You know what? SOCOM launched really bad, but has picked up enormously with some solid patches. The game is a lot of fun now and the gameplay is finally solid. Slant Six is doing a good job with these patches. Version 1.41, dropping Monday, is bringing even more fixes.

• XMB presence – Medley Game information has been abbreviated, displaying all information required to identify the location of the player.
• Late Join ‘Hitch’ improvements – addresses the pause experienced by players when someone late joins a game.
• Navigating Screens With Large Clans – slow down issue fixed
• Increased speed of fade at the beginning of the round.
• Quick Match
  • Increased countdown timer in Quick Match Pre Game lobby from 20 to 60 seconds.
  • Enabled Quick Match team switching.
  • Ranked, Unranked and Unranked Respawn games, each contains 6 different playlists: 3 8vs8 and 3 16vs16 players.
• Claymores can now be detonated when player is in the prone position

Slant Six also did some back end server updates to optimize latency and reduce lag. Overall, it should make for a much more playable game. With the game launching in Europe soon, they need to have it right. The launch was botched pretty good in the US, so Sony needs to do it right in Europe.