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Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege Review

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege Review

Work together and siege the day, or fight alone and rage-quit.

I should probably get something out of the way as quickly as possible: Rainbow Six Siege is an unapologetically hardcore tactical shooter. You need to understand that going in, or you’re not going to enjoy this game. This is not a first-person shooter for people who get their kicks by doing quick, 360-degree no-scopes for the final kill in a Call of Duty match. This is not the multiplayer experience for those who love to charge into an arena with a band of Spartans, guns blazing, jumping from high ledges to ground pound groups of unsuspecting foes. Siege is a game that gives you one precious life to complete an objective, and it demands that you do so methodically and cooperatively.

So far the majority of complaints from those who are still deciding whether or not to purchase this game concern the lack of a single-player campaign. It’s true that Siege is pretty much an exclusively multiplayer, online experience. There are ten “situations,” however, which you can play through offline, and these are specifically designed to be played solo. These situations are designed to introduce players to a handful of operators, and to all of the mechanics that make the multiplayer experience so compelling and complex. Everyone starting out should take the time to work through these – I really can’t stress this enough.

Siege doesn’t try to be all things for all people, though, and when you complete your tenth solo situation an eleventh mission is unlocked that places you in a squad with four other people. It’s as though Ubisoft Montreal designed this just to push the solo players online and into a group, forcing them to communicate and work together. And work together you must if you want to have any hope of completing that last situation. I spent the majority of my night failing, going from squad to squad, until I was finally plugged into a team with mics. Without spoiling anything (it’s incredibly jarring and intimidating the first time you experience it), I’ll just say that the final situation is one wherein it’s almost impossible to know what’s happening around you without constant communication. That people are not yet plugging in their microphones and playing cooperatively is apparent, as at the time of writing this review only 0.8% of PSN players have unlocked the trophy for that mission.

This has been one of my major frustrations so far. If you’re not part of an actively communicating team, you’re not likely to succeed in either of the game’s online modes. Multiplayer (PvP) is an intense, multi-round volley of attack and defense. If you’re on the defending team there’s some kind of objective (a hostage or a bomb) in a room that you’re set with protecting. You’ll do this by quickly analyzing your surroundings and fortifying defenses with traps, barricades, sensors, and surveillance. While building your fortress you’ll be on the lookout for little robotic spy-cams, controlled and used by the enemy in an attempt to see where you are and what you’re doing.

This preparation phase, for both sides, is crucial. All it takes is one Leeroy Jenkins to screw the whole team over, and this can make playing online an infuriating experience. Did I mention that you’ll be spending most of your time on a team? Right, so know this: friendly fire is always active, and you only have one life. Nothing is more deadly or more frustrating than an inexperienced teammate wielding a shotgun, especially defending in tight corners, or stacking behind a shield bearer in an attack. Nothing gives you away faster when preparing to breach a room than that one guy without a mic who sprints through all of the barbed wire outside the door, making a bunch of noise. Sometimes you have a great line of sight through a doorway and right when you decide to start firing a teammate will charge in and catch all of those bullets for you in their back.

Terrorist Hunt (PvE) is a similar operation, only you and four teammates (you can attempt to lone-wolf it if you prefer) are engaging some highly capable enemy AI in a randomly generated scenario. The map, the time of day, and the objective are chosen for you at the beginning of each match, which is something I hope Ubisoft will change in a future patch. It’d be nice to be able to pick specific objectives on certain maps so you and your friends could practice more efficiently. As it is, Terrorist Hunt is still an intense, demanding mode that requires a lucid command of your operator’s equipment and teamwork. Accidental team kills occur just as regularly in PvE as they do in PvP.

I can’t stress enough how important communication and teamwork are to success. You have to know who is taking point; you have to know when your teammate it detonating a breach charge; you have to know when to punch a hole in the wall and throw in a smoke grenade so your buddy upstairs can rappel out of a window and bust into the room to draw fire. Without communication multiplayer becomes a drag, and it only takes one rookie or one jerk to ruin the experience for everyone. This makes the game hard to recommend across the board. On the other hand, even the simplest plans, when well-communicated and properly executed, can change the tide of a match in a hugely satisfying way. You’ll stare at the names of squad mates with whom you’ve spent the past hour conquering and think, “Yeah, we could pull this off in real life.”

I did have one other big complaint when I first started playing, and that was that the controls felt stiff and dated. Gunplay isn’t the major focus of this game, but it is obviously a vital component and you want it to feel great. If you’re playing on a PC this won’t be an issue but when using the analogue sticks, aiming while looking down the sights feels sluggish. It took me about half an hour of experimenting with the controller options to get everything tightened up, and now I feel competent with most weapons. As I spent more time with the game I realized that the controls are meant to add to the realism. Like I said, this isn’t Call of Duty , and you won’t be whipping around at a moment’s notice and zeroing in on heads with a flick of the thumb. Siege forces you to rely on your tools and your team for success, and when shots are fired, you’ll find more success when you’re dedicated to a line of sight, covering an angle or a section of the room.

The visuals and soundtrack are forgettable in the best possible way; environments are realistically rendered and everything looks incredible once you start blowing it to pieces. There’s a beautiful Russian manor, lighted from top to bottom on the outside and filled with Christmas decorations, wherein I found myself piloting my little robotic camera for several minutes just to admire all of the little details. The graphics won’t blow you away, but – like the ambient, eerie soundtrack – they’re there to help you get lost in the moment.

When things fall into place, and you do find yourself lost in the moment, Siege will frighten you and challenge you. Stakes and tensions run high whether playing solo or in a group, but the game truly shines when you’re working with a coherent team, so pick this game up and find one. When you’re on a squad with tactical, patient teammates, Rainbow Six Siege offers a multiplayer experience unlike anything you’ve played – the kind of experience that you think and dream about long after you’ve put the controller down.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 4.0 Graphics
Most settings are simple (a house, a plane, etc.), but when the action heats up the destructive environments look great and there are some really beautiful moments. 3.5 Control
Things can feel slow and unresponsive at times, but with practice you’ll be rappelling from the roof and shooting upside-down through windows with the best of ‘em. 4.7 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
The soundtrack is wonderful; ambient and eerie. Shots ring out and reverberate in closed rooms and quiet spaces realistically, which is terrifying. 3.9 Play Value
Get a reliable squad together and give the community some time to weed out the noobs; this is one we’ll be coming back to for a long time, especially with more content on the way. 4.3 Overall Rating – Great
Not an average. See Rating legend below for a final score breakdown.

Review Rating Legend
0.1 – 1.9 = Avoid 2.5 – 2.9 = Average 3.5 – 3.9 = Good 4.5 – 4.9 = Must Buy
2.0 – 2.4 = Poor 3.0 – 3.4 = Fair 4.0 – 4.4 = Great 5.0 = The Best

Game Features:

  • THE RULES OF SIEGE: Five versus Five. Infiltrate versus Fortify. Team-based strategy meets intense, tactical combat.
  • WORLD’S ELITE COUNTER-TERRORIST OPERATORS: Choose your Operator. Wield their power. Unique abilities allow you to Attack or Defend your way.
  • SINGLEPLAYER, MULTIPLAYER, OR CO-OP: Terrohunt is back! Stop the White Masks terrorist treat alone or with friends.
  • UPGRADE TO GOLD EDITION for Game and Season Pass, which gives all fans and newcomers an extended Rainbow Six Siege experience.

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