The Seals are back in Zipper and Sony's latest release SOCOM 3: US Navy Seals, the third release in the series. SOCOM 3 offers a wide arrange of new features while keeping the same realist tactical action feel of the previous games.

Zipper changed up the feel a bit with their latest release, and with the addition of vehicles and bigger maps you may think you're playing a totally different game. SOCOM 3 also offers many other new features including 14 new vehicles, 15 new single player and 12 multi player levels, a new crisp interface and the ability to play with up to 32 players in multi player games.

The vehicles in SOCOM 3 are fairly basic in comparison with other games, easy handling and fairly slow movement speed the vehicles in SOCOM 3 seem to be focused towards the less experienced player rather than the more advanced gamer. The feel of most vehicles was very tight, allowing for very easy handling when racing around the map. The movement speed of the vehicles are fairly weak, only going about two times that of running speed.

The Single Player aspects of the game were very well done, with excellently done video clips between levels and campaigns, and though short, the campaign seemed to take forever to complete while keeping the exciting feel of just starting a new level between missions. some of the downfalls to the single player aspects is the ability to unlock items for multi-player use. While not a huge issue, you will most-likely have to complete the single player campaign to compete in online play.

The bigger maps in SOCOM 3 were a nice change. More space allows for a more in-depth and realistic feel while playing as a sniper, while still leaving space for the more close range tactical and action style gamers. However, the larger maps seem to cause a lot of confusion for some players, finding and/or assisting other members of your team in Multi-Player games is virtually impossible at times, and can (and normally does) make for very long game rounds. Most rounds can go for well over 4 minutes, making it a real pain in the ass to die within the first few minutes of the game, especially if you're in a 32 player game.

A lot of online changes came with SOCOM 3, the new Ranking System that is using the actual ranks from the Navy Seals that allows you to access future tournament and events is only accessible through the new verification system, the system uses your credit card to verify your account to access some options, including: Join/Create/War a Clan, use the Friends List and the ability to Advance in Rankings. Also, two new online game types were added to the game, Convoy and Control. In Convoy the Terrorist team must take their convoy across the map while trying to avoid or go through the Seals who must try to stop the Terrorists before they make it to their off load point. Control is a lot like a King of The Hill style game, where both teams rush for check points on the map, first team that scores all check points or has the most when time runs out wins.

With minor improvements to the character and world textures and a overhauling of the interface, SOCOM 3 doesn't really do much in the way of improving the title's video performance. One of the biggest improvements is of course the weapon models, though not really noticeable in normal game play the weapon models have been improved greatly over previous versions of the game, with a new sharper look and far more detail than before, the weapons in SOCOM 3 are probably the only really new eye candy in the game. The interface was also overhauled, though not by much and though noticeable it's nothing you'd be amazed by.

Though plagued with a few bugs the sound in SOCOM 3 is about average, with some nice features such as the ringing of the ears and explosion sounds, and the poorly done features like hearing multi firing shot sounds while only shooting one shot while in burst fire mode and randomly hearing doors open and close out of no where. While not perfect, there are also new radio commands for multi player and single player games, in single player they work extremely well while commanding your squad, but in multi player they are just of no use. With 5 people using the same radio command in a game you have literally no idea who to listen to, and no idea how to find them.

Though a good game there wasn't a lot of things that stuck out as above average about SOCOM 3. The game seemed to take a lot of aspects of the previous versions of the game and just build off them, but seemed to lose focus of what the game was meant to be. And a lot of the improvements that came in this release just complicated the game, making confusing and hard to play at times. SOCOM 3 will probably appeal to a good percent of gamers, but the hardcore SOCOM fans might find it hard to get into playing it, online at least.