When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. That’s what developers seem to be trying to do these days as they attempt to capture the visceral action of first-person shooters on the PSP despite the fact that it has only one analog nub. Zipper Interactive sure has brewed a tasty shoot ‘em beverage with their release of SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 2. It’s a bit sour at times, with a somewhat awkward control scheme (but only somewhat awkward, which is an improvement), but goes down smoothly and is good to the last drop.

We’re used to PSP first-person shooters playing second fiddle to their console counterpart, but that’s just not the case this time around. The single-player campaign will have you fighting for freedom in smaller levels in the same areas as the squad from SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Combined Assault on the PS2. You’d think that this would make Fireteam Bravo 2 play like a watered down version of Combined Assault, but ironically it’s the other way around in terms of the single player experience.

As with Combined Assault, the levels in the single-player campaign are quite linear as your path is blocked with various artificial obstacles like sheer cliffs, hills that are too steep to cross, and doors that won’t open. While the illusion of an open ended environment bothered us in Combined Assault, the smaller levels in Fireteam Bravo 2 actually work to the game’s advantage.

There’s a lot less running around and backtracking as the mission objectives are concentrated in a more compact area, ensuring that action is almost non-stop. Due to the less complex level layouts, we also experienced far fewer problems with our squad’s AI and they never suicide jumped off of cliffs or got stuck behind a corner - which they often did in Combined Assault.