I think these are quite easily the best on the PSP so far. The graphics are smooth and well textured and will no doubt make you realise the potential of the PSP.

Player animation is realistic, enemy will crawl, run and fall after being shot. They'll hide behind cover and pop up to take a shot at you. The landscapes provide a sense of depth and distance and buildings look like the type of dilapidated buildings you'd expect terrorists to hide out in.

Nothing flash about the sound but there's nothing bad either. In-game sound consists mainly of the sounds of the battlefield, the crunching of gravel under foot, the snap of a sniper rifle, and the confused yelling of terrorists after you shoot one in the leg. A nice touch is the 'outdoor' sounds at night you'll hear such as the chirping of crickets. The sounds are captured realistically and allow you to immerse yourself in the game. Your team mate - Lonestar will provide you with warnings and commentary on your missions which can be quite helpful when you've missed the guy hiding in the corner with a rifle.

First player shooters have so far struggled on the PSP as developers grapple with trying to find a good control system. Fireteam Bravo implements the best first player control system so far which gives a lot of control to the player without taking away the ‘feel' of the game. The movement is realistic, you won't be doing any back flips or turning around 360 degrees and firing at people in front and behind you at once. There's a dedicated strafing movement (by holding L and moving the analogue stick) which allows you to look around walls and move around corners whilst facing the direction you want. There's a target lock which will lock onto the general vicinity of the target (you'll still have to hit the target) which works quite well without making things too easy. I did find that the movement does take a toll physically on your hand as you'll be using more hand muscles to play this game then any other PSP game. I'm not sure if this is the way I personally hold the PSP or more to do with the fact that to utilise the full range of movement you'll be using all the buttons on the PSP.

Using Lonestar is easy, you point your cursor at something and push the O button. If it's something specific that's needed to be done an option will pop up, holding O will give Lonestar the orders. This way you can breach rooms and cover Lonestar as he breaks down the door, get Lonestar to dismantle bombs or order Lonestar to deploy to a nearby area. One thing you can't do is escape from Lonestar. If you tell him to hold a position whilst you decide to go exploring he'll tell you ‘I can't do that sir' and will follow you.



If you hit an enemy but don't kill him, he'll drop to the ground and crawl for cover. He wont necessarily shoot from the place he was last seen crawling either, he'll move to a different location for a better or more unexpected shot.

There are special weapons to unlock as well as different characters which can be unlocked for multiplayer use. You have the ability to customise the weapons you take into the field as well as the number of bursts the automatics will fire at a time.

There are 3 difficulty levels Ensign, Commander and Admiral. The first 2 are ridiculously easy and the AI is so stupid it's not funny. Shoot an enemy, and his mate who's standing a foot away will not respond. Often you can get in close on enemies (even when they're facing you) before they'll react. I found the only way to die on these difficulty levels was when I threw a grenade the wrong way and blew up myself or Lonestar. Switching to Admiral however is far more of a challenge. Enemies won't wait for you to shoot first and will happily shoot you from behind if you haven't cleared the area. They're also more accurate so you won't get away brazenly running into rooms pretending you're playing Wolfenstein.

This is a great game, albeit intensive and the missions are a good length. One of the aspects which it's been marketed (and unfortunately which I can't experience) as is the potential to play online multiplayer with 15 other players. I can't really comment on how well this works – if it works well then this has the potential to extend the life of this game remarkably, even if it doesn't and you stick to single player mode there's plenty to get through. I'd estimate that the missions run from anywhere between 15-25 minutes each depending on whether you're trying to complete all the objectives or just the essentials. After you successfully finish each mission you'll have the opportunity to play an instant action variation of that map which allows you to customise a task using that map. For example once I've completed the first map, I can go back and play that map as a hostage extract mission, or as a sabotage mission, or a sweep and clear mission. This in itself prolongs the games life.

Quite simply this is the best first player shooter on the PSP so far. Missions are varied with many objectives and the graphics are a sight to behold. There are nice cut scenes between each continent you visit giving you a background to what's happening and why you're going there. The potential to replay each map with different objectives will keep you coming back to the game long after you've completed it. It's important to note that this is a tactical game, you won't be shooting at hundreds of enemies nor will you be running around frantically trying to do things as quickly as possible (there's no health so you'll need to go slowly). Socom: US Navy Seals - Fireteam Bravo is a well executed game and one of the best available on the PSP.

Pros:   • Excellent graphics   • Great gameplay/player controls   • Mission variety   • Customisable 'instant action' missions Cons:   • AI not quite up to scratch   • No health   • Physically intensive on my hands

Graphics: Sound: Gameplay: Difficulty: Value: Score:

9.5/10 8.5/10 9.0/10 8.5/10 8.5/10 9/10