SOCOM 2 For PS3 Release?
Rumour: SOCOM 2 Port Being Looked Into For PS3 Release
Sony is rumoured to have asked Zipper Interactive to look into the feasibility of porting the highly popular SOCOM 2 to the Playstation Network as a downloadable title. This news comes as no surprise considering Sony’s recent desire to port PS2 titles to the Playstation Store, with the most recent being the original Killzone which released this week for $9.99. SOCOM 2 is by far the most demanded PS2 remake on Sony’s Playstation Blog Share website with over 11,300 positive votes for the classic online title to be remade in high definition on the PS3.
It must be asked just why has it taken so long for Sony to look into remaking the title considering that the original Killzone sold only 0.77 million copies on the PS2 compared to the commercial success of the SOCOM series.
Zipper Interactive’s SOCOM was the most successful third-person shooter series on the Playstation 2. The first two SOCOM’s alone sold over 6 million copies and averaged an impressive 85% on Metacritic. SOCOM: US Navy Seals was the first online game on any console and singlehandedly created competitive gaming on the Playstation 2. A fact unknown by many is that GameBattles.com first actually started life as SOCOMbattles.com.
While the first game in the series is the most commercially successful, it is in fact SOCOM 2 that is widely regarded by fans of the series as being the pinnacle of online competitive Playstation gaming. Incredibly, there were over 8000 clans registered to a season on GameBattles.
Nearly over 9000!!1!!
A quick look at the current SOCOM 4 ladders on GameBattles, which does not even have a single clan competing, and it is easy to see why die-hard SOCOM fans have been hounding Zipper to remake the classic title and return the series to its competitive roots.
SOCOM 2 released in North America on the 4th of November 2003 and on the 5th of March 2004 for PAL territories. The game was an instant hit online, shipping with 22 maps, 5 game-modes, extensive clan support, online lobbies, customisable user created rooms, voice and text chat, as well as individual and clan leader boards. Arguably, there has been no other console game since that has had as much in-game community support as SOCOM 2 had – and that includes the current generation of games. On its release, SOCOM 2 outshone Microsoft’s very popular Halo 2 in terms of simultaneous online players. Unfortunately for SOCOM fans, and also competitive Playstation fans alike, the SOCOM series has been on a downward spiral since.
Zipper’s first SOCOM on the Playstation 3 – SOCOM: 4, has only sold 0.66 million copies and averages a disappointing 67% on Metacritic, nearly a 20% drop from its PS2 counterparts. The title is a drastic departure from the previous instalments of the series and left many long-term fans disappointed. Joystick’s review sums up the dissatisfaction felt by a large majority of the SOCOM community upon its release:
“To say that SOCOM 4′s multiplayer is a step back from the franchise standard is an understatement. …the competitive element has gone from unique among military-themed games to an attempt at a third-person Call of Duty. …What could have been a return to form for the series ends up suffering an almost total loss of form.”
SOCOM 4’s player movement is sluggish and unresponsive which makes the game an instant killjoy for the current generation of gaming fans that are used to extremely quick and fluid movement of the Call of Duty franchise. The shooting mechanics appear as being confused between a third person shooter and a first person shooter. Bullet accuracy is very hit or miss and ultimately broken with the game constantly registering an impossible amount of random headshots – gun battles are now largely won by luck rather than gaming skill.
To make matters worse, all of the extremely popular gamemodes from the previous titles were inexplicitly missing on release, as was any form of party or lobby system which made playing with friends extremely laborious and nearly impossible. While the accurate hip-firing, round-based gameplay that made the series so popular and unique amongst fans is largely missing and replaced by respawn, killstreaks and aiming down the sights – a formula all too familiar this gaming generation.
Ultimately, Zipper has left its once extremely dedicated and large fanbase out in the cold and we here at Sixaxis Gaming can only hope that these rumours of a SOCOM 2 port are true.
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