Competitive multiplayer has always been the core of the SOCOM franchise, and SOCOM: Special Forces takes it further than ever before with modes and options that both new recruits and veterans alike will enjoy. We’ve previously covered three of our four competitive modes — Suppression, Last Defence and Uplink — and today we’re excited to unveil our fourth mode, Bomb Squad.

In Bomb Squad, Insurgents have planted a number of bombs around the map and the Spec Ops team must defuse them all before time runs out. What makes Bomb Squad special is that it features the unique Bomb Technician character, played by one member of the Spec Ops team, who is charged with defusing the explosives. He carries both an automatic shotgun and a mobile grenade launcher and is very heavily armoured, making him a deadly force on his own; that said, the technician is still an open target any time he turns his back to defuse Insurgent bombs. Succeeding in Bomb Squad requires tactics, teamwork, patience and confidence to get the job done, all pillars of the overall SOCOM experience.

When can you get your hands on Bomb Squad, you ask? Well, you’ll be able to try out all four of our modes on two maps in our upcoming beta! The SOCOM: Special Forces Beta will include each of the game’s competitive multiplayer modes — Suppression, Last Defence, Uplink and Bomb Squad — all playable on the maps “Port Authority” and “Assault & Battery”. And of course, you’ll be able to play each of our modes in either of their Standard or Classic variants with either the PlayStation Move controller or the traditional Dualshock controls, in addition the Beta supports 3D as well!

The SOCOM: Special Forces Multiplayer Beta will roll out in two separate phases. It’ll begin with PlayStation Plus subscribers and then it will be available to download from PSN store for everyone! Here’s the schedule for PAL regions.

• Beginning March 23rd, PlayStation Plus members will gain access to the beta.
• Starting April 6th, the beta will be freely downloadable to anyone via PlayStation Network.

The beta is scheduled to run until April 13th, at which point the servers will be taken down in preparation for the games release.

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As longtime SOCOM fans can tell you, one of the series’ great strengths besides its realistic action has always been its stealth. Though we’ve focused rather heavily on the action-oriented portions of the game in our reveals thus far, today we’re happy to announce the covert aspects of SOCOM: Special Forces.

While players will have opportunities to be stealthy in nearly all of SOCOM: Special Forces‘ stages, select missions in the solo campaign will give users direct control of female South Korean 707th covert operations expert “Forty-Five.” Acting as the team’s primary form of reconnaissance, Forty-Five slinks into various locales under the cover of night to capture valuable intel and sabotage enemy operations. In the mission White Tiger, for example, Forty-Five creeps into a naval dry dock under Naga control so that she can prevent a stealth frigate from shipping out to sea to attack an already-crippled NATO fleet. It sounds intense — and it is — but it’s only the first of several levels that utilize Forty-Five’s deadly skills.

Because she’s armed with silenced weapons and a handy stealth meter that lets players know how visible they are to hostile forces, Forty-Five is a sneaky badass who adds a lot to the SOCOM:Special Forces experience. We really do think that you’re going to enjoy her missions and are glad to let her secret out of the bag.

Even better is that all of Forty-Five’s missions can be played with the DualShock3, PlayStation Move motion controller or PlayStation Move sharp shooter attachment – meaning that regardless of what kind of control method you want to embrace, your sneaky needs are covered! And don’t even get us started on the abundance of Forty-Five’s awesome “stealth kills” or her uncanny ability to hide the bodies of fallen enemies in shadowy places…

Best of all, the SOCOM: Special Forces information train isn’t done yet! We’ll be back again next week with a ton of new details, including the dates in which our multiplayer beta kicks off and a few other pleasant surprises to boot. See you then!

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It may sound clichéd, but wow, time really flies! It’s hard to believe that it has already been a full year since our massive 256-person PlayStation 3-exclusive shooter, MAG, was released all over the globe. To celebrate our one-year birthday, we’re unveiling a handful of promotions as a thank you to our fans throughout the week.

First up, starting Wednesday, January 26 at 12am Pacific Time, we’re changing all in-game queue and “Happy Hour” bonuses to 256% until Sunday, January 30 at 11:59pm. If you’ve been meaning to level up to grab our various “level 60″ trophies, our promotional time period is a great time to go for it!

Speaking of January 26, all day from 10am-5pm Pacific Time, members of the Zipper Interactive QA team (our best players!) will be online and playing MAG throughout the day. If you’ve never participated in our “Play MAG with Zipper” events, they’re great fun and offer you the perfect opportunity to show us your skills.

Our third and final promotion is a special “Faction Neutral” switch for the Domination and Acquisition modes. For the first time ever in MAG “Live,” our two biggest game types will switch from being PMC-specific to being open for defense by any of our three factions. Like our 256% XP bonus, this mode switch will be in operation from January 26 at 12am Pacific to January 30 at 11:59pm.

But this isn’t all we’re doing to wish MAG a happy birthday. We’ll also be posting some additional posts throughout the week, including a breakdown of MAG statistics and numbers on Thursday and a special “Five Things You Never Knew About MAG” article on Friday morning. It should be fun.

As always, everyone here at Zipper Interactive wants you to know how much we appreciate all the support and feedback you have given us over the last year and we hope you’ve enjoyed playing the game as much as we’ve enjoyed making and improving it. Thank you very much!

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The big day is here!

There is so much new content in MAG 2.0 that telling you how important or huge this is for the game, its fans, and for us seems unnecessary. Take one look at the changes listed below and you’ll understand why we’re calling this MAG 2.0.

PlayStation Move support, an increased level cap, our revamped skill tree, the new economy system, and our highly-demanded clan deploy feature are just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many fantastic new or improved items in MAG 2.0 it’s almost like a whole new game!

A big thanks to all of you who have helped us get to this point with your support, your suggestions, and your mad beta testing skills. We hope you have as much fun playing MAG 2.0 as we did making it.
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It’s a proud week for us here at Zipper Interactive as tomorrow marks the 8th birthday of our first-ever PS2 game and the title that started a huge multimillion-selling franchise, SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs. To celebrate the eight-year mark, we’ve put together a special video for our fans.

In it, you’ll experience the gamescom 2010 SOCOM: Special Forces demo in its entirety with commentary by lead designer, Travis Steiner. This is the first time anywhere that you’ll see the gamescom demo played all the way through and in high-definition, making it a “must watch” for anyone even remotely interested in what we have in store for 2011.

Let us know what you think below, and please accept our sincerest thanks for making the first eight years of SOCOM as great as they have been. Here’s to many more to come!

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