Friday, February 29, 2008

EGM May 08 issue = SOCOM Confrontation cover, CONFIRMED

Yup, that's right. Right here

What this means is that we are exactly 1 month away from brand new SOCOM Confrontation information, screen shots, and possibly video. It's hard not to get hyped at this point.

SOCOM franchise gets a new community manager!

That's right. Today on the SOCOM Barracks, the man we only know as DevGru-Echo (previous SOCOM community manager) is "mov[ing] on to other things" while Cindy Bowens (know as Abigale on the boards) is stepping in. She makes an awesome introduction here and here, so be sure to welcome her to the community.

With that, we also get a little bit of bad news as Abigale posted, there is no update today from Slant Six employee(s), SealTeam-6, that some of you were hoping for. But with the EGM cover story on the way, this should come as no surprise. Only a month (possibly 2, depending on the issue) longer till that arrives.


Anyways, I'd like to welcome Cindy Bowens/Abigale to our wonderful community!

Thursday, February 28, 2008

SOCOM Confrontation board cracks the 'Top 10' at playstation.com

Sure, it's not huge news, but it's worth a mention. The SOCOM Confrontation board at Playstation.com found here has cracked the top 10 most popular list and currently sits a spot higher than the Metal Gear Solid board, no easy feat. To check out the entire list go here and scroll down to the bottom where you'll see the "Top Boards".

So it seems like the hype for this game is ramping up. I remember the days where the SOCOM 2 board was by far the most popular. I hope we get back to that.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Incog applies interesting ideas to Warhawk through Home

Right off the bat I just want to say that I'm not complaining that Incog is using my idea, or even necessarily saying that they got this idea from me. What I do want to point out here though is that an idea I wrote up on the playstation.com boards in August is essentially being implemented into Warhawk, but in a slightly different manner.

For those that have no idea what I'm talking about, let me point you to a couple links.

Warhawk's Home Integration (news from today)
My idea from August 07 for SOCOM Confrontation

What this tells me is that I was on to something with my original idea. Though Warhawk's way of doing things is from Home, I still stand by my original idea where it would be implemented between rounds (but also accessible separately) in-game.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

How should voice chat be handled?

This recent thread by blykmik got me thinking again about how voice chat should be handled in SOCOM Confrontation. Personally, I have an interesting stance on this. I think it should remain push to talk, if you wish to speak to your entire team through the headset, but the mics always remain on within the game where you can hear other people through your speakers assuming they are within fair distance.

So let me try and make it a little more clear. If you want to say something for your entire team to hear, you have to push down a button and talk (and any number of people can push-to-talk at once, not just 1 person). But during the game your mic still remains active, so for example, if you are camping in a bush and sneeze while someone on the opposing team walks by you, they will hear you sneeze through their speakers and be aware of your presence.

This would fall right in line with what has been discussed about the game's audio. Making audio an integral part of the experience.

What are you thoughts on this? Do you have any ideas of your own?

Monday, February 25, 2008

SOCOM Confrontation to be an EGM cover story

Well I'm rarely behind when it comes to news, but according to some Playstation.com message board posters Dan "Shoe" Hsu of the 1up/EGM network was on a radio station recently answering questions when the topic of SOCOM came up.

"SOCOM Confrontation is the next SOCOM game for PlayStation 3. It's going to be downloadable uhh straight to your PlayStation 3. They went quiet on that. Uhh When they first came out, and showed the game to everyone it kinda got some bad feedback. It didn't look that good. So actually umm,

I don't know if I can say this.... but I'll say it anyway. It's actually our next cover story. Like in umm, probably in 2 issues from now for most readers like uh if you're just getting the new issue now (the March issue with the PS3 and Snake from MGS4 on the cover). It's the issue after that. We're wrapping that deadline up. We're going have.... NO NO NO! I'm actually way ahead! This maybe two, three months from now (that would be the beginning of April or May AKA the May or June issue of EGM). But we're going to have the 'first look' of the new SOCOM, SOCOM (confrontation) since forever now; I think it's been a year now, with the improved graphics and we're going to talk about all this cool stuff that is in the game. So I think we're more excited about it than we were at this time last year."
Thanks goes to http://www.recognizemydisease.com/ for transcribing the whole thing.

So it looks like we'll still have to wait a month or two, but it should be worth it. And since it's an EGM cover story, I'm hoping Joe Rybicki (free lancer for 1up, and previous writer for OPM) has written it. He is one of the few people in the gaming press who really seem to "get" the SOCOM franchise.

All news up to this point

I could go through the process of posting every single link to every little tidbit of info that we have on SOCOM Confrontation. Instead though, I'm going to link you to a page that has that already done and ordered by date.

Right here, my SOCOM Confrontation thread on Neogaf has links to everything you want to know, and didn't know you wanted to know, about the game. The latest news being talk of a summer release from SCE's Scott Steinberg.

Going forward of course I will post every new bit of information on here (as well as in that topic).

The purpose

A few important events led to the creation of this blog:
  • The official SOCOM Blog from Zipper going belly up
  • The announcement of SOCOM Confrontation last May
  • My undying love for the franchise and wanting it to return to it's roots
If you are unfamiliar with me, David Doel, I'm a huge advocate for the SOCOM franchise. You'll see me on Neogaf (Doel), IGN Boards (moderator daviddoel), 1up (David2Crazy), and the playstation.com boards (daviddoel). I'm the creator of the SOCOM Confrontation thread on Neogaf and have often posed the question "Is SOCOM being ignored by the media", and been lucky enough to have that very topic debated on the 1up Yours podcast and IGN's Podcast Beyond.

The first two games are what kick-started my love of online gaming after PC games failed to do so. After having spent at least 2000 hours on these games, I believe I know the franchise in and out, what has made it fun, how exactly SOCOM 3 ruined the fantastic formula of the first two, and what Confrontation needs to do to bring it back.

The purpose of this blog is to keep you updated with the SOCOM franchise. Everything from new Confrontation news to patches for the PSP titles, and occasionally fill those long breaks between news with some social commentary from yours truly.