Friday, October 8, 2010

SOCOM 4 will be 3D-enabled

Thanks to a quick eye by Dirty_Walter it looks like SOCOM 4 will indeed be 3D-ready when it releases next year. This was also confirmed by a post in the thread later on, by Zipper's Community Manager Chris Roper.

Well then...

As I said I've said before and as Tombstone mentioned, the game was not delayed to add 3D in any way, shape or form. Did the extra time allow for it? Well, you've seen the video.

Err, I mean, no comment. Or something.
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Chris Roper
Community Specialist, Zipper Interactive
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Now the question is, what percentage of the SOCOM audience is actually going to have a 3D TV to take advantage of this. I did play Motorstorm in 3D at the Playstation Canada event a few days ago and I have to say that it was incredibly impressive. But the cost of the television and the fact that it requires glasses, turns me off.

My SOCOM 4 impressions at GreatCanadianGamer.com

A couple days ago I attended the Playstation Holiday Preview Event in downtown Toronto. You can read the entire article here about what I experienced, but here is a short snippet from my SOCOM 4/Special Forces experience:

Despite the crowds, I was able to go hands-on with some games, notably SOCOM: Special Forces. As a SOCOM veteran player, this was the game I was really looking forward to playing. At first I couldn’t even find it, but eventually noticed it tucked away in the corner with the Move games. Sadly, once again Sony is treating SOCOM like an afterthought, and not just because of where it was placed but also because of how it was setup. It was only being showcased with the Move, which wouldn’t normally be a big deal except for the fact that the Move was placed in the ‘gun peripheral’ shell casing. The issue with this? SOCOM: Special Forces is not a light-gun game, and requires you to use the face buttons on the Move controller, which you do not have access to while the Move is in the gun peripheral casing.

The result of this was a game demo where players couldn’t do half the maneuvers. The ability to change your stance (prone, crouch, stand), get into cover, and even zoom, were all not possible while playing the game at the Playstation event. To make matters worse, instead of giving us the Navigation controller (the complimentary one-handed controller to the Move) for movement, we were forced to use the Dual-Shock, meaning people playing the demo had to balance the full Dual-Shock controller in their left hand while struggling with the Move in the gun peripheral casing in their right hand. I could not think of a worse way to showcase the game. At least they got the HDTV settings correct, as the game was visually impressive, but it’s a real shame that people who are not familiar with Zipper’s latest SOCOM game came away with the feeling that it’s a mess.

So as you can see, due to the less than ideal setup, my first experience with the game wasn't as good as I was hoping.