There are seven game modes from Deathmatch to Hostage Extraction and battling for Control Points but there is really nothing new here. The gameplay has always been its strength and there is no exception here. You’ll find that the accurately portrayed weapons bring quick death to the run and gun player; SOCOM is about teamwork and knowing your strengths.

You start by customizing a Seal and/or Mercenary and the choices you make reflect in the game. Go for heavy armor and you’re guy is going to move slower but take more damage. Want to be light and fast go ahead but watch out you’ll go down fast.

The graphics are adequate but the draw distances are stellar—turning snipers into true long shot artists. Often times you’ll spot enemies that are well out of regular weapons range and nothing is more satisfying than watching a new player shooting his shotgun at you from a long distance only to give away his position to your team’s sniper.

Getting into a match is not the best experience; it may be bad form to knock a match making system that doesn’t have Xbox Live support behind it but the system in this game seems every bit identical to the system I played years ago on the PS2. You need to choose a channel, then scan the games list for an open game, then go into spectator mode and wait for said game to be over to join the next match. While the game does offer clan support, it’s time to step up the match making system I shouldn’t have to wait 5 – 10 minutes to get into a game.

Now that some of the kinks have been worked out SOCOM Confrontation is worth the time and effort. I’m a big fan of the series and even with the lack of single player, the ancient match making system, and the launch server I am still playing the heck out of it. However newcomers would be better off renting first as the lack of a single player mode may turn some off.

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