If you haven’t played SOCOM II online in a while, you may be surprised to learn that in spite of all the best efforts of Sony and Zipper, cheating has happened. Some determined players have managed to find enough glitches, exploits, and other programming oddities to make the playing experience seriously frustrating for the rest of us honest players.

On the other hand, if it’s because of all those damn dirty cheaters, glitchers, and exploiters that you haven’t played SOCOM II in a while, you’ll be pleased to learn that Zipper has done something about it. In early March, players logging on to the SOCOM servers were greeted with a message prompting them to download a patch to their memory cards. This patch, which downloads in about a minute and modifies the SOCOM II save on your memory card (or creates a new one), addresses loads of fun-wrecking glitches, among them:

It’s no longer possible for damn dirty cheaters to remove turret guns from their stands.

Any holes that allowed damn dirty cheaters to climb into the scenery and attack enemies from “outside” the level have been plugged.

Terrorists can no longer cheat by carrying double the allotment of PMN mines, like damn dirty cheaters.

Jumping against a wall no longer provides a speed boost to damn dirty cheaters.

On a slightly less important note, it’s also no longer possible for antisocial losers to block other players from typing text messages in the briefing room, and the codes that allowed players to change the color of their chat text or player name have been disabled. On top of those fixes, the M60E3 is no longer unrealistically accurate when the shooter is moving, and breaching walls now gives the player one point instead of two.

Players have reported lots of other changes—most of them completely imaginary. We did notice that it now seems much easier to jump over obstacles from close up, but just about everything else you might hear about is wishful thinking or faulty observation. Specifically, anyone who tells you that any gun other than the M60E3 has been altered is smoking something; Sony has specifically stated, “No other weapons have been changed.”

Now, if it can just do something about that damned lag….

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine.