One of the most popular series in gaming returns in force on the Xbox, with Rainbow Six Lockdown. Terrorists have seized a deadly new weapon to unleash on the populous and Ding and the boys (and girls) of Rainbow Six need to shut them down. Ubisoft has made some significant changes to their successful franchise, and Boheim has the full review. Review score: 8.5/10 Title Rainbow Six Lockdown Publisher Ubisoft Developer Redstorm Entertainment Rating (ERSB and PEGI) Mature Availability Now Number of players (SP) 1-16 players, 16 players on XBL Online enabled YES Introduction The Rainbow Six series has a very devoted hard core following that loves the realistic, one shot – one kill gameplay, that the series is famous for. I remember playing the series for the first time on my PC years ago, and how half the game was just planning the mission out, and assigning each team their various duties in the mission. The downside of this is that the same complexity and gameplay that attracts the diehards, turns off most of your average gamers. As the series wore on, controls were simplified, pre-planning was phased out, and the game became more and more focused on execution. Lockdown is the result of this streamlining process, and is clearly a more accessible game than its predecessors. There is no question that these changes will cause Ubisoft to lose some of the hardcore fans out there, but the question is, will the more casual gamer finally give this one a try? Gameplay Single Player: The campaign mode consists of a series of missions (all of which can be played in multi-player mode), and is the heart of the single-player game. Once again you take the role of Ding Chavez, the team leader, and it is your job to lead Team Rainbow into combat. Ordering your team around is very simple and can be done both with the headset and with a simple “point and click†interface. The voice recognition is fairly accurate, but if you feel like a big dork talking into your headset while sitting in a room by yourself, the button commands work great. By putting your target reticule on a certain object or location, you bring up a command choice such as “move†or “open door.†In the case of the door, you can also command your team to open it in a variety of ways, such as ramming it open, breaching it with explosives, or tossing grenades inside. Your teammates are very proficient, and I felt that overall the AI was quite good. Yes, you will have moments where they struggle killing enemies from close range or get caught up on each other at the door, but for the most part they will find cover when attacked, and cover each other as they clear a room. I particularly like how, when you have three teammates, two will face the door, while the third covers the rear. It not only looks cool, but the positioning saved my team’s ass on several occasions. The enemy AI is definitely hit or miss, pun intended, as some of them will hit you dead on in the dark through a window, and others will miss you with their sub-machine gun from two feet away. You will often hear them in the other room saying things like “I hear someoneâ€, as the enemy now can hear your movements and voice, and sometimes they will come and investigate and other times they will not. There are other times though when they will burst through a door behind you, or multiple enemies will swarm your position with accurate fire and grenade activity, and that is when the game is at its best. More grenades will be thrown at you than in previous versions, and the game has made the flash and smoke grenades much more powerful. The effects are excellent here as a smoke grenade causes a complete white out forcing you to use thermal vision, and the flash is more incapacitating than it was in the past. You will be useless for a good five seconds if you get flashed, which is exactly how it should be. This year, a new element has been added, and on some levels you will take control of the German sniper, Weber. This sequence will take place at the beginning of certain levels, and has you providing cover for the ground forces as they move into position. This mode will probably be most unwelcome to Rainbow Six purists, as it is the most “arcade†like of all the changes in Lockdown (think Silent Scope). As the sniper you will find yourself in a chopper, or on top of a roof, looking down on the action below as your teammates move around engaging various enemies. I actually enjoyed this mode for the most part. It was a nice change of pace from the corridors, and at the very least was a good attempt by Ubisoft to mix it up a little. At some point in the sequence a teammate on the ground will yell out “RPG†and you have to start looking for the guy with the rocket before he fires. This generally results in a couple of deaths and restarts (at least on the normal difficulty you can save whenever you want) until you can locate where he is shooting from, and then finally gun him down when he appears. It would have been a hell of a lot cooler if they mixed up the enemy respawn points to boost the challenge, and get rid of the trial and error feel. But again, there is an element of fun to the sniper sequences, and the new sniper rifle is pretty damn cool looking. Something that Clancy games have always done well is reproducing weapon recoil, and the effect that has on your targeting. Most guns have various fire rates, like single shot, burst, or full auto, and the choice is important. If you are in full auto mode, the longer you hold down the trigger, the more inaccurate your fire will become and the flash of the muzzle will obstruct your view. This forces you to be disciplined in your fire. You won’t find ammo packs lying around to replenish your supply, and there were some levels where I was down to my final magazine. It is also difficult to move around while zoomed in as the guns sometimes fill up nearly the entire screen, leaving you little or no peripheral vision. This makes it more difficult to spot and kill terrorists from long range, and increases the challenge and enhances the gameplay. The lighting is also much more dramatic, and like its cousin Splinter Cell has an effect on gameplay. In the case of Lockdown, the lighting affects more HOW you see, rather than how you are seen. On some levels you will find yourself rapidly going from night vision to thermal to normal view every few feet as you step from light to dark, or walk into a smoke grenade that has exploded. Sometimes will step into a room with a full blast of light, but simply switching to your regular vision won’t help you either as the room may be pitch dark beyond the initial light burst. The lighting, quite frankly, is very cool in Lockdown. Out is the three bar life meter (though your teammates still retain this), and in is a single bar that changes color from green to yellow to red as you take damage. I didn’t see much of a practical difference here: If an enemy hit me full frontal with a machine gun burst, I still went down. The change for me is in how your low health is reflected graphically, and this I like very much. The border of the screen has a curve to it, making it appear you are viewing the action through goggles. As you get hit the goggles will eventually crack, and begin to impair your vision. I like the idea behind this (especially in multi-player), because it puts you at a disadvantage when you are wounded. Initially you will also get a kind of dazed effect and you will hear your heartbeat and feel the controller vibrate, but that goes away (the goggle cracks remain). Personally I wish the blurry vision and heartbeat would remain until you finish or you die. If you’ve been shot three or four times you SHOULD be stumbling around, and I would have loved the challenge of trying to finish out a mission in that condition. The single player game also sees the addition of the new heartbeat sensor. While this is a pretty cool little gadget that allows you to detect enemies through solid walls by honing in on their heartbeat, it does reduce the challenge of the game, and lessen some of the tension. I found that I used it most when I was very low on health and nearing the end of a level to help keep me alive. Of course you can elect to simply not use it, so while fans of the series may not like it, they don’t have to activate it either. The other modes are all a nice diversion, especially the very challenging Lone Rush which returns in Lockdown. You start off at the beginning of the map, with a timer counting down, and you must reach the extraction point before it runs out. You can add time for killing terrorists, saving hostages, and defusing bombs and so on. This is not easy to complete, but it is fun to tear through the maps with your only goal to mow everyone down and move as fast as you can. There is also the option for Practice Missions and the Sniper Game, but neither will really hold your attention that long, and both seem rather superfluous as stand alone game modes. Overall I found the single player game to be engaging and fun, and much more likely to convince gamers that have been put off by the complexity of the series to give it a try, while retaining enough original elements of the series to please the long time fans. MultiPlayer: Like all Tom Clancy games, you will find a very robust offering of multiplayer game modes that should keep you satisfied for quite some time. You have your standard adversarial games, co-op offerings, and a brand new, potentially stellar mode, Persistent Elite Creation (P.E.C). Players can also setup Squads (clans) with their own logo and team motto to compete in online Squad Skirmishes. Adversarial modes include Survival, Total Conquest, Retrieval, and Sharpshooter. Personally I prefer Team Survival, because you really have to value your life (die and you’re out) and exercise caution when playing. The downside is that you will spend time watching if you are killed early, and this turns some gamers off. This is opposed to Skirmish, which is simply a deathmatch game with respawns where the goal is to get the most kills. Total Conquest has you trying to acquire and hold onto satellite transmitters placed throughout the map for a specified amount of time. Retrieval is Rainbow’s CTF mode, where teams attempt to grab biohazard canisters and bring them back to their base, with the team getting the most canisters winning. Both are interesting takes on familiar modes, and I particularly like playing Conquest. The maps in these modes are also excellent and contain a great variety of layouts and sizes, with some being altered version of the campaign maps, and others completely different designs. The co-op modes are perfect for smaller groups of gamers, as this mode supports up to four players. You can play through the campaign missions (excluding the sniper games), or you can play Terrorist Hunt. Mission mode has you go through the single player campaign, but with human teammates. Quite simply EVERY FPS that is developed should feature co-op mission play, or at the very least, a mode like Terrorist Hunt, which has you playing through the same maps as the missions, but without the mission objectives. Instead you just kill all of the terrorists. Both modes are a blast to play, and like the past versions, I imagine my friends and I will replay through these games many times. The mode I am most interested in spending some quality time with is the P.E.C. mode. This is an RPG type mode, where you create an online character, choose his class, design his look, and take him into battle. The character classes consist of the Commando, Spec-Op, Engineer, and Combat Medic. The Commando will be your heavy weapons expert, capable of carrying the larger guns into battle, wearing large armor, and the unique ability to set up a combat shield that acts as a barrier to protect him and a teammate completing an objective. The Spec-Op will attract your stealthier players who like playing the sniper, or the guy that gets in close and kills with the silenced weapons and combat knives. They also have access to tools that can tie into the map’s camera systems so they can scout out enemy movements. Engineers handle the explosives, and also can set up a turret in designated bunker areas that the team can use as a powerful defensive weapon. Finally the Combat Medic can obviously heal teammates, but they can also set up an aid station that their teammates can go to and heal themselves. All have value when playing as a team, and the additions such as the turret and aid station really add a lot of strategy and depth. As you play P.E.C. you can earn skill points, and build up your ranking to improve things like shooting accuracy and the quality of your equipment. One of the concerns with this mode is that new players will shy away in fear of running into highly skilled online players. Ubisoft has addressed this by saying in reality the skill differences are more subtle than dramatic, so the majority of the skill still has to come from the player himself. There is an online quarter master, and as you advance levels, different items and gadgets will open up for you to use with your character. All in all this entire mode should end up being a nice addition. Once again the Rainbow series doesn’t disappoint with its online offerings, and with the new P.E.C. mode, this game will be played for quite some time. Graphics and Presentation The details on the main characters have increased quite a bit, and even from across the room you will have no problem picking out who is who on your team. For the most part their movements are well animated, as they move through a building, stop at corners and peak around for enemies. You will see them use hand signals when calling out all clear or to move out, and overall the animation is very smooth. The speed of the walking has increased in Lockdown, and while I think this is good for gameplay it looks slightly unnatural in terms of visuals. They will go into a squatting run sometimes, but I think this is a minor quibble. The weapons also look great on screen, and as always there is a rather large selection to choose from. Each weapon has a distinct look when you zoom in, as some guns feature scopes, and others you will use the barrel sites to target, but all of them look excellent. The enemies have about the same variety as every other FPS on the market, which is to say not a huge amount. But there is enough here, and the Havoc engine with its rag doll physics is fantastic. It’s satisfying to lift a terrorist high up into the air with a well placed grenade, or seeing one plummet off a tower bouncing as he hits the ground. My only knock is the change to the death effect when hitting a terrorist with the Willy Pete grenades. They used to run around screaming as they burned, which was always funny no matter how many times you did it, and now they are not only silent, but simply drop to their knees and slowly thrash about like they are swatting at invisible bees. I keep hoping that one of these times the old screamer will come back (and if anyone else has seen him, please call me), but he appears to be gone. The environments are as always large and detailed with a nice mix of indoor and outdoor settings. It is clear that the series is trying to get more on par with the stunning graphics of the Splinter Cell series, and though they have a ways to go, the direction is a good one. I already mentioned the superb lighting effects and the new “through the goggles†view the game uses and how both play a role in the game affecting your visuals. Another cool touch is the way the water droplets run down your goggles when moving through the rain, or when the steam in a laundry room clouds your vision. On the desert map, if you stand still, you will notice that the screen is rippling from the heat, which is a great touch. In addition the environments are not as static as previous installments and do allow for some damage. Now when you shoot at a car, the windows will break out allowing you to target enemies using vehicles for cover more easily. Bullet damage on walls and the blood that the players leave behind are also much more pronounced this time around. The in game menus are very polished as you have come to expect from this series, and are clean and simple to navigate. The cutscenes also live up to expectations, and help immerse you in the campaign mode. Lockdown is a definite upgrade in terms of graphics for the series. From the player models to the physics to the diverse environments, this game is a graphical winner. Sound The voices in the game are well done, as you will have two commanders, code names Rainbow Six and Rainbow Five, talking to you throughout the game. Both actors do a nice job with the parts, and add something to the game. They have even added Rainbow Six’s voice to the online multi-player mode, Terrorist Hunt. In previous versions, you would only hear him if you played co-op missions, but with the addition to Terrorist Hunt it adds a little more polish to the mode. Your teammates in campaign each have, for better or worse, their own distinctive personality, which gives the game some emotional resonance. Dialogue gets repetitious, but never annoyingly so. The weapon sounds are suitably distinct for each of the guns. The big boys are as loud as you would expect, especially the M60, and you will always know when one of your teammates is “suppressing†the enemy next to you. I prefer the silenced weapons however, and their deadly “clicking†discharge. It all sounds terrific in 5.1, and the audio cues can help you find enemies very quickly when they are not in your field of vision. The music is utilized nicely throughout the game, and as in all Clancy games is well done. Overall the sound is well executed and adds quite a bit to the experience. But please Ubi; bring back the Willie Pete Screamers! Control The biggest control change is in how you select, and throw grenades. In the past you would hold down X to bring up a sub menu that was controlled by the D-pad. You would then select the grenade you wanted, which would make it your primary weapon. Using the right trigger, you could throw it far or short based on how long you held the trigger down. This process made the throwing part simple, but the selection part was too damn complicated, especially in battle. Now you use the left trigger to throw the grenades (in other words, it’s been Halo-ized), and your grenade (or other explosive device) is always armed. To throw the grenade, the developers have implemented the Splinter Cell method, where you will see a series of circles going out into the distance allowing you to more precisely place your throw. Using the left trigger is a very welcome change indeed, but the Splinter Cell mechanics simply are no good in this game. In Splinter Cell you are rarely throwing grenades while under fire, so it is simple to sit in the shadows, take your time and line up your trajectory. In Rainbow, you need to release these puppies quick, and you will find that it is difficult to do so, and many of your throws will come bounding back into your group as the grenade clips the wall or doorway. Good idea to change it, but they only got it half right. The controls for your player basically remain the same otherwise, and the character movement and weapon targeting are all handled with ease. As I mentioned earlier your squad commands can be done via voice or the controller, and both work well. I also talked about the lighting changes and the need to change your vision type quite frequently throughout the maps. It would have been helpful to have each vision type mapped to a different button, because as it is now only the white button is used, and you must cycle through them in sequence, which can be kind of disorienting. This is an area of the game that has undergone change in an effort to make the game more user friendly. However, in eliminating some problems, the developers created some new ones. Conclusion Rainbow Six Lockdown is a fun game, with a fairly long campaign and enough gameplay modes to keep most gamers busy for a while. If you have Xbox Live, this game is as fun as ever online, and worth checking out for this aspect alone. Die-hard fans of the Rainbow Six Series may want to consider renting this game first to see how they feel about the changes, as this game is definitely different from what they will be used to. Personally I liked the direction the developers took in making the game more action oriented and fun, while still keeping to the realistic roots that the game is known for. If you are a fan of shooters, but have stayed away from the series because it just seemed too complicated and difficult, give Lockdown a try. SCORE GAMEPLAY SP 8.5/10 SCORE GAMEPLAY MP 8.5/10 SCORE GRAPHICS 8.5/10 SCORE CONTROLS 7.5/10 SCORE SOUND 8/10 SCORE REPLAY VALUE 9/10 TOTAL SCORE 8.5/10 (Not an average) Source XBox Users Group ( That I Wrote )
Nice review I picked this game up after spending many an hour on R6: Black Arrow My main point would be this The one player game is so much fun, everything is improved over previous versions. The multiplayer is DIFFERENT to previous versions. Hardcore R6 people (i.e. not me) have said that the old game is much better online. I am not sure because the learning curve was so steep on Black Arrow you needed to give over 10 hours just to scratch the surface of the game and start getting kills. This game is much more forgiving in terms of weapons and maps. The role playing element is also a novel and welcome addition.
No This is the LAST TIME you post a review here. If anyone wants to go find a review of a game they are more then able to do so by them selfs. Please do not start copy/pasting articles here! It is not a dumping ground!
Um actually the fact you wrote it makes it slightly better... however use a thread like the update your website thread and post the link to the review in there.
RB6 4 tried to be too action-y, when it's supposed to be a tactical shooter. I'd give it around a 7.5
the game is way too acradey, it's not rainbowsix anymore. I liked rainbow six because of the realism and tactic. And i don't talk about the IA.. I'm really disapointed by the work of Ubisoft...what were they thinking? Thanks for the review.
I started playing a week ago, and i think its awesome. the whole PEC adds a lot more depth to the online experience... as a fan of games like PSO, it find it very cool to have to get a certain level to use a weapon and all that... Anyone fancy a game some time?
