I have been playing the game for several months on the weekends and I can honestly say, I enjoy H-Hour. There have been some major gameplay improvements in the last couple of months that made sniping a little more accurate. My shots seems to hit the target, some time I see an issue where I see blood fly, but the player does not die... I would love additional sniper rifles and scopes before this game is out of early access. Snipers need weapon choices and claymores.

it plays like socom, still some bugs to work out in early access.

This game has come a long way since its launch. Really the ONLY reason to buy this game is if you are a huge fanboy (like me) of the original Socom games. Right now, as of 08/13/2016, this game is pretty amazing. However the amount of actual people playing are next to none. I would say on average, you can join one, maybe two games that will have a full room but nothing more than that. Is it worth the 10 bucks? Yes. Only because the studio is continuing there updates with this game, the old Socom community is awesome. For anyone that is NOT a Socom fan boy, I probably would not reccomend this game to you.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=445831595

It seems my Review Video has been Banned from Steam. The video was talking about Censorship, and how ANY sort of Critique gets you shunned from the studio...and look what happened.
I speak my mind, it gets reported and banned.
This studio deserves no money.
As a very passionate fan of SOCOM 1 and 2, I wanted to see this game succeed.
But every decision they have made in the last year, has caused them to be:
A) Out of Money
B) Out of fans who can speak critically
C) Out of Ideas, so they launch a Broken Pre-Alpha Build onto Steam for $25.00 in hopes they can take some people for a ride, before they ride off into the sunset.
I give this game 3 months. With a 24 Hour Peak of 60 players. Maybe sooner.

Edit: It appears that Players are now getting Banned from the game for speaking out in Game Chat. I have heard that players who livestream and talk critical, are getting banned under the pretense of cheating.. This company will do anything to silence critics.

To start off with, this game is not worth $25 for the amount of content that was released. I participated in the Pre-Alpha/Beta Testing and believe they need more time to get the basics down before they shipped if off to EA.

I have a long history with playing shooters and started off with S1-S4(including CON) and I have to say that we are playing games in 2015 and I would like to see a tactical third person shooter where its realism is believable. Right now, they are not where they need to be.

This game is suppose to be a soul successor of the famous title Socom Us Navy Seals, but falls short with many many fundamental problems.

I wouldnt recommend you to pick up this game till maybe about 3-4 months down the road, where I can see the Devs picking up their act and implementing a competitive side to the game.

Details:

Character/movement - The Characters you control are very robotic, very little sway or any fluid movement, when controlling the gun you dont see or feel like your receiving any kick back from the gun. its like the gun was mounted on a rock that can have the ability to move around. Jumping around feels like your on the moon, being able to shoot as if you were standing still or your running through the air. lots of things that your character will get stuck on, like pivots in the ground, rubble that should be easily cleared, or inclined terrain that anyone can walk up on. Your Character doesnt seem to have any inertia, or body weight when moving around and can change direction(strafe or back pedal) on a drop of a dime with no transfer of weight being displayed. your back pedal is the same speed as if you run forward. you cant dive properly and with many bugs with Dolphin Pop Up Animation exploits(sliding off the ground being able to shoot accurately and still be mobile).

Characters dont feel like they receive damage from anything. Bullets, Pellets, Grenades, or Fall Damage. Character does not slow down when receiving damage untill dead.

Movement Speed is way too fast and arcady to believe you are playing a human character with combat gear and weapons.

There is no Sprint button, You either Press a button to walk, or you move around at a run/jog speed in all directions. No Ability to put your gun down to sacrifice for top flight speed.

Gunplay - The Aiming system is One Dimensional which is point and shoot, There is no general aim or focused aim. There are scopes for the Snipers, but if you have to make a long range shot with a AR or SMG, you will have to scope in with your binocular zoom out and shoot in the regular point and click Classic View). There is no depth in the shooting mechanics, you are set in a battle stance that you are shooting as if you are looking down the sights of the gun all the time(and still are able to move around at jog-running speed in all directions)

- Stances play no role in how you control your gun. Same bullet pattern, same spread.

-All guns pretty much do the same damage, have the same kind of bullet spray, and dont have any feel.
- Fire Rates and How many bullets the gun has really makes the difference in the game.

-Holding down the trigger will only kick your spray pattern so much till it stops at the top of the cross-hair circle. And it will automaticly return to the original point where you started shooting.

Sub Machine Guns can out snipe any gun class. If you want a challenge use the Assault Rifles or Sniper and feel the struggle.

Pistols suffer from bullet delay and do very little damage.(Desert Eagle is the pistol of choice because of its different damage)

Shotguns are never used because its DMG is based off of how many pellets make contact, and there are no knock downs or staggering effects when hitting your enemy.

Grenades/Throwables - You can only throw at Max Distance or Min Distance. You cannot control or gauge the throw. When changing directions from straight to left or right while throwing makes the item go 90 degrees to that direction.

Excessive Bullet Travel - Long Range I think its fine, but the close range combat feels like if you shoot at a wall or target from 3 feet away from you, the bullet is lagging behind your character and will hit 1 foot behind while you mov at a constant speed in 1 direction.

Game rewards spraying more than burst fire(due to fundamental problems^^^^).

No Mic Support

In game Text is displayed for everyone that is playing in your room(dead or alive).

You have to keep picking your gear at the start of every round.(does not remember your previous load out)

2 maps only

1 game mode set to each map.

Incomplete Features for Demolition Game Mode.
-Bomb Location in game
-Which Team has the bomb
-Which Team dropped the bomb
-Many glitches in planting the bomb(locks up character, fail to plant bomb and cannot repick it up, cannot cancel a plant and more.)

Doors are inconsistent

Sound in game is terrible, cannot figure out where shots are being fired from, where people are walking.

So.... probably way more problems but I do not see this game developing faster than what we have seen to Pre EA, if we do they still need more time to fix all the bugs that come with each patch.

I see a lot of inconsistency and I believe its lack of true direction and a big division in the community.

If you want the nostalgia feeling and want to reconnect with a bunch of socom type of player go for it, but get ready for a rough ride with this game.

Update: as of August 7th, 2015

The game still isn't worth $25....BUT it has improved.

- There is a new map called Factory and it is so much better than the original two maps. I actually had a lot of fun playing Factory.

- I have came to the conclusion that the original maps are just bad. In all honesty those two maps are so bad I think it took away from my playing experience when the game launched.

- There is now three game modes..TDM, Demo, and Sabatage..IMO they need to tweak sabatage to play more like breach did in Socom (adding breach points, ect, to make the mode more unique) As of now its basically just demo but the SOF side spawns with the bomb and is the only team that can plant it.

- The shooting mechanics are much better than what I played back at launch of EA. I mean night/day difference

- Grenade throwing has been fixed, the nades no longer shoot off in a random direction. They also added smoke nades, which I do not think were in the game before.

- The guns have a more unique feel now than they did before...meaning the shoot, feel, and handle differently from one to the next.

- Sniper rifles still need work and they need to add the one hitter rifles

- Movement animations are still rough, but they have made some improvements, the jumping looks a little better but still needs work.


I will give credit where it is due and in this case they have made some solid improvements. The main reason I say this game is still not worth $25 is because there is only 1 map worth playing (the new factory map). The other two maps are still terrible. If they can get 3-4 solid maps in this game than it might have a chance.

My only other concern is the player count. This is an online only shooter and each time I have logged in I see less than 20 people online. There is usually only one active room. That is a major concern for an online only game and something to take into consideration prior to buying.

OK, first off, this is a review based on what the game is like right now NOT what potential it has or how it might be better later.

I've played SOCOM 1, SOCOM 2, SOCOM Combined Assault and SOCOM Confrontation religiously. I played them all until the end. So i literally can't even estimate as to how many hours of my life i played them. ALOT. I played Confrontation up until the servers shutdown. I gave SOCOM 4 a shot and was unimpressed. I even tried Mag and played it for a little while.

So, When i heard David Sears and company were attempting to get backing for a Spiritual Successor to SOCOM i about pooped my pants. Of course i donated and kept my eye on their updates just about daily. Then David left (without saying why.. red flag) and that's where things began to turn for the worst.

All that being said, in it's current state, i must say that this game feels NOTHING like SOCOM! The mere fact that it is on the PC takes away from a lot of the core values that made SOCOM great. The competive feel, the even battlefield, the teamwork and tactical feel all go immediately out the window when someone who knows much more about PC and possibly even how to decode the game is in the room. The basic stability and protection from all of that was provided by PlayStation and you can feel it's mising on PC. That's not even to mention that some people use special controllers and mouse/keyboards to gain a competitive edge where it used to be that camping in a building with some PMN mines was the way to gain that edge. (Oh yeah there are no PMN mines.)


The shooting mechanics are.... for lack of a better word... bad. Even strange. The bullets travel slower than a nerf gun and the hit detection is worse than I've ever seen of a shooter. And those who played the SOCOMs know bad hit detection when they see it.

I could go on for days about this or that being missing but bottom line. This game is not even remotely close to being considered a "Spiritual successor" to SOCOM and honestly, at this point, I feel like I've been robbed by SoF Studios.

EDIT (July 7th, 2015):

They recently made the guns work. Kind of. I still got shot yesterday and clearly saw the blood come off me and lost no health. This is an issue that had to do with Network prediction and Hitscan, and honestly, should have been addressed before they EVER released this game to the public. And although it is better than it was, it's still pretty damn broken.
Still no content updates. Only 2 maps and 1 (and a half) modes. The weapons still have no unique characteristics and even with the new "Gun fix", you can still shoot across the map fully auto at the beginning and get kills.
I see most of the positive reviews consist of little to no facts and are either asking people to buy just to "support" the cause or they grade from a nostalgia (I miss SOCOM.) perspective.
Still no mics, PMN mines or claymores. The movement mechanics are still terrible. Jumping looks and feels like a gameboy game. Crouch walking for stealth purposes is useless. Team tactics are non existent at this point.

So, in conclusion, the new gun "fix" makes the game slightly less annoying to play but overall the game is still bare-bones and feels nothing like a spiritual successor to SOCOM. I know the Studio keeps walking back their promises and saying its early and its unfinished, blah, blah, blah but I've been playing since the Closed Alpha and i can see the progress is slowing to a near halt. Do not buy this game. Your 25$ WILL NOT, i repeat, WILL NOT make a difference at this point. This is not Kickstarter and no one wants to buy a game that has no content or features in the hopes maybe one day it will.

I applaud the developers for trying to revive what truly was a great shooter, while this game is far from being what SOCOM was it is a step in the right direction and with time and attention to detail I believe this game can succeed. Would I purchase this game if I wanted a finished product? no. Stay away unless you want to help the development of this game.

I have been looking forward to a successor to Socom for years. SOF Studios sold me (as well as many others) on the notion that H-Hour will be a true successor to Socom. Truthfully, this game plays nothing like Socom. The core fundamentals of Socom are not implemented. The addictiveness and competitiveness of Socom is not there. In fact, this game is completely unplayable in its current state.

They say this is a spiritual successor to SOCOM 1/2 for the PS2. I must ask, what are they smoking? Have that many people truly forgot what SOCOM 1 and 2 stood for and what they were? To say HHour is anything close to those masterpieces of a game is a insult to thefolks who worked on those original SOCOM games.

Lets get the facts out of the way on who I am writing this review.

I am a:
SOCOM Vet (1 and 2 my favs)
A Kickstarter backer of this project
Someone who actually wants this game to succeed.

Now that is out of the way. This game in no way even delivers to my needs and I am their target audience. I am one of the many original KS investors of this project.

Why should you buy this game?
1) You have some spare money and are extremely desperate for a generic round based third person shooter.
2) You have never played SOCOM 1 or 2 and thus do not know how far off this game is from being even in the same ballpark as those games.

Why you should not buy this game?

1) There is no voice chat in the game at all. No way to be tactical at all with your teammates nor communicate with them.
2) The grenade arc in the game is atrocious and half the time my grenades go 90 degrees to the right of me without any rhyme or reason.
3) I constantly shoot at and get shot by my own teammates because the indicator on their head is not only terrible in distance/range but completely useless after a certain further range. Be prepared to get shot at constantly by your teammates. Friendly fire is not in this game and this is probably why.
4) There is no indicator, icon, map or radar to show who has the bomb in demolition game mode. Have fun knowing trying to play tactically when you have no clue what is going on.
5) WolfRun is one of the worst maps I have ever played in a shooter. It is Socom 4 levels of bad.
6) All of the guns shoot exactly the same. The only difference is their names. The sprays are identical for every gun.
7) The audio is broken and you are unable to tell where shots are coming from. Footsteps are somewhat manageable to hear but also suffer from similar issues. There are no red indicators like Socom had that show the direction of incoming enemy fire.
8) Sloppy animations. I do not mind these too much but some people do.
9) You have to pick your weapon each round even if you want to use the same weapon or if you did not die in the previous round? Anyone who played classic Socom games knows that you did not HAVE to pick the weapon you wanted to use every round, you kept the same gun each round unless you changed it.
10) No PMN mines at all. They were in the Proof of concept yet are not in this paid version. Probably a good thing since there is no voice chat.
11) Zero tactical gameplay at all. I feel like I am playing with bots who camp.
12) The price. This is without a doubt the biggest flaw of this game. This game is in no way worthy of a 25 dollar price tag. I would not even pay 10 dollars for it in its current state and I am a person who backed this project.
13) No stat tracking, no clan support etc. I honestly cannot see this game getting into a competitive gamers heart without these things.
14) Sniping is not even in the same ballpark as Socom games. Just look up some videos to see the difference.
15) 2 maps and 2 game modes.....thats all that is in the game. This is not a typo, your 25 dollars gets you 2 maps 2 game modes....

The game has potential yes, but you could seriously say that about every game on this planet. There are so many flaws in this game right now and it is not worthy of your time nor money as of todays date. Maybe in 6-8 months they will get the product in a state worthy of your time and money but it is not even close to that today. The Socom community deserves more than what this game currently has to offer.