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The final hours of Zipper Interactive (Socom Devs).

U

UnluckyKate

Member
Wario64 said:
"Were trying to recapture the glory days of Socom 1 and 2"

it burns
Click to expand...

Sure but everybody would say that. No one would say ' we were fucking socom up and we knew it. We were going for the cod audience '

I just don't bite these comments anymore. Such an easy promess to make and such a hard one to deliver
 
P

Palmer_v1

Member
Wario64 said:
"Were trying to recapture the glory days of Socom 1 and 2"

it burns
Click to expand...

Sony had like 5 opportunities to do that, and screwed it up every time.

I wanted to make a parody thread when the halo collection was announced, along the lines of Sony announcing SOCOM 1-4 remastered for HD, etc.

Now I'm angry again.
 
D

darkside31337

Tomodachi wa Mahou
Maybe they shouldn't have fucked everything up. Then they wouldn't have tried to recapture it. They got way more chances than most other studios would have gotten.
 
D

Doctor_Thomas

Member
Zipper, as good as they were, were never going to recapture SOCOM 1 and 2. They had so many chance and so many misses. It was sad, but it's not like they didn't get a chance to turn it around. MAG was a mistake and Unit 13 was just alright.
 
B

Blargonaut

Banned
sjay1994 said:
  • Were trying to recapture the glory days of Socom 1 and 2
Click to expand...

:'(

Bring us back, H-Hour.

8IlmLtf.gif
 
W

W1SSY

Member
Gonna have to listen to this because I loved Zipper games back in the day. SOCOM was the first series that I played online and met a lot of my playstation friends playing it. I was disappointed when Zipper was closed but they had not been making the games that I had wanted for a very long time and I think most of the fans felt the same way.

Also for old times sake g^
 
R

Razgriz-Specter

Member
BruiserBear said:
M.A.G was their big mistake. Never should have been green-lighted.

Socom 4 was just the final straw.
Click to expand...

Yup.
Nice player count but couldn't get decent gunplay or even decent large scale action of a battlefield with 4x the players.

Socom 4 was a decent 3rd person shooter(with one of my favorite soundtracks from last gen), but a horrendous Socom.
Who the f thought that grenade change was a good idea. probably the dumbest change in all of videogames.
 
R

RE_Player

Member
sjay1994 said:
Quick notes for those who can't listen.

  • Developers were told to stop working on an upcoming game 2 weeks before they were shut down
  • Zipper was working on multiple projects
  • One was a PS4 game
    [*]Were trying to recapture the glory days of Socom 1 and 2
Click to expand...
Of course they would say that. That was their glory days. They were spreading this message when Socom 4 was coming out and that game was crap.

While it always sucks when people lose their job Zipper was one of the weaker Sony first party devs coming from the PS2 to PS3 transition.
 
S

SteveO1683

Member
MAG was an amazing achievement. Unit 13 was great as well. Sad that they got hosed by the PSN hack because socom 4 was a fun time.
 
R

Razgriz-Specter

Member
Sadly im losing hope for H-Hour, just don't think they will get an investor outside the longshot Sony steps in and pushes it as an actual Socom.


I really hated how MAG, Socom 4 and Unit 13 all reused the same assets.
 
Ascenion

Ascenion

Member
Razgriz-Specter said:
Sadly im losing hope for H-Hour, just don't think they will get an investor outside the longshot Sony steps in and pushes it as an actual Socom.


I really hated how MAG, Socom 4 and Unit 13 all reused the same assets.
Click to expand...
It might not be such a long shot. I mean the alpha footage looked decent, plus Sony is pretty open.
 
F

foxtrot3d

Banned
UnluckyKate said:
Sure but everybody would say that. No one would say ' we were fucking socom up and we knew it. We were going for the cod audience '

I just don't bite these comments anymore. Such an easy promess to make and such a hard one to deliver
Click to expand...

I agree. The best evidence is always a studio's track record MAG and SOCOM 4 were piles of crap. It's funny that SOCOM Confrontation was a better and more true SOCOM despite being made by a different studio.
 
T

TimeEffect

Member
Their fault for effing up SOCOM 4

If I'm not mistaken, there were complaints about management (dont take my word) so it seems like Sony or some guy screwedup the vision for everyone else

I'd like to know what their thought process was when devloping S4.

It's funny to compare this to H-Hour which seems so carefully crafted with the fanbases' feedback in mind
 
R

Razgriz-Specter

Member
Ascenion said:
It might not be such a long shot. I mean the alpha footage looked decent, plus Sony is pretty open.
Click to expand...
Wonder if Sears would do it.

TimeEffect said:
Their fault for effing up SOCOM 4

If I'm not mistaken, there were complaints about management (dont take my word) so it seems like Sony or some guy screwedup the vision for everyone else

I'd like to know what their thought process was when devloping S4.

It's funny to compare this to H-Hour which seems so carefully crafted with the fanbases' feedback in mind
Click to expand...

Most of the problems with Socom 4 are technical.
Yeah Sony can say go after the COD crowd all they want but you have to deliver a solid product either way.

Yeah Sony was definitely pushing for the focus respawn mode, ranks/upgrades, etc
But they weren't telling them to make generic maps, with a terrible camera that didn't work, to screw up the grenades and so on.

Jesus its a TPS without freaking shoulder swap!
 
GraveRobberX

GraveRobberX

Platinum Trophy: Learned to Shit While Upright Again.
Only reason MAG feels like a great game is because it went through so many reiterations

It kept reinventing itself and once again Zipper brought out the buy our $60 game and we'll make it playable 1.5 year from release date

They did it Socom then with MAG
That's why they got shut down

All that talk of we were making a game in the essence of Socom 1 & 2 are complete bullshit
They had so many fucking chances to do it right, but they kept fucking it up
 
A

antigoon

Member
On one hand, those comments about bringing back the glory days hurt. On the other hand, Zipper had SO MANY CHANCES to do right by the SOCOM community and they pissed them all away. I guess we'll never know how much of it was publisher mandated.

I hope H-Hour is good, but I just don't know if there's even a market for that kind of game anymore thanks to Zipper/Sony.
 
A

Afrikan

Member
MAG was one of my favorite games last gen... damn I had so much fun.... BUT NEVAH FORGET!

jCjFmRo.jpg


I still had a ball getting my ass kicked because of this.
 
Tal Shiar Agent

Tal Shiar Agent

Member
Doctor_Thomas said:
Zipper, as good as they were, were never going to recapture SOCOM 1 and 2. They had so many chance and so many misses. It was sad, but it's not like they didn't get a chance to turn it around. MAG was a mistake and Unit 13 was just alright.
Click to expand...

I felt that 16 player DLC maps SOCOM: Combined Assault was the best SOCOM ever got. I'm of a minority opinion here, but I felt it was better than SOCOM 2. The biggest problem with 3/Combined Assault was that they were trying to be Battlefield. Most of the 16 player maps suffered as a result, Devil's Road and Citadel not included. Though I will say that I loved Convoy.

When the classic map DLC packs were made free it was amazing. Crossroads, Desert Glory, and Frostbite were all great with 3/CA's updated gameplay.
 
M

Man-is-Obsolete

Member
People sometimes get too caught up in the name of a studio. The talent at Zipper had dwindled pretty dramatically (Socom 4 is proof), and a lot of the people behind the original Socom games are indeed behind H-Hour. H-Hour will probably be closer to Socom 2 than anything Zipper could have done.
 
R

Razgriz-Specter

Member
Man I actually loved Confrontation once it was up and running correctly.
Too bad Slant 6 closed, I had always kinda hoped Sony would get tham to make a second with a jungle theme.
 
J

J-Rzez

Member
MAG was awesome, had so much fun with friends and gaffers. It just lacked a bit of polish. Music in that game was some of the best last gen.

Socom4 turned out to be a disaster. Not that it was a bad game, it was that its name was Socom but it was anything but. Then PSN went down for over a month not doing s4 any favors, but it was the before mentioned that doomed the game.

One of my favorite devs, they could have said they wanted to recapture the socom days all they wanted to now if still around and I wouldn't believe it.

At least we hopefully have H-Hour, which IS a true S1&2 successor.
 
T

Tapejara

Member
Razgriz-Specter said:
Man I actually loved Confrontation once it was up and running correctly.
Too bad Slant 6 closed, I had always kinda hoped Sony would get tham to make a second with a jungle theme.
Click to expand...

While Slant Six's games have always been pretty buggy, I actually quite enjoyed them. Spent a lot of time with Confrontation and enjoyed what I played of Operation Raccoon City.
 
F

Freedom = $1.05

Banned
people seem to forget that socom 4 came out right when there was that month long PSN outage due to sony's network being compromised. Always felt that they got incredibly fucked over by that
 
M

MastaKilla

Member
I don't even know what to believe honestly. Socom is my favorite online shooter of all time. I put so many of my teenage years into socom 1 and 2. I'm a 26 year old fart now, but damn what I would do another experience like those first two games gave me.

That said, I lost all faith in zipper and when the end came I wasn't really sad. They tried so hard to become a 3rd person Battlefield with socom 3 and it killed the franchise. Then in socom 4 they tried to become COD and it killed the entire studio. We complained and begged for years and years to give us a classic socom experience and Zipper never seemed to care, instead Slant6 somehow ended up trying with Confrontation.

The hole in Sony's online shooter portfolio that was left after the death of Socom is massive. I can't believe how badly they've butchered it to be honest. Socom was such an awesome intimate community experience that playstation has never had otherwise.
 
J

Jigorath

Banned
Sorry Zipper, but after SOCOM 3 your games were just a long stream of mediocrity. You had 3 chances to make something great, MAG, SOCOM 4, and Unit 13, but you fucked all of them up.
 
T

Takao

Banned
Don't listen to the podcast if you expect to see an in-depth post-mortem on the studio. The cliffnotes is basically all they say about the studio.
 
P

Pachimari

Member
What's H-Hour?
A project made by earlier Zipper employees for PC?

Also, MAG were the most fun online shooter since Call of Duty 2. Unit 13 were fantastic for what it was.
 
A

antigoon

Member
MastaKilla said:
I don't even know what to believe honestly. Socom is my favorite online shooter of all time. I put so many of my teenage years into socom 1 and 2. I'm a 26 year old fart now, but damn what I would do another experience like those first two games gave me.
Click to expand...

I'm 25, but right there with you on all of this. Halo 2 filled the online shooter hole in my heart for me after I burned out on SOCOM, and I really, truly, can't be more excited for the Master Chief Collection, but I'd give a TON to be able to have SOCOM 2 or a spiritual successor right now.

I can't believe H-Hour until it's in my hands.
 
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