SOCOM Confrontation beta report: great stuff, when working

Frank Caron writes: "The first of what will likely be many patches has already gone live today. Of course, it is a beta for a reason. Thankfully, looking past those issues, SOCOM proves to be a solid third-person shooter with some great community features. Warhawk has long been the standard for organized multiplayer on the PlayStation 3, but it appears that the title will quickly be passed to SOCOM when the game launches. Even in beta, a number of key improvements already trump Incognito's excellent title.

For one, voice chat in the beta has been surprisingly excellent. The new official PS3 headsets come with a special high quality mode that SOCOM will take advantage of, but even without them the voice chat is higher quality than any other PS3 titles. Given that the game is so highly tactical and team-oriented, this is good news.

The clan options are also significantly more robust. An integrated clan calendar allows clan leaders to create scheduled events which are pushed out to all members of the clan. These events range from tournaments to clan matches and even open invitationals. Clan leaders can also interact with other clan leaders to set up events for all the clan members involved."