Eclipsed4utoo's Blog

I recently bought Uncharted 2.  While the game is amazing, during the first 2 hours or so of gameplay, my PS3 froze 5 times.  I was thoroughly pissed off about it since I had just bought the game.

After the 5th freeze, I decided to check the system updates for the PS3.  I was running version 3.0.  Sony released 3.01 on September 15th, but it was only an optional update which means you aren’t required to install it to still be able to access the PSN.

After updating to 3.01, I have played about 6 more hours and have not had another problem.  The change log for 3.01 is “System stability during use of some PlayStation®3 format software has been improved.”.  I can only assume that Uncharted 2 is one of those titles that was improved.

So for anybody who may be having problems with freezing while playing Uncharted 2, downloading the 3.01 update may help.

After a day of playing with the patch(off and on because of PSN issues), we have a preliminary list of the goods and bads of the patch.  These were take from HTK’s thread from the official SOCOM forums:

IMPROVEMENTS

- No Roll & Jump
- Snipers Rifles 1 Shot Kill
- D.E. like in previous SOCOMs.
- Quick Select – Assign your weapons for quick select.
- Medium Scope is Awesome
- Reloading (No Interuptions)
- 60% G^ to launch. No waste of time.
- Gameplay is faster and smoother.
- No Black Fog
- Automatic Pop-Up Messages
- Game Details (Day or Night)
- Voting, People getting voted cant see the votes.
- Headsets are louder and through TV Speakers
- Frostfire, you can shoot through the netting.
- Footsteps can be heard if enemy is close.
- Ladder Climbing sound is low.
- Hostages Run/Follow smoothly.
- Hit Detection has improved, kinda S1 style.
- Planting Bomb in prone position.
- FAMAS dumbed down but it needs more tweeking.
- Glitchers die if they break into a glitch area.
- Claymores, Kill. You can plant them individually by switching to detonator with “O” Circle.
- Lag, There has been minimal lag if any. Impressive compared to amount of people on and downloadings.
- Prone and Plant, pretty usefull.
- Grenades follow the arc more.
- Grenades, while the arc is out you can push L1 and switch to Grenades.

PET PEEVES

- Loading into the game is long.
- Room dosn’t start sometimes if the host dosn’t leave.
- Quick Select is not permanent, you have to set it up for each map.
- Switching Sides has become difficult.
- Demolition has become useless.
- When you’re dead, you cant push/hold select to view scoreboard. Its just push/push.

NEEDED IMPROVEMENTS

- UCRR.
- No ODD Rounds.
- Prone is still slow.
- Cannot lean in prone.
- Cannot shoot over railings.
- Run button still gets stuck.
- Invisible fence in UW still there.
- Grenades still inconsistant.
- Join friends is broken.
- Mics go in and out, sometimes choppy.

MAP CHANGES

- Quarantine (Escort) no water in the middle.
- Kasbah – Terrorist bomb plant window has been lowered you can shoot out and in.

Most of these are changes that were not listed in the “highlights” post that was post on SOCOM’s Blog.

It sucks that the Join Friends feature is broken.  That was one of the main features of this patch along with the Tournaments, Clan Ladders, and Calendar.  The Join Friends does work, but when it encounters a problem like the game is full, sometimes it doesn’t exit gracefully and you are stuck.  This will require you to restart the game.

It also seems that the biggest problem is that there are still no tie-breaker rounds.  For those that may not know, each “match” in SOCOM is comprised of a set number of “rounds”.  For ranked games, this is 8 rounds.  Why Slant Six has allowed ranked matches to end in ties is beyond me.  Would it not be simple enough to make ranked matches have 9 rounds to have a clear winner?

You may also notice in the list about demolitions have become useless.  This has to do with the even number of rounds.  It’s possible for one team to plant/diffuse more bombs than the other team, but still end up being 4-4 in the 8 rounds.  So how does the game determine the winner?  Not by the number of bomb plants or bomb diffuses, nope, the winner is determined by the team with the most kills.  So in an objective-based that ends in a tie, the objectives don’t count.  So now, the demolition game type(which is my favorite) is going to turn into Team Deathmatch because we now know that the number of kills will determine the winner.

Now I know that software will always have bugs, but damn, this patch was in QA for 4 months and it still has issues.

Well, it seems as though the SOCOM: Confrontation 1.50 patch is finally going live tomorrow, Tuesday, August 25th.  All I can say is…. it’s about time.  So this means I will be able to take down a number of the counters from my sidebar.

Why was this update so important?  Well, in the eyes of many, this patch will finally complete the game.  This game was released as a BETA.  Simple as that.  Features that were listed on the box were not in the game at launch.  This 1.50 patch will bring Tournaments, Clan Ladders, and a Calendar to SOCOM.  Bad part is, these features are listed in the game’s instruction manual when the game released more than 10 months ago(October 15th, 2008).

A big question mark about this patch is whether it will actually do what it is intended to do.  It supposedly contains many bug fixes.  However, with the patch history of Slant Six Games, we have come to know that issues that were listed as being fixed in a patch typically are still in the game.  Hell, almost ever patch has caused more issues once it was released.

Also, will they have implemented Tournaments, Clan Ladders, and the Calendar logically?  When the Party System was implemented(in the manual at release, didn’t receive it until January), it really made you scratch your head as to who was designing the system.  First, once you added players to your party, the system itself determined the size of server depending on the number of players you added.  You had no choice as to which server configuration you wanted to join.  Second, you had 20 seconds to get a certain percentage of the playable spots filled.  The percentage was pretty high, so you almost had to completely fill the room in 20 seconds.  And what happened if you didn’t do this in 20 seconds?  Everybody from your party was kicked from the room and you were forced to reassemble your party again.  Third, when using the Party System, you are forced into also using the Quick Match system.  The Quick Match system is Slant Six’s name for matchmaking.  The problem is that, when using the Quick Match system, you are joined to a PRIVATE room.  Only players that joined the room when you did are allowed in.  No other players can join.  So now, after 1 game, people start dropping out.  Since nobody else can join, the player numbers start to dwindle until it’s 2 vs. 2.  Great decision on only allowing parties to join private rooms.

And last but not least, going by the listed changes of the patch, many of the biggest issues are still not addressed.  The list of changes was said to be a “highlight” of the changes(even though it’s a list of 70+ changes), but it’s still hard to believe these fixes(if they are in the patch) were left off the list:

1.  The sound drop issue.  Since the 1.42 patch, many players who use a surround sound receiver with optical or HDMI output, and with DTS enabled on the PS3, will have their sound drop out.  And I can tell you from experience, SOCOM is not a game you can play on mute.  This is the sole reason why I haven’t played SOCOM in over 2 months.

2.  Shadows showing through walls and ceilings and laser sights showing through walls.  Currently, if you are on a second or third floor of a building, an enemy below you can see your shadow through the ceiling.  Also, if you have a red laser sight on your gun, the red laser will go through walls so the enemy can see that you are behind that wall.

3.  Grenades and Claymores don’t work properly.  Currently, if you are on top of a grenade or claymore mine and it detonates, you will not die.  However, if you are on one side of a wall, and there is a grenade on the other side of the wall, there is a good chance that you will die from the explosion.

4.  Can’t throw grenades with left hand.  Currently, players are only able to throw grenades with their right hands.  This means that if you are on the left side of a building and are wanting to throw a grenade, then you have two options.  One is to try to peak around the corner and throw, which will hit the building and bounce back at you…BOOM..your dead.  Second option is that you have to move out into the open to throw the grenade…BAM…headshot.  So I either blow myself up, or I have to run out into the open for a sniper to pick me off.  Excellent options.

5.  Explosive barrels and exploding cars.  On one map inparticular(Desert Glory), there are atleast 50 exploding barrels.  On top of that cars are explodable by SHOOTING THEIR WINDSHIELDS.  Really?

6.  The weapon wheel.  To switch weapons, you can use the Quick Swap, which doesn’t work all the time, or you can use the “weapon wheel”.  To change your weapon, your character is required to stop, and you hit a sequence of buttons to change your weapon.  Why is the character stopping?  NOTE: This was stated to be fixed in an early update on what the 1.50 patch was going to fix.  However, it is not in the final “highlight” list.  So no idea if it was actually fixed or not.

Tomorrow will be the telling day for Slant Six.  Can they save SOCOM?  Or will they destory it more than they already have?