When it comes to video games, the Quake series is my end-all, be-all pick for best ever. I love FPS games…as long as they’re on a PC. Give me a keyboard and mouse and I will own a map. But give me a controller and I’m a n00b. So when I got a Rainbow Six Siege (R6S) beta code, I thought to myself, “meh, I’ll give it a shot.” Boy, am I glad I did! Every free momment I have had to game has been spent playing R6S. And for the first time in 10 years, after meeting some really great gamers (shoutouts to ReikoPanda, TheAgentpain, George Kodama, AceHDD, Reaping Ravon, Firing at Will, Bubblez4life9, and RedMADDOG1824), I have actually enjoyed playing a multiplayer game.
Loading R6S for the first time, I was presented with my choice of Multiplayer (Team Deathmatch) or Terrorist Hunt. For no real reason, I selected Terrorist Hunt. Then I had to choose from, “Normal,” “Hard,” and “Realistic.” As I said, FPS on a console is not my bottle of Pepsi, so I selected “Normal.” Finally I was presented with a menu of player classes to choose from. Each class has a (mostly) fixed loadout and a special ability (the beta has 10 while the full game will ship with 20). After trying out a couple different classes, my favorite quickly became the base class, The Recruit. https://www.youtube.com/embed/JgfSlS4kWpk
R6S features friendly fire and permadeath by default which really annoyed the old-school gamer in me, I did NOT want to be watching my teammates, I wanted to frag some terrorists! Despite the single spawn, I was hooked by the third match. As hard as it was for me to stop being the Leeroy Jenkins of my squad (yes, I am THAT guy), I eventually had to take the time in making sure every bullet I fired was accurate (not really, I just use the shotgun – spray & pray) and using tactics when moving through the buildings. In truth, strategy and teamwork weigh heavier than skill in R6S.
Communication is key to teamwork, so I was lucky to find the group mentioned above fairly quickly. At first, each of us tentatively spoke; but soon we all were comfortable speaking orders, providing updates, and simply being a team. The camaraderie easily made the game even more fun, even when we lost to the terrorists.
Something I found lacking, and a lot of my squad agreed with was the class system. We felt having a more free-range approach similar to Rainbow Six: Vegas where you can make your character however you want, where you can choose the gear or gun from a wide selection would have been more appropriate. Also being able to carry more than one each of the grenades and breach charges would be nice.
All of the terrorists seem to be card-carrying members of the, “Heartbeat Sensor Club.” Crawling along the floor doesn’t help as I’ve been killed through walls a few too many times. I’d like to see it gone completely as the game could devolve into everyone using it to just look through walls all of the time.
Host servers versus dedicated servers. First, the matchmaking on the multiplayer mode sucks; whereas in Terrorist Hunt, it works a bit better. But then you’re still at the mercy of somebody’s internet connection or worst of all, getting matched with somebody who rage quits.
Finally, the suicide bombers. I had two chase me around the outside of the building and catch me. Seriously? That much body armor AND the bomb and he/she is going to be able to chase me that long without tiring? I don’t think so.
All in all, I am loving R6S and will probably end up buying it (probably not at launch, since I’ll be busy playing Fallout 4).
R6S will ship December 1, 2015, with 11 playable maps, each of which can be alternated between day and night and will be available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. Additional maps will continue to be released after launch, presumably in bundles; all of which will be free downloads for those who’ve already bought a copy of Rainbow Six Siege.
Agree or disagree with my review? Let me know in the comments below.
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