In Combined Assault, nothing too much has changed from SOCOM 3: you’re a squad leader of a team of four who are assigned various mission objectives which range from rescuing hostages and investigating crash sites, to sabotaging weapon caches and assassinating enemy commanders. The main story itself takes place in the fictional country of Ajikistan where we learn Fireteam Bravo’s helicopter was shot down by paramilitants after they had successfully rescued a hostage who had intelligence relating to the paramilitary’s operations. After the initial “investigate the crash site” mission, the game throws you into seemingly random areas of Ajikistan and does a poor job of progressing the story through mission briefs and a few cutscenes.
However, the basic gameplay elements are still here. There’s a large emphasis on stealth that requires you to manoeuvre your team from multiple angles in order to surround your enemy and kill them efficiently, one by one. In many cases though, you may want to avoid a firing your weapon so as not to alert nearby troops of your presents. There are a wide range of ways you can do this. For instance, you can sneak into buildings and capture lone troops thereby decreasing the number of enemy reinforcements. Strategy is also a key aspect to the game, such as when you're escorting hostages to safety you may usher your squad mates behind you to take care of any trouble encountered at your rear. Vehicles also play a crucial role and are used to provide cover fire, cross lakes and traverse through binding roads silently (eg. quiet engine) and quickly. Of course they’re not without their weaknesses - when you’re in a boat, for example, you’re the equivalent of a sitting duck as you virtually have no defences and enemies will likely take advantage of this and fire upon you if you haven’t previously delt with them from afar.
Fire in the hole!
For those of you who are new to the series, you command your squad by holding down the L2 button to give out the basic commands of “follow” and “hold your position.” If you tap the button, the location of your cross-hair will determine their actions such as mounting a targeted vehicle, taking out a highlighted enemy or moving to a certain position. More refined commands can be issued using the circle button which will pause the game and bring up a menu screen giving you ample time to think up a strategy while also giving orders to individual members.
New to Combined Assault is the inclusion of a few different weapons and vehicles and a new Instant Action mode which lets you select the level and mission type (retrieve, escort, neutralise enemy presence, etc) you want to play. Additionally, each level has a hidden sausage which you must find in order to obtain the elusive Sausage Badge to prove you had nothing better to do in the game than look endlessly for rancid meat.
The game’s AI is unfortunately quite annoying. When you command your squad to follow you, there’s a 50% chance one member will run off in the complete opposite direction doing God only knows what. If that isn't enough, you constantly have to issue orders to them because they seem to suffer from amnesia. For example, if you’re sneaking up on enemy infested territory, your squad mates may shoot at the first sight of an enemy despite you telling them to fire only if they’re fired upon themselves. Enemy AI suffers similarly, they can either have a sharp eye and shoot with deadly precision or you can walk right in front of them and they’ll ignore you as if you were an ally. Only when you actually shoot at them will they respond but by then, it’s far too late for them to cause any serious damage.
His squad is unfortunetly looking in the opposite direction.
Thankfully, there’s a co-op play option for up to four players via a LAN network (there’s no splitscreen option) which hinders the woe of having CPU team mates. However, as a result, the difficulty level will significantly drop due to the reliability of human players. Of course, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as many of you may get more enjoyment with the lower difficulty curve while at the same time causing certain “mishaps” for friends (or least that’s what we always do). Also on the multiplayer front is Combined Assault’s online mode which not only features new maps but also allows players to battle people who own a copy of SOCOM 3, providing of course you’re playing on a map which was previously available in SOCOM 3. This functionality is in particularly great from a marketing point of view as it provides players with a wide selection of opponents while at the same time, giving returning veterans a reason to purchase Combined Assault due to the extra content.
Visually, SOCOM is starting to show signs of its age. Environments are generally expansive but if you take a closer look, objects are unrefined. Shrubs (which can be used as camouflage) in particular are starting to look a little like cardboard cutouts. The game’s colour system is also a bit off as a lot of brown is used for terrain, enemies and buildings, making everything sort of blur together and causing some frustration, especially when aiming at a distance. As always with SOCOM though, cutscenes make great use of the PlayStation 2’s hardware and provide some eye candy. However, don’t go expecting anything on the level of Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts II.
The game’s soundtrack is exactly what you would expect from a game which has a big emphasis on stealth - never over dramatic and fairly cautious. The music also pauses when enemies have been neutralised in your current area which will leave you with nothing to hear except the chatter of your squad and soft footsteps. Sound effects have also been well implemented with a particular mention going to your character’s heartbeats which can be heard when entering sniper-mode that once again follows the cautious stealth theme.
The latest fashion, black dorky-looking suits.
Overall, Combined Assault takes many of the good and bad qualities of SOCOM 3 including AI, gameplay mechanics and online maps and infuses them into a brand new game. If you’re a returning veteran things may seem a little familiar but this is SOCOM after all, it’s got a decent online mode and if you can take advantage of it, there’s some fun to be found in multiplayer.
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