SOCOM: Confrontation Is Getting Some New DLC Soon.

Sony have announced today that a new DLC pack is headed to SOCOM: Confrontation entitled “Cold Front”. There’ll be two new maps included in the DLC, alongside three classic maps. The classic maps are drawn from the most popular SOCOM maps of all time, and have been built from the ground up.

For the full list of contents in “Cold Front”, hit the jump below. There’s tons of stuff by the way:

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Go Elena, Go! You Shake That Ass.

Fancy picking up new copies of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune or SOCOM: Confrontation? Hell yeah you do! Especially if you’re yet to play them. Thank goodness for Sony’s “Greatest Hits” collection which will entitle you to pick up either game for the lowly cost of $29.99.

With Uncharted 2 literally around the corner, if you’re yet to play the original, you kind of have to. Now.

The PS3's Biggest Online Game Apparently.

Killzone 2? Motorstorm: Pacific Rift? Resistance 2? Nope… SOCOM: Confrontation. SCEA’s Mark Rogers is basing this statistic by counting the number of simultaneous Playstation Network connections. He bases the game’s success off the community’s commitment to the franchise.

Rogers concluded that dedicated fans will be rewarded by an upcoming patch that will change the scale and scope of the game.

We wonder what MAG will have to say about all this?

SOCOM: Confrontation 1.60 Will Add New Content For Free.

With SOCOM: Confrontation barely being workable until patch 1.50, it’s nice to see the development team Slant Six expanding the experience for free for patient players. Patch 1.60 will add new Special Forces to the game: the Dutch KCT and the Italian COMSUBIN. So that means a ton of new heads, voices, outfits, weapons and more.

Beyond that Slant Six have been busy working on “a major content release/pack” which is set to be revealed later this month. An exciting time for fans of the game then.

Awww heck. We’re so darn tempted by this it hurts. A Playstation Home update will allow you to purchase the Ghostbusters Firehouse and make it your own personal space. Not only do you get the full three story building perfectly replicated, but you’ll also be able to control Slimer and make your own movies with StageSet.

SOCOM: Confrontation will also be coming to Home, allowing you to devise strategies with your friends or team-mates. Check out the trailer after the jump.

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European Playstation Store Update: March 19th 2009

Playable Content

• SOCOM Confrontation full game (£19.99)
• PowerUp Forever full game (£6.29)
• Silent Hill PS1 game (£3.99)

Add-on Content

• Call of Duty World At War map pack 1 (£7.99)
• FIFA 09 Ultimate Team pack (free)
• Midnight Club Los Angeles South Central map pack (free)
• Midnight Club Los Angeles South Central premium upgrade (£7.99)
• LittleBigPlanet Killzone 2 costume kit (£2.39)
• High Velocity Bowling “Jill’s Totally Straight” pack (free)
• Street Fighter IV Shadaloo pack (£3.19)
• Rock Band DLC (continued)
• Guitar Hero World Tour DLC (continued)

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SOCOM Finally Coming To Europe This March.

Remember SOCOM: Confrontation, Europe? The heavily bugged at release third person shooter on the PSN. Well it’s finally coming to Europe. Next month.

While Americans have been enjoying laggy servers and then somewhat patched servers since 2008 (sounds ages ago now doesn’t it) we Europeans have had to sit content twiddling our thumbs.

If you’re still interested in the game it’s out March 13th in the UK and subsequently the 18th for the rest of Europe.

SOCOM: Confrontation - Ready For October? Hmm.

I got into the SOCOM: Confrontation BETA today and I keep reminding myself that I have to take the game exactly for what it is, a beta. It’s kinda hard though when the game in question is such a shambles that this particular blogger found it nigh-on impossible to even get in a game. We’re talking 2 hours hopping screens and menus gave a return of one match. With the release date looming in October I have a list of negatives to talk about to those lucky enough to not be involved in the beta. Hopefully this post will draw some attention to the developers of the game to make them realise that I’m not getting a very functional game to test at the moment.

The first thing worth noting is the dramatic slow down in the menus. For some reason when I’m navigating menus I find my controller unresponsive and the menus juddering all over the place. My first port of call was to change the appearance of my character but given the shoddy loading and downright dogged menu system I quickly got frustrated and decided to hop into the game.

Of which the experience is just as unsatisfying. You choose your main lobby (for me the UK) and then from here you can hop right into a number of pre-made game rooms and also user-made game rooms. It was within these I spent a good hour and a half or so hopping around trying to actually play the game. Joining a room has you waiting until the next battle until you can play but sadly I sat in one particular room for a good 35 minutes (one match is 8 minutes in the Beta by default) where I was prompted twice that I was “entering” the game but instead sat with a background image of soldiers and a spinning circle.

Eventually I managed to join a one on one in a French speaking room which is where I got to play a little of the game. Graphically it’s pretty nice but there was a helluva lot of noticable texture loading which you physically watch load to it’s proper resolution as you traverse the environment. I can cope with that but it’s not the most subtle of problems and started to irritate me as I watched the resolutions change when I run past certain walls. There’s also a problem with pop-in I noticed when I turned corners quickly objects suddenly popped into view. Aside from that the graphics looked really good for a PSN game so I’m sure upon release date those problems can be ironed out.

What I’m more worried about is the “cover system” which allows your character to stand by walls and use the tilt of the six-axis to look around corners. The six-axis was on the whole unresponsive to tilt and the cover system just seemed to activate when I was just walking around. No where near to walls. Now – it may be that it’s button activated and I didn’t notice but I got more of an impression that the game was just deciding when to use the mechanic for me. It was hindering and cost me a couple of lives.

The controls were another notable cause for concern with reload being mapped to the right stick as default (why?) and R2 being used for run. What irritated me most about running was the fact that you don’t move your characters direction with the left-stick – more he runs straight forward and then controlling the camera allows him to turn corners. It’s just something that made me feel less attached to the character. Why not turn the characters body and not have the camera change his direction.

Overly I found the game slow and somewhat tedious, particularly if these are the lengths you have to go to to find a game. Maybe I was annoyed with the lack of immediacy – I’m new to beta’s and am probably irritated by the teething trouble but then I expected behind the shabby slow menus and even the apparent issues of booting up a match to be evened out when in game but it all feels so mundane. Slow, clunky and frustrating are my initial impressions on SOCOM: Confrontation.

I’ll persevere for the sake of beta testing and I hope Slant Six Games totally take my ideas on board in the long run. I just can’t see how this game is going to be ready for October though guys.