Now, let me just get this straight before I review SOCOM. I am not a big fan of the SOCOM series. never was, probably never will be.

Lets start with the headset I bought the bundle that comes with the headset because I am in need of a good quality microphone for the Playstation 3. The setup of this was fairly easy, after charging it appeared to work fairly well an gives a nice little notification up in the top right part of the screen. The claw that goes behind the ear allows a great custom fit and feels very snug on the ear even when tilting your head and doesn't fall out off the ear like the other headsets. The headset feels very sturdy and fairly ready to take any abuse that can and probably will be thrown at it(or it at something). The headset also comes with another rubber overlay for the part that inserts into the ear which is apparently softer. the charging stand and wide area audio pickup feature on it is a nice touch to those who will be gaming longer than the maximum 8 hours of talk time on it allowing you to continue using your headset while playing the game. The cable that comes with it is very short and if you have your Playstation 3 right beside the television it is probably best to invest in a longer cable to get the headset away from the speakers. This headset, nonetheless, is well worth the extra money spent on SOCOM.

Now, lets head onto the SOCOM install, looking at the package it states it requires at least 3.1GB of disk space. As I install the game data from a seperate icon upon insertion of the gameit takes about 2 minutes for the install to finally start installing. As I wait I decided to go make a sandwich and empty the bladder for a long intense battle ahead of me, I get back about 10 minutes later and the install has completed which is nice

I start up the games and am greeted with the pleasant Playstation 3 logo and a helicopter passing overhead. I reach the start screen and enter the game and after a 450 meg update pressing X several times and accepting the EULA I reach main screen where i can go into a game or customize my loadout and character. I decide to check out the options for customization. There isnt that many options and there could definitely be a lot more which, I have no doubt in my mind, will come with DLC. after setting up my character for desert, urban and night ops on both commandos and mercenaries i enter the game ready to play. I start out by choosing the Canada East 4 channel(the first canadian channel that has an open space) and proceeded to choose a game in the lobby. i choose a random unranked game and join the lobby, press start and within 20 seconds everything is loaded.

Presented with a sensory assault of great textures, amazing sounds of gunfire and buildings crumbling and explosions in glorious 1080p I move around enjoying the SIXAXIS duck and cover, Dualshock rumbling and great overall game. I was expecting a lot of lagging and glitches this early in the games release but to my surprise there was no glitching, and very little amounts of lag, every so often there was a mild titch of it but a lot better than anything ive experienced in other online games. Plus the included headset was crystal clear on both receiving and sending making planning attacks and defense very easy.

The people I have so far encountered on SOCOM are fairly mature, mild outbursts of anger but otherwise very respectful which adds a lot to the game itself and makes it even more attractive to me as a social gaming environment. I am vry impressed with this game and think I may actually play this a lot more than other online games