SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs -- Fireteam Bravo 3 [PSP]

Last night, I killed a man and enjoyed it. I don't know who he was or what his home life was like, but I infiltrated a warehouse, drew a bead on guy in gray/white camo, and took my shot.

I then accidentally grenaded my two buddies and revived them by pushing Square.

If you haven't been following my SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3 coverage, the short story is that this game's looking pretty gosh darn good. This time through you'll control Wraith and lead three SEALs into combat. There's no HQ to take orders from, so you're on your own to decide how you want to take the opposing forces out.

Just make sure you do it.

Demos up until this point have done a lot to give me a feel for the story -- a contact is missing and everyone the government sends in to check on him disappears, one of the SEALs gets captured, etc. -- but last night was all about the PSPgo. Even though I was playing a new mission, I couldn't hear the specifics of what was happening over the house music and party scene.

It doesn't matter of course because it's just fun to run and gun in Fireteam Bravo 3. In a cutscene, the boys come to shore in a ship an begin silently knifing bad guys on the docks, and from there, I was on my own to run the squad through the warehouses and cargo holds making up the shipyard we were infiltrating. I locked on to opponents with the right shoulder button, strafed with the left shoulder button, and took my shots with X.

An interesting addition to the mix was that as I was walking backwards and popping dudes, I discovered tapping Square made Wraith do an instant 180-degree turn, which will no doubt be invaluable when he's being flanked from all sides.

As usual, playing SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals Fireteam Bravo 3 only left me wanting more. The game seemed to be running faster and smoother than ever, the rain effect was a nice touch for the outdoor sections, and who doesn't want to pop out from behind shipping containers and waste bad guys? Look for SOCOM on its brand new release date of Nov. 24, 2009.

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