, liberal doses of splash damage guarantee some fun, quality rocket kills.
The launchers are even more critical due to the fact that hand grenades are useless. To throw one you have to access your inventory, scroll up to Grenades and push X. Then you have to aim in Free Look mode and hold X until you’ve charged the desired amount. When you let go, you’ll hurl a grenade that behaves accurately, but any enemy worth fighting should already be blowing your head off.
While the weird, dual control scheme is definitely a little clunky, it doesn’t ruin the experience. You’ll be strafing back and forth in an alley, firing bursts at foes and screaming to your teammates (provided you go out and buy the separately sold PSP headset) before getting wiped out by a rocket. And then it’ll hit you – this really is SOCOM.
Our one major gripe with the online content is that players have no way of customizing the control setup. While Zipper has performed a small miracle by turning the limited layout into something workable, I think I could come up with a scheme that would suit me even better, and I should be able to make and save those changes.
Still, such exciting and deep online content in a handheld is unique to Fireteam Bravo, so if you own a PSP and have access to wireless Internet, this game is an easy call. But if you don’t, you shouldn’t even consider it.
Like its console cousins, Fireteam Bravo suffers from a terrible single-player campaign. Instead of commanding a squad of morons, you only have one half-witted sidekick, but don’t think that makes things any less stupid – there are still the enemies. Apparently guided by voices telling them to either duck or shoot, the bad guys are as lost and helpless as a litter of kittens. You’ll effortlessly breeze through their defenses while disarming bombs, rescuing hostages and bombing stockpiles across four different geographical locales.
There’s some sort of plot here involving a radical group that wants to bring about global anarchy and then pick up the pieces, and some of this is even related through impressive cut-scenes. The rest, though, is told through big, unnecessary paragraphs that preface each mission. It’s just poorly done.
Aside from the regular campaign, you can also jump into "Instant Action" mode, which lets you play through any beaten mission with customizable parameters like Sweep and Clear (kill everyone) or Hostage Extract. Either way, the content is mainly worthless since it suffers from the same terrible A.I. that plagues the campaign.
Fireteam Bravo also has cross-talk functionality with SOCOM 3. If you complete bonus objectives in one game, you’ll unlock weapons and skins for use in the single-player game of the other. It should take a lot more than skins and new guns, though, to get you to waste time on either of these campaigns.
Surprisingly, Fireteam Bravo looks good online and off. While it doesn’t display much detail, what’s there is crisp and clear. Units animate well, benefit from neat death throes and are killed in pretty slick explosions. The only downside is a pretty short draw distance. Enemies further than thirty yards are obscured by blue haze, which can put a real crimp in a sniper’s style.
The game’s audio comes straight from SOCOM 3. While that game had some of the worst audio we’d ever heard from a console title, the PSP version is even worse thanks to the tinny little speakers. Gunfire sounds just like someone faintly tapping a table with a pencil. Still, the game supports voice chat and that’s way more important than fancy gun noises or original tunes.
SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo is a shocker of a shooter, providing PSP players with access to an experience unlike any they’ve ever held in their hands – tactical online fragging. The entertaining gameplay and swell graphics are backed up by a sizeable assortment of well-designed maps, plus a bevy of all the best online accoutrements. The single-player game shoots blanks, but when it comes to online gameplay, this soldier commands the field.
