The SOCOM series is up to its third PSP incarnation, but Tactical Strike is substantially different from the two Fireteam Bravo games that preceded it. The most obvious difference is that you now control a full squad of four operatives rather than just yourself and a teammate. The militaristic action still comes pretty hot and heavy, but the core gameplay relies less on itchy trigger fingers and more on using your noodle to take out opposing forces with cunning and strategy rather than brute force. That means a fair amount of sneaking around, setting up flanks and ambushes, and generally behaving like less of a psychotic Rambo-wannabe.
About the only time you take direct control over a soldier is when lobbing a grenade, so Tactical Strike's indirect feel will likely live and die by the strength of its command interface. Luckily, care has been taken to make issuing orders intuitive. An action reticule lets you highlight and interact with everything from incoming gunners to scraps of intel, and a movement skimmer hovers along the ground to show a ghostly image of the squad as it'll look when settled into a new position.
It's one thing to sneak up on unwary AI insurgents, and quite another to face off against human squads that know you're there. Tactical Strike's ad hoc and online infrastructure modes diverge sharply from the 16-player rampages that defined Fireteam Bravo multiplayer. We got a chance to play with members of the QA team today, and got a solid feel for the big changes headed our way in a little over a week.
Only two to four players can take part at a time, which will undoubtedly disappoint any long-time fan looking to tear around racking up frags again, but the experience is considerably more intimate as a result. The environment is as target-rich as ever, though, thanks to the fact that every player gets their own squad of four, which can be broken up into Able and Bravo duos or even completely separated.
