For many PS2 gamers, SOCOM and its two sequels had the most exhilarating and well-executed online gameplay on the system. With the switch to PS3 looming on the horizon, the developers chose the PSP as the next platform to get some SOCOM action and after two Fireteam Bravo games, you'd think that another would be on the cards. This isn't the case though, and SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Tactical Strike marks the series' first deviation from the tried and true gameplay of the original. Is this a change for the better though, or does it fail its mission of revitalising the series?

There is nothing else like Tactical Strike on PSP - that's apparent from the moment you boot it up. Unlike the rest of the SOCOM series, you don't have direct control over a character, so the closest relative to Tactical Strike would be Full Spectrum Warrior, with its strategic control over your soldiers. You don't control any of these men, but rather you tell them what actions to take in a situation, while always looking for danger in the vicinity. This is a nice change for the series, forcing you to think before you plough into the enemy's crosshairs. This element of strategy is refreshing to say the least, and is surprisingly accessible, making the usually difficult aspects of the game easier and vice versa.

There is a story here, but it took me until the after the fourth mission to realise that it was there! Saying that the story is limited is an understatement - even after playing through the Campaign mode I still find it hard to summarise it. The plot develops through the cut scenes that occur after certain missions are completed and while they may look great, using the same cut scene animations as Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow, but the brief conversations between characters that you find out about near the end of the game do nothing to immerse you in the game's world. They seem to be token gestures to once again show what the PSP is capable of, something that the in-game graphics achieve extremely well. I'm sure that someone wrote a story for the game, but I couldn't find it anywhere, so if you want a deep narrative then you've come to the wrong place. Even so, the tactical nature of the gameplay removes you from the story, along with your team of four, so the characters you do see are merely the enemy you are bringing down. A story involving the four characters would have been more appropriate for the game, making you care for their survival as people, rather than AI-controlled soldiers. This lack of emotion for the team becomes even more apparent as the game goes on, when your troops die faster and a lot more often.

The usual SOCOM options are available here, so fans of the series will feel right at home. Campaign mode missions can be played again in Instant Action mode, which gives you either the same objective or a slightly altered one. This adds a small amount of replay value, but with no reward, save for a count of how many missions you've completed, there's no point in going back again and again. The same can't be said for the multiplayer though, which can be just as fun as it has always been, with up to four players tactically fragging each other over both the Internet and Ad-Hoc. You can play on the nine maps found in the campaign, but sadly no others are available. This is a disappointment, as you could well be playing the campaign mode with a buddy, which is another option that is missing. Playing online can be great when there's no lag, but more often than not you will experience heavy lag throughout the Infrastructure mode here. For a series that was all about multiplayer to begin with, it is sad to see multiplayer that is so laggy and lacking the content needed to make it interesting over long periods of time. This is a real shame and without a strong multiplayer mode, the single player mode also looks even shorter; at only nine missions, each of which last around thirty minutes, you will get through the entire game in a few extended playing sessions.

Onto the most worrying aspect of a PSP tactical game; the controls. For a system that struggles to handle shooters with its limited options, a strategy game like this will inevitably control awkwardly. Well, that should be the case here - but surprisingly it isn't. The face buttons and analog nub are used in the most appropriate way and so you can pick up the combinations well. Circle will be the button you use most; as the only way of moving your squad to any position, it soon becomes your best friend. As with every face button, holding circle brings up a list of options for you to choose from. You can move with stealth or just run for it, the former being the obvious choice for most situations, while when the X button is held down you get the options for methods of attack. When moving to a position, your squad or soldier, depending on whom you have selected, will take cover behind any object in the immediate vicinity and take a formation. This helps a lot with your strategies, as when the team arrives at a location you don't have to tell them to take cover behind an object. This, along with the field of fire option in the attack menu, which makes the soldiers attack all the enemies in a certain area, is all you need to complete the first few missions. This changes when you reach the halfway stage of the campaign however, after which you need to use more intelligent strategies to succeed.

You can send the Alpha and Bravo squads to different locations flanking the enemy to make use of the most advanced techniques. By setting up what your team is going to do, in a set order, you can activate it and then watch as your forces obliterate their foes in the smallest amount of bullets possible. Well, that's the plan anyway, although the game often doesn't pan out as you expected, with enemy backup arriving within seconds or one of your team being spotted before you can set your ambush. There is no pause while you are setting up the attack and so you can be ambushed yourself while your guys wait it out behind a carefully placed stack of hay (the handy placement of cover is apparent throughout the game). Because it's so difficult to execute these advanced techniques, running in guns blazing ends up being the easiest and most fun way of approaching each mission, but this puts a dampener on the entire point of having a strategic SOCOM title.

You will sometimes perform a stealth kill and, when you do, the feeling you get is great. But more often than not this will end up throwing you back to the title screen, teasing you to attempt the mission again, or from a checkpoint at the end of the completion of an objective. Another way of dying unfairly - and one where the game should know better - is the camera. You would expect that you'd be able to rotate all the way round a character and look around corners to set where your squad will move, but this is all lost with the nub-controlled camera and I often found myself walking straight into the enemy simply because a building was in the way. For a game that's all about tactics, you can't be tactical and methodical when the people you are trying to avoid are invisible to you. Just letting you break away from a soldier would be enough, but you have to constantly be looming over a team member's head. These cheap deaths will be enough to make you stop playing - possibly permanently - something that the developers clearly didn't want to happen.

Recently, the PSP has been host to PS2 quality graphics, with Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice and Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow (amongst others) lighting the way to the next level of handheld graphics. However, despite just how wonderful these games look, the truth cannot be denied: Tactical Strike has the best graphics on the system. This is PS2 quality, rather than nearly reaching the smoothness of the PSP's elder sibling. If you want a way of showing what the console is capable of, then look no further; no other PSP game has environments that look this good and characters that are this realistic while still not looking jagged. The graphics are the most surprising and indeed the best aspect of the game, which is possibly due to the slow nature of the gameplay - but even so, this is what all handheld games should aspire to look like.

On the other hand, the sound is a mixed bag. While the guns sound like guns and the grenades sound like grenades, there really is nothing special about the audio whatsoever. These may well have been recycled from a PS2 SOCOM game and, as they are, there's not much to say about them. The music crescendos at the right points, but even so, there's nothing special about the soundtrack either, so while the graphics are truly fantastic without equally impressive audio to back them up, they feel a tad wasted.

As a departure for the series, the idea of a tactical SOCOM game is a great one and is executed mildly well. I say mildly, as without the annoying camera, cheap deaths, lack of story and lukewarm audio, the game would be a lot of fun to play. As it is though, there is too much wrong with SOCOM US Navy SEALs Tactical Strike to make it a must have, yet not enough wrong to make you dismiss it forever. There are moments of greatness within the game and the controls and more importantly the graphics once again show that PSP can pull off console style games. If you're a fan of SOCOM and you want an interesting take on the series then you have it right here. If this isn't you then you most likely won't be able to deal with the problems you'll find. It is a shame that I can't recommend Tactical Strike, as if it the idea had been executed more smoothly then it would have been an essential purchase. Surprisingly close to greatness, it's sadly also too close to being a failure, leaving it as a game to approach with caution and leaving us all to hope that if a sequel arises then it will remedy the flaws and realise the full potential of this excellent concept.

Reviewed by Sam Atkins for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).