Rainbow Six: Siege
~These Gadgets Are Made For Breaching~
It seems that we are starting to see a new trend when concerning games and their multiplayer and single player experiences. Some games are completely scraping single player content in order to fully concentrate on making a bigger and better multiplayer experience. Now this is nothing new but some of the latest games such as Titanfall, Evolve, Star Wars: Battlefront all have failed to show that it was worth getting rid of single player as all those games lack enough multiplayer content, lack replay value and the communities seem to move on to something else within a month or two. Will Rainbow Six: Siege be the latest game to fall victim or is the content that is already there, as well as the promised future content enough to keep gamers happy a year from now?.
I’m what some would call a FPS multiplayer noob, I’m not a big fan of the FPS genre to start with and I haven’t played a competitive FPS online that I’ve enjoyed since Modern Warfare 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 on last gen consoles. All the newer games such as Destiny, Battlefield 4 and latest Call of Duty can’t hold my attention for very long. So I went into Rainbow Six: Siege with very low expectations which is very unfair, but part of that was because I disliked what I played during the beta. So it’s to my surprise that Rainbow Six: Siege is everything I could have wanted and more in terms of deadly gunplay with tight controls, addictive gameplay where you cant help but want another round and tactical combat that rewards teamwork and communication.
The game starts off with a cut scene that sets up the premise of the game, the cut scene looks fantastic, is well acted and could have made for a great story, which makes the fact that Rainbow Six: Siege decided to abandon their single player campaign which has been with the Rainbow Six series since the beginning of time in the first Rainbow Six back in 1998 hurt that much more. The presentation is so sleek here everything just looks easy on the eye, from the artwork and backgrounds, to the 20 character designs and models, then of course the operator videos and mission briefings. All this points to me believing that the single player would have been much harder to pull off, but it would have been bigger, better and the most personal Rainbow Six campaign to date. My only complaint on the presentation side of things is that the game’s graphics look terribly dull at times, the environments outside look bland but it’s nothing to worry about as 95% of the time you will be indoors. Blood spatters on the walls and floors after getting a kill, as well as debris flying everywhere from blowing up the destructive environments look great and feels like you’re in a war zone.
Rainbow Six: Siege features 3 different game modes. Situations is the first and only available mode when you start the game until you unlock the rest, here you will learn the very basics of how to play the game in real mission scenarios, there is a total of 10 and up to 3 gold stars which you get from completing the objectives. Next you have the old fan favourite terrorist hunt and the name itself implies what takes place in this mode, you will face off with computer A.I outnumbered by numbers of deadly terrorist. Then lastly the game mode most of your time will likely be spend in is 5 vs 5 heavily team based attack and defend. This is were Rainbow Six: Siege shines its brightest, gameplay is addictive, winning is satisfying and it has that one more go feeling. The more you play the more Renown you will receive. Renown is the games in-game currency which is mainly used to purchase operators, weapon attachments and skins.
I was amazed to find out that there is a total of 20 different Operators to use over 4 different Counter Terrorism Units. 10 attackers and 10 defenders, all with certain guns only available to a few but each one that has their own unique special perk, this sets Rainbow Six: Siege different from other games, each class feels different to one another and they all compliment each other well when used tactically with your human squad mates. Attacking operators like Pulse can scan enemies through walls relaying that info on to teammates whilst Fuze uses his Cluster Charge to pierce a wall and drop mini grenades inside that room thanks to the information from Pulse. On the other hand Defenders will want to set booby traps using Kapkan and reinforce walls and doors with Castle. The possibilities are endless and each game of cat and mouse I can be lost and win depending on how you set up.
FPS online gaming isn’t really my cup of tea, I don’t do well in twitch shooters as I simply don’t have the reaction speeds or the awareness of my surroundings. I find it hard to remember the layout of a map and barely can keep my kill and death ratio even. Rainbow Six: Siege forces you to adjust to its rules of engagement otherwise you’d be spending most of your time waiting to respawn into the next round. I quickly had abandon my lone wolf gung-ho approach and adopt a much more subtle tactical style while using some out of the box thinking to outsmart the blood lust opposition. Skill isn’t the determining factor when playing online, it’s about teamwork, and any team of 5 that makes good use of its operators and communicates well with each other will destroy a disorganised team. This slower take on the game suits Rainbow Six: Siege so well and rewards players that are patient and work together.
Future content in Rainbow Six: Siege has been promised by Ubisoft, and with me already past level 20 which unlocks ranked mode and only a few more operators that I need to grind in game cash so I can unlock, I’ve almost already ran out of new stuff to do. We’ve been promised over the next year we will see 4 new maps, brand new game modes which will all be free and available to everyone when released. We will see 8 new operators with new primary and secondary as well as new gadgets.
Is Rainbow Six: Siege worth the full price tag? Well that’s incredibly difficult to say. On the one hand the game is very barebones in terms of content that is available. With only 3 game modes that all basically have the same rules with very slight differences, not many unlockables and 11 maps. It will only take you a few hours to see all there is that Rainbow Six: Siege offers. But on the other hand the content that is available is fantastic, addictive and feels perfected in every way. The future of Rainbow Six: Siege and its community depends on Ubisoft and whether they will make constant updates and add free DLC to the game such as new maps and more operators.
Score= 70%