SOCOM: Confrontation (PS3 - PSN)

[Matt]

Even for a Beta, they're not doing themselves any favours are they?

When the game is going well it's actually pretty good. Let's hope there's a proper demo before release, but it's getting awfully close to the big day. I don't think at this stage the game should be this poor.

[ezee ryder]

Yup isn't this down for an October release? If so from this evidence of not even getting a game after waiting an hour, they are way off.

[Dazzyman]

Ah k Chain will check later. I tried on Friday night and had 3 really long tries at it. The loading to get in a game seems to take forever around 2mins and it either just hung on me or the last time the round ended by time I got their. I got about 10seconds shooting that was it so gave up.

I know it could be a great game but I guess this is the point of stress test betas. Release date is 14th October USA 17th October for us.

[Matt]

I can see the point of the beta to test the online capacity - it's clearly showing right now how shoddy it is, taking sometimes 5 mins+ to get in to a game. The quickest I've seen is around 2 to 3 mins. We'll have to assume this is an internet network issue and they'd not encountered it on LAN testing, because there's no way any company would sensibly release a beta, which a lot of people would consider a demo, with such a long wait to get in to a game.

However, they'd have known about the slow menu loading times, as that is unlikely to be internet related (unless they're caching the models realtime online as well, which is rather unlikely). The load times are unacceptable.

The thing is, its all poorly thought out. You join a game server which is poorly named - there are lots of US West / East coast servers, and a few names "English Speaking 1 / 2 / 3", which are getting populated by Americans. I guessed the English Speaking ones are for us Brits, as we have no UK Servers, and the Yanks are meant to stick to the US servers. Better naming conventions would help there.

Then you get a list of games, but you don't get to see if the game has started. So you join a game, which in my experience has ALWAYS started, then you wait 5 minutes on a loading screen. Finally you get to SPECTATE a ****ing game, because most of them aren't setup to let you join mid round. If you're lucky and smart, you've chosen a Suppression game to jump in to, which is basically DM so you can join mid-game - some of the time, and that's assuming that in the 5 minutes loading time the gametype hasn't changed. So if you have to wait, you often have to wait until the whole match has finished, not just the round, so you sit there for 5 rounds bored.

Once in a game, you get random freezes, though I've had no crashes, the game sorts itself out after a second. Frame rate is good, but I've had some real dips during firefights. There's a lot of texture popping. And a really convoluted control scheme that I'm struggling with.

Saying all that, the game buried underneath all the crap is good, and is one I'd buy, IF they fix the loading issues. Definitely a PSN title for me now rather than retail, to help loading times.

On the plus side, I've never seen so many PS3 users with mics in game! Guess it attracts the old SOCOM crowd who are using their PS2 mics. Yet that in turn shows a problem of Sony not including a standard mic with the machine - everyone is set to different levels, some you can't hear, some are booming.

[TIKKAROMA]

Wow this is ****e - so many better examples of this type of game on xbox360 and PC already.

Really there's no market for a game of this quality anymore.

[ezee ryder]

Really there's no market for a game of this quality anymore.

We will have to wait and see for that.

[Matt]

Wow this is ****e - so many better examples of this type of game on xbox360 and PC already.

Really there's no market for a game of this quality anymore.

The game has a lot of potential. If they fixed the loading situation and smoothed the engine out, which may happen during the course of the beta, people will suddenly find themselves playing the game and probably enjoying it. The mechanics are all in place. Compared to similar games, like GRAW and R6V, I think it's a better game to play; technically it's far better than both as well. It's got a good sense of reality, the game world is solidly constructed. From what I've overheard in games, the SOCOM crowd are enjoying it.

I've played it a lot this weekend, only grabbing a single game of Warhawk when I was fed up waiting to get in to a game. When I am in, I've found it very enjoyable.

There is no way this is getting released with these loading times.

[Number45]

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=233067

Changes incoming to help alleviate the problems of this beta.

[Matt]

Superb, I'm looking forward to giving it a go tonight. Right now it's all I'm playing!

[JP]

A video of the new headset: gametrailers.com

Not very interesting but what the hell did you expect, it's video of a headset.

[Brad]

There is no way this is getting released with these loading times.

Agreed, it's like Steel Battalion all over again!

[ezee ryder]

Speaking of release date, when is this due out guys? End of October?

[JP]

Just noticed that I was sent a Japanese beta code for this yesterday which I think I got for downloading the SOCOM theme from the Japanese store.

If you did that too, check your Japanese email addresses as you might have one. I noticed earlier that J0e was playing it too so there could be a few that have been sent out now.

I've had the UK beta for a while now so I've given this to somebody on here who wanted it so there's no point asking if you can have it!

EDIT:
Just wanted to add that I don't yet know if the code has worked for the other person or whether it's locked to my email but I'll update this later if there are any problems.

[J0e Musashi]

Yer, I was on it last night. Not bad, rather some games with you (sensible) guys really. The JPN one is in full English too. You had to D/L a ticket to get the key. There was a Home, and LBP one too. I never got into Home though, prolly cos I'm outside of Japan.

[Brad]

I have a japanese code too.

If someone does the download using a japanese accoutn will they be able to play using their normal UK account after it's installed?