Missed the UPS guy today but I'll be here tomorrow when he comes back.

Got the game late last night (neighbor wasn't home and she had my package)

Initial impressions: this game will rock!! couple of things that caught my attention from the get go. You are able to carry a rocket launcher with you. It has one rocket and an option to carry an additional rocket, so you get 2 shots out of the thing. It was fun at first but there is no zoom ad its hard to hit anyone while they're moving around, still fun to shoot it a couple of times. The beta disc only comes with the new maps and not the old ones, and it only lets you play online, nothing else, no 1 player game. umm, there seem to be problems with the Talknet mics as no one who is using them seem to able to get them to work (including myself) Logitech mics seem to work flawlessly, so you might want to prep for that. I'm sure Sony will fix the problem, but u never know. Another new feature i just remembered is the ability to play and respawn 30 seconds after you die. So instead of laying there when you get killed, u wait and then re-spawn and continue fighting. I only played this way in a "kill em all" type of game, so i'm not sure how this translates to actual missions where you have to protect hostages, etc etc. Its a real fun way to try out all weapons and get to know the maps, although people may end up with 30+ kills in a game. Also, theres a point system to go with the kills and deaths, and this determines who is MVP, u get points for killing but also for rescuing hostages and other stuff like that..

thats all i can think of right now, i only played 3 hours..let me know if you have questions and i'll try to answer them..

forgot to mention that there are gun turrets in some of the maps, they're really hard to kill anyone with and you're usually a sitting duck when you use them, but a nice feature anyhow..also, shotguns are now widely available, these puppies have been my favorite so far, one good shot and the bad guy is dead, no distance though, but its better to let off one shot and kill someone instead of shooting 5-8 shots which seems to be the only way to kill anyone now...

sounds awesome ill get to play in a little over a month. it sounds awesome. i cant wait to use the shotguns and grenade launcher im not that interested in the rocket lanucher though.

when this comes otu I may have to buy a NA and break out the PS2 again.

this sounds friggin awesome! I'll be dusting off my headset soon

in one of the new missions, as a SEAL you now have to escort the hostages to the extraction point from the beginning of the mission. Unlike Desert Glory where you have to first find the hostages and then escort them. When you spawn, the hostages are right beside you and you can have 1, 2 or all 3 follow you. In this map though, there are very few areas to hide. Its a open, somewhat hilly countryside looking area. Lots of straw looking bushes all around for you to kneel into. As a terrorist in this map, your objective is to kill all the hostages before the seals extract them. I think its much more fun this way, you just grab a hostage and run or find a hostage and kill him. Another thing I somewhat expereinced last night was the "air strikes". I was sitting on top of a hill watching the action below, when all of a sudden I hear some planes and then i get hit with some bullets. I didn't die but my health meter went down pretty far. Oh, theres now a health meter that goes from green, to yellow to red and eventually death, you lose health from certain jumpsand obviously getting shot. Some of the jumps seem very short though, but you still lose health. So no more jumping from the catwalk in Frostfire and not losing any health out of it, now it all counts...

Woo, got my disc today

GOT MINE.

"DINO" - FGO CLAN

I popped mine in tonight and played one game.

I didn't see much new besides the " friends list " Sony added to the online portion of the game.

I'll play more later but I feel like crap and I can barely type so I know I won't be able to move fast enough to survive out there.

Ugh. Haven't recieved mine yet.

I finally got my logitech headset to work, had to buy a new one, but it's all good now. Another new feature is the ability to see who is talking, if you're near the person talking, an icon will appear above the character to show that they are talking. If you're nowhere near the player, on the lower right of your screen, right above yoru health bar, will appear the persons name. This is helpful in determining who is the jerk making the annoying noises..

Das, that's a very useful feature indeed. I remember once I was booted cuz some arse was pretending to be me and for some reason everyone stupidly bought into it even thought it was obvious it wasn't and I got booted.

My 2 biggest questions are graphics and server stability, but I guess the former will remain unknown until after the beta.

Well, I finally checked it out tonight.

I'm "Murderousness" and will generally be on the west servers.

hey pig..graphics are comparable to socom 1, there are improvements which i didn't notice until last night, for example, there is now a "sunlight effect" much like gran turismo..the map i was in was set at about dusk i would say, so if you we're running towards the sun, there was a glare that would at times obstruct my view..nice feature i think, makes it more realistic..the characters seem somewhat blocky at times and the maps are huge now, detail has been added, but again, it's not a huge noticeable upgrade, at least not to me..but the maps are very nice as a whole...

the servers are freezing up, last night at about 12:30, everyone got booted, it went from 1200 players to about 300..hopefully it was a scheduled boot on sony's part, but who knows..i have had to re-boot several times due to freezing up, but thats expected since it's only a beta, although freezing up with only 1200 players is discouraging since the servers are meant to hold close to 10,000...

someone is selling me one ill be on soon

damn corn..u weren't kidding..before you do that..get at me..i may have a better deal for you..

If anyone knows of a copy for sale, let me know. I didn't bother signing up for the beta because I had ISDN at the time (SOCOM 1 works fine, but I didn't feel like lying and I figured they'd ignore my application). Now I have DSL and I wish I had just lied and applied for the beta.

Are the controls/buttons the same?

Hey Gallant..

Controls are basically the same with a few exceptions...to change from single shot to automatic, it now takes two pushes on the joystick. There's also an option that lets you talk while running, it basically maps the talk button to L2..I don't like it because L2 is used to change weapons on the fly, but it's an option....

Hey Gromit..

I know a friend who said he would get rid of it for a "good price", not sure what he means by that, but make an offer and i'll pass it on to him and see what he says...

contact me at [email protected], i have one that I can part with.

Guys, if you want to exchange this, please do it in the VG Exchange Forum.

Das: That's excellent news.

Warning for Logitech Wireless Controller users:

The Socom II Beta Disc FUBAR'ED my Logitech Wireless Controller Reciever connected to Controller Port 1. The Game refused to load with it plugged in but now the controller reciever does not work period. Borrowed a friends Logitech controller reciever and my controller works again. The disc definitely sent something that killed it when it froze on the screen that say's "Locating Saved Data" and never moved after 10 minutes.

The game loaded fine with my wired Dual-Shock controller. I sent this Bug to the Beta program.

Thanks cubanx....i was thinking of buying one of those logitech wireless controllers for $40..maybe i'll hold off now..

I just got the demo game at my store today. And it has the single player version, it looks pretty good and was a lot of fun too. If you liked the first one, then you'll like this one too. I played with the pump shotgun and it was good.