Rainbow Six: Siege Review
Seize the Day
Two of my teammates were dead and the rest of my squad knew
we had limited time to extract the hostage. Though we had more teammates alive
than the opposing force, we had to figure out how to get the hostage out safely
or eliminate the opposing team. One of my teammates used his operator’s special
shield to draw enemy fire while I snuck in the room from the opposite entrance to
grab the hostage. As I was extracting the hostage, my other teammate defended me
using his long range sniper and we safely extracted the hostage. It was intense,
nerve wrecking, and one of the most satisfying experiences I have ever
experienced in multiplayer gaming. That is Rainbow Six: Siege in a nutshell…when
it works.
Rainbow Six games have always been more strategic in terms
of gameplay and Siege is no different. Based off of real counter-terrorist
units from around the world, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege focuses on more
intimate engagements based around objectives. There is no radar, respawns,
killstreaks, and friendly fire is always on. Running and gunning will get you
killed very quickly. Head shots with any gun always kills, and most victories
are decided well before the shots are fired. What makes Siege unique is its
confrontations that take place in environments with a huge amount of
destructibility. A lot of walls can be breached or even just shot through
(depending on the gun and surface of the wall). Hiding behind walls isn’t the
safest option for victory. The key to success requires you to be methodical,
tactical, and have great teamwork. The game has a very realistic feel to it
where great planning is rewarded with mission success, while a lone wolf
approach is often punished by failure.
The game has 3 modes: Situations, Multiplayer, and Terrorist
Hunt. Situations is a basic training mode that tasks you with 12 different
missions to complete which will get you ready for Multiplayer and Terrorist
Hunt. Situations is the closest thing you get to a single player campaign and
while it’s useful for practicing, don’t expect a Tom Clancy narrative because
there is absolutely none. There are 12 Situations, each tasking you with goal
to achieve which basically gets you ready for the real meat of the game which
is Multiplayer. In certain Situations, they allow you to use an operator which
can get you familiar with how they work. Terrorist Hunt is the Co-op or
firefight mode of the game. You work with 4 other teammates (or lone wolf if
you are feeling brave) to either kill terrorists, play a hostage variant, or
disarm a bomb. The standard difficulty is pretty easy because the AI has
terrible aim and doesn’t quite act intelligently. Take your time and you
shouldn’t have trouble clearing missions. Ramp the difficulty up to realistic,
and it becomes one the hardest multiplayer experiences around. Enemies have
near-perfect accuracy and kill you and your team very quickly. They still aren’t
very smart but it doesn’t matter when they barely miss a shot. Sometimes it
borderlines on not being fair but with enough persistence, patience and good
team work it is possible. I’ve only completed a terrorist hunt on realistic one
time and played it a lot.
The real bulk of the game is the Multiplayer which is a 5 on
5 Team Deathmatch variant. There are two ways to win, either eliminate the
opposing team or complete the objective (hostage extraction, defuse a bomb etc.).
Most matches end with the elimination of the opposing team, though occasionally
the objective will affect the outcome of the match. Playing the casual playlist
usually ends matches with kills but playing the ranked playlist opens up more
possibilities as players will be communicating and working together.
Before each round you have an option to select a specific
operator for the mission. 10 unique operators are available for both attacking
and defending. These operators are very important for success as each has a
unique gadget that will help get the mission complete. Attacking operators have
tools to help them breach walls and defenses.For example, Fuze can set up a cluster charge that can penetrate walls and set off deadly grenades or Blitz has a riot shield equipped with a light that can temporarily blind your enemies. Defending operators like Kapkan can set traps or Mute, who can place down a signal jammer which disable drones and gadgets.
One of my issues with the game is the progression system.
You have to unlock your operator using the one of the games two forms of
currency. Renown is used to unlock operators, weapon attachments, and weapons
skins and is earned through completing daily challenges and completing matches.
While operators initially don’t cost much, after a while they require a lot of
renown to unlock all of them. Some of
the weapons skins cost 10,000 renown and you only get about 150 to 200 a match.
Each operator’s equipment is unique to them and so are the skins, so if you
want to unlock a lot of them, it becomes a bit of a grind. The other in game
currency is only obtainable through micro-transactions and can only be used to
purchase skins at a much lower amount than renown. I think it’s a shame that a $60
full priced game has content on the disk that is locked unless you pay more
money for it.
While the gameplay is solid when it’s working, the game is
riddled with glitches and server issues. Sometimes the hit detection is a
little questionable and it’s hard to tell if it’s lag or not. I’ve gotten stuck
on walls a couple of times, fell through the floor to my death, and heard of
people seeing themselves in the third person, and seen many characters clip
through walls. Another problem that really isn’t the game’s fault is team
killing. Once in a while this happens by mistake, but there is an abundance of
people that will shoot you on your own team for fun and it can really take you
out of the mood. Unlike most games where you can respawn after dying, here you
are dead for that round which can leave you unable to play for a few minutes.
Visually, the game
leaves a little to be desired. On the PS4, it looks like a PS3 game with low
resolution textures and moving at 30 FPS. Some of this I understand due to it
being online multiplayer but its underwhelming none the less. The destructible
environments fall apart how you expect them to which is great and the engine
they have for it shows good detail when walls are being blown up or bullets
shatter glass. It runs at 30 FPS on PS4 and Xbox One and 60 FPS on a decently
rigged PC. It won’t blow you away but the destructible environments are
impressive.
Rainbow Six: Siege is a very fun multiplayer experience.
Each match plays out very differently and there are a multitude of ways to
approach each encounter. Success is dependent on good teamwork and coordination
but you need a team that’s ready and willing. There isn’t much to offer offline
or in terms of playing alone but if you got group of friends ready to seize the
day, then you are bound to have a good time with Rainbow Six: Siege as long as
the glitches and server problems don’t come up.
SCORE: 4 out of 5
Pros: Great multiplayer
where teamwork is essential.
Destructible
environments
Each operator
feels unique and useful
Cons: Graphics are
subpar
Glitches
and connection issues
Team
killers
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