So how is Zipper approaching this latest game in the long-running tactical shooter series? The strategy, it seems, lies in balance and choice. On the one hand, you've got new features borrowed from other modern shooters--things like regenerating health, the ability to snap to cover, and a leveling system that earns you new weapons and upgrades as you gobble up experience points on the battlefield. But for every one of those changes, you'll find a thread that leads right back to the tactical roots of the series. It's there in the way you take far less damage before dying than most shooters. It's there in the way you're rewarded for reviving a fallen squadmate. It's there in the way you can dance on dead enemies. All right, so maybe that last one isn't exactly tactical, but…it was in the older games, and it's here too. Trust us. We did the robot on a dead insurgent and earned 10 experience points for it.
Then, there's the idea of giving players a decision in how they want to play the game. For every game mode in SOCOM 4, you can play with either the standard set of features or by using the Classic game mode variant. Classic takes you back to the early 2000s by removing some of those aforementioned additions, like regenerating health and snap cover. What you've got instead is a game with no respawns, a finite health bar, and a palpable tension as your number of teammates dwindles down to nothing. When looking for a match online, you've got the choice to look for Classic matches or you can look for standard matches. Your call.