Hands-On With Socom: Fire Team Bravo 3

The Socom: Fire Team Bravo series has been one of the best franchises on the PSP. Originally developed by Zipper Interactive, the Fire Team Bravo series will continue this Fall with Socom: Fire Team Bravo 3 thanks to the development team at Slant Six Studios. Slant Six has basically taken the reigns of the Socom series while Zipper tackles M.A.G., but whether or not Fire Team Bravo 3 will continue the series' success has been a point of wonder. Gaming Union got some hands on time with the game to find out just that.

Playing the mission of "Snow Blind", squad leader Wraith is dropped into the snow covered Gaizina Kalns during a heavy snow fall, with squad-mates Sandman, Lonestar, and Raven. Wraith and his team's objective is so search the near-by KRA-occupied village to gather intel, and also search for captured Navy Seal, Toro.

The KRA are the fictional enemies of Fire Team Bravo 3, a terrorist group. Wraith and company start off at the top of a ski run, from there making their way into the village. Like the previous games, Fire Team Bravo 3 is an over-the-shoulder-perspective shooter, with controls identical to its predecessors. Series vets will have no problem picking up the controls as they feel tuned precisely to the past games, but as with each iteration, new comers will likely be a bit befuddled at first.

As there is no right analog nub on the PSP, Fire Team Bravo 3 employs a lock on system with the R trigger. Once locked onto an enemy, X is fire, and that's generally how the shooting works. The rest of the controls focus around moving, reloading, crouching, zooming in, strafing, directing squad-mates, switching weapons and weapon settings. In all, once grasped, the controls work great in the game, and don't feel hindered due to the lack of a 2nd analog nub.

Once down the ski run and into the village, there are plenty of KRA members around, ready to spring on Wraith and company. However, the AI of the enemies wasn't impressive. Enemies frequently stood completely exposed, many times hiding behind explosive barrels, and having such poor accuracy that it was proven entirely possible to kill the majority of enemies by simply running up to them as they fire at Wraith, and melee them to death. No-less, the weapons themselves worked great, and controls when zoomed-in really work wonders for picking off head-shot after head-shot from long-distance, even with a low-scope.

Graphics wise, Fire Team Bravo is good. It's not raising any bars or giving the current best-looking PSP games a run for their money, but where it lacks in graphical improvements over its predecessors, it makes up with continuing Socom's history of great level-design, while remaining a concise, portable experience for those on-the-go.

Socom: Fire Team Brave 3 overall feels on the right path to continue the great gameplay experience the past Fire Team Bravo games originally brought to the PSP. Hopefully Slant Six has some innovation up their sleeves and smartens up the enemy AI for this installment of the series, as right now the title feels poised be the best in the series yet. Look for Socom: Fire Team Brave 3 for PSP this Fall.