Rainbow Six Siege – Review

The Rainbow Six franchise has been a rather iconic one, dating back from the late nineties. Over the years many gamers were able to give orders to their squads and resolve hostage or terrorist situations, granting a rather tactical shooter experience. Nonetheless, all games evolve over time and Rainbow Six Siege tried the same, aiming more for only competitive or co-op play, but things don’t always go as planned. It seems that many of the common mechanics that define Rainbow six are to be found somewhere over the rainbow.

Story

As the game does not have a real single player mode, there will be hardly any story value to be found in this iteration of Rainbow Six. While the old games had simple campaigns with many different mission scenarios, you’ll have to make do with tutorial missions, an introduction cinematic and small class unlock clips in this one.

While a game like this can work without or with hardly any story content, it would make the game a lot better if it did have some. Seeing there is no true single player anymore, this also means that you won’t be the squad commander anymore, but only a mere pawn in the grand scheme of online play.

Graphics

Graphically Rainbow Six Siege is a rather strong game, where the different operatives look very detailed and varied, giving a certain personal touch to all the different players. The areas  you’ll be waging your own war on terror in, look detailed as well, except for the fact that a lot of the clutter inside them is being recycled over and over.

Destruction of the walls and other objects are a bit of a mixed batch, as certain destructive actions look great and even realistic, while others are simply awkward and weird. More than once you’ll accidently (or on purpose) shoot a picture on the walls, only to see it explode as if a small nuclear bomb has hit it. Same can be said for disintegrating pieces of furniture when hit by a bullet. Last but not least, the blood that forms on the walls is ridiculous, it seems as if buckets of blood have been tossed against the walls as part of a home redecoration program.

Sound

As for sound, there is not that much more except for ear dazzling explosions and bullet fire, with the occasional curse word, order and information shouted in-between to create a healthy combat environment that would make World War II seem like a walk in the park. Other than that there’s no real musical experience the game tries to offer, but then again, you’ll need to keep your wits about anyway.

Gameplay

Rainbow Six Siege is a first person shooter, with watered down tactical elements that the earlier installments of the franchise had. As the game lacks a real single player campaign, you’ll mainly be playing online with others, be it competitive or cooperative. Nonetheless, it’s advised to run through the different offline tutorial missions first, as these will introduce the different classes first and make it easier to find your pick of the litter online. True completionists can aim to complete all the different challenges throughout these missions, if they wish for something fun to do offline.

After you decided whether or not to play the tutorial levels, you can dive into the multiplayer experience that defines this installment of Rainbow Six. You’ll be able to choose between two main modes, namely the normal multiplayer mode, where you’ll duke it out in a five versus five format, or the terrorist hunt mode, which you’ll play alone or with online allies against AI opponents.

Overall the setup of the different modes is quite basic, as you’ll either be killing a specific number of terrorists, dismantle bombs or escort hostages to safety. All of these modes will allow you to pick one of the twenty characters available, namely ten attackers and ten defenders. Each of the characters belongs to a specific organization (such as the FBI) and has his own arsenal of weapons and tools at his disposal. This makes it quite amusing to see which character setup suits you the best and it’s simply quite amusing to keep on playing matches in order to unlock all the characters, as they aren’t available from the start. This gives something extra to look out for.

While the overall online experience is rather solid and the matches prove to be interesting, the lack of different modes and no decent single player mode make the game a lot more bland than it could be. Those who are looking for mainly an online experience will have a reasonable blast, but things might get tedious after some time. Also for a tactical game, it’s sad there is no possibility to properly seek shelter behind walls or objects, outside of the normal duck and crawl mechanics.

Sadly, even though the game focuses around online play, the servers tend to be rather poor and unreliable. During the many online sessions disconnects became the true terrorists and these were often more frequent than the kills one could make during a match. It tends to get very annoying when you’re playing a great match, get a disconnect and have to start all over. Another annoyance the game presented us with, is that the AI wave of terrorists doesn’t always appear, trapping you in a never-ending match.

Conclusion

Rainbow Six Siege is a decent multiplayer game but it never reaches the height of many of its predecessors. While the strength of the game lies in the diversity of the different classes and the overall atmosphere of the game, those looking for an authentic Rainbow Six experience might find this one rather bland. Nonetheless, as a multiplayer shooter the game tends to hold itself quite well.

ThaMofo

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