Welcome to the last two weeks of my life.

Before you even begin to consider stepping into SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals, know that it is easily one of the most addictive games available for the PS2. For the next couple of months, expect to hear countless stories about broken marriages, destroyed relationships, or jobs lost because of this game. It is that damn addictive.

SOCOM is not the prettiest game available for the system. All of the environments and soldiers look good, but not great. For example, in any given level, many of the terrorists you'll run across fit in one of four different 'skins', detracting a little from the game. There are also cases of fog and shadow being used to hide some of the game's pop-issues, but these are very minor and can just as easily be chalked up to the environments being portrayed rather than trying to hide stuff. Despite the little things, SOCOM does more than a few things very well. In each mission, your team wears authentic SEAL mission uniforms. During jungle levels your team is decked out in full battle camouflage, while in the Middle East missions they wear the more familiar 'Desert Storm' fatigues. It's all very cool and adds a lot to the game.

Sound is possibly the most important aspect of the entire game, and sounds great. However, since it overlaps with controls via the included USB headset, more on this later.

As the title of the game suggests, SOCOM puts you into the role of one of America's top Special Forces teams - the US NAVY SEALS. During the game's single player missions you take the role as Kahuna and lead your team of four SEALS through missions ranging from hostage extractions to bombing a ship full of contraband, to retrieving suitcase nukes from a group of terrorists. At the beginning of each mission, you are given a brief mission outline about your objectives. This not only gives you a good idea of what is going on in the mission (like why you're on the mission in the first place), but it also informs you of what mission parameters must be completed in order to proceed. Trying to describe the actual dynamics of the game is rough because they are always changing. You can never be quite sure when a guard will go on patrol or what your teammates will do. This is especially true for one team member in particular - Boomer.

I know recruitment has been on something of a downslide in recent years, but after teaming with Boomer, I am convinced that Uncle Sam will let any buffoon into the armed services. Both of your other squad mates, Jester and Specter, are competent soldiers who know how to follow orders to the letter. But Boomer, well something just is not right with that boy. Throughout the game he is constantly disobeying orders and opening fire when ordered not to and standing in open areas when he needs to be hidden. In some missions he is a good soldier and follows orders, but more times than not you just want to pull out you pistol and unload a few slugs into the back of his skull for his ineptitude (what can I say - I run a tight ship?).

Online, SOCOM is a totally different ballgame. Players can team up and compete with players from all around the world in three different games: Suppression, a fancy way to say 'kill everyone on the other team; Demolition, where one team has to place a bomb in the other's base; and Hostage, where SEALS have to rescue and extract hostages while the Terrorists try to prevent them. I could not even begin to tell you how many hours I have spent playing online. As much fun as I have had playing, a few issues popped up that took away from the experience.

The biggest issue I had was that the servers are less than reliable and tend to lag/drop out often. While this is a good indicator as to how successful the game is, it's a major stumbling block and Sony should have been better prepared to handle the massive droves of people going online. Between the time I started playing and when it came time to write this review, I noticed some improvement - but there is still work to be done.

In order to clear up something that has become a major issue, online play is available only to those with a broadband connection. What this means is that if you use the phone line to get online, you cannot play the game.

Offline, SOCOM starts out easy and gently ramps up, offering a nice challenge. When the game starts out, the enemy AI is incredibly stupid and makes even Boomer look like a genius. However, with each passing mission (and difficulty level), the enemies become smarter and more difficult to outfox. Mission objectives also become much more challenging. One of the more interesting wrinkles thrown into later missions is that you cannot complete the mission unless all four members make it to the extraction zone, even if they are dead.

Leave no man behind.

Online, it is all about who you play with. While playing with a variety of people is great for experience, I recommend joining a clan. Not only is this a great way to learn from other players, but it gives you a group of people to learn tactics from. Joining clans is as easy as going online and looking, since most members had a 'marking' in their online name.

SOCOM offers some very good control features and has enough setups (including a custom one), so finding a comfortable control scheme just takes practice.

Included with every copy of SOCOM is a USB headset which players are required to wear while playing the game. The purpose of the headset is to allow you to command your teammates during missions. If you want to have your backup guys move to a specific location, you call order them by saying 'BRAVO - MOVE TO - (whatever location you want them to)'. I will readily admit that this takes a lot of adjustment to get used to and you will feel like a complete jackass when you first start - but that is part of the fun. For the timid, SOCOM does offer a strictly menu based command system, but where's the fun in that?

Another cool function of the headset is how the game incorporates it into what's going on during the mission. All of the gunfire, terrorist chatter, and ambient noises still blare out of your speakers like they do for every other game, but any radio communications are heard only by the one with the headset on. Before each mission, your Tac Ops officer will chime in with some last minute hints and during the mission, your squad will use it to communicate with you.

There's really not much more to say about his game other than it's a great step in the right direction for Sony's online plan. If the server issues can be taken care of - SOCOM looks to be the premiere game for online play.