Reviews

Rainbow Six Siege PS4 - Gaming Review

Posted on: 2015-12-14

Rainbow Six Siege is a tense and exciting multiplayer game which really encourages good team work and communication. If you?re looking for something to play with 4 other friends online then I would highly recommend it.

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Rainbow Six was birthed on the PC back in 1998 adapted from Tom Clancy’s book where it sat all these first person shooters down and said “No! That’s not how it works in real life”. So we now have the tactical shooter genre. What made this series stand out from the crowd was the fact that it was hard and realistic, enemies could be killed with a quick bullet to the head, but it’s a double edged sword because they too could kill you with a headshot. It made you take your time and plan ahead instead of running in guns blazing. Now we have Rainbow Six Siege the latest game in the series that surfaced after the unfortunate cancelation of Patriots. Does it return to form? Yes!

Rainbow Six Siege is a multiplayer only first person shooter - yes multiplayer only. If you’re looking for a singleplayer campaign like the other games then you won’t find it here. It’s a shame too because the brief cut-scenes we see are extremely well produced. The singleplayer offerings in Siege are missions titled “Situations”; these are basically tutorials to help you get ready for the multiplayer. I would highly recommend playing through these before you jump straight into multiplayer because there is a lot to take in from tactics like breaching, hostage extraction and checking your corners to the different operators you’ll use which I’ll go over later. They’re also really fun and entertaining with AI control combatants proving to be a real challenge because they don’t stay in one place, they’ll actively hunt or retreat and fortify their position when things get hot. I haven’t experienced AI this challenging since Rainbow Six Vegas.

You have a few game modes to go play they are all titled Team Deathmatch but they have different twists. You have bomb where you have to locate and disarm the bomb, hostage where you have extract the hostage and Secure where you have find a bio-weapon and secure it in one area. Before you begin your insertion you must scout out the area with small drones you can use the drones to spot enemies, equipment and of course the main object, you have over 30 seconds to do this. After that you find the best way to proceed whether you want to go through the front with a breach charge which I don’t recommend or you can go through the back by breaking down the door with a sledgehammer. The possibilities are endless with different strategies.

Before you even begin you must choose an operator. Operators are different classes from law enforcements and Special Forces all over the world such as the SAS and GIGN etc. They all have different skill sets such as Sledge who can break barricades with his sledgehammer or Thermite who uses a thermite breaching charge to get through tough reinforced doors. They all differ whether you’re on the attacking team or defending team so they all have different and interesting abilities to play around with.

There are co-op missions in the form of Terrorist Hunt where they have the same layouts as the competitive multiplayer, but you’ll be going up against 20-30 AI controlled terrorists. I would highly recommend playing it on hard or realistic to get the full experience because the AI is fantastic because they will hunt you down by breaching walls or shooting through fragile surfaces. Terrorist Hunt will keep you on your toes because you don’t know what’s around the next corner.

If you’re use to the modern first person shooters then this game will kick you in the nether region because this game is hard because there is no regenerating health, you can’t get health back and firearms do realistic damage. So if you get hit in the head you’re done. You can get injured and you’re team mates can revive you, but you only get a little bit of health back and you’re very vulnerable so a tactical retreat would be advised. The game is extremely tense I haven’t sweated in a game this much since the original Counter Strike, because one wrong move can jeopardise the whole match.

The graphics aren’t that impressive, however the destructible environments are amazing! You can really think outside the box in this game so you have to watch you back, front, up, down and all over the place. If you know there are enemies below you can just blow a hole in the floor with a breaching charge and shoot them from above. The detail of splinters of wood and ceramic walls being blown to pieces is super impressive which makes matches really unpredictable so it will keep you on your toes. The sound design really compliments the destruction especially the sound of the breaching charge when it explodes it’s fantastic if you have a decent sub-woofer turn up the bass and volume.

Sound does play a key part in this game because you have to listen when you’re defending because you’ll hear footsteps even when enemies are crouched and when you hear boots stomping at fast pace prepare for chaos. Subtle details are important even down to the sound of someone reloading and dropping an empty magazine to team mates shouting at each other it makes the situation tense and exciting.

The big negative with this is the fact that it doesn’t have a singleplayer campaign all the over Rainbow Six games had story modes and they were great. What hurts the most is the cutscenes we get with each Operator and the Article 5 mission are well produced and showed what could have been if there was a singleplayer story. 

Rainbow Six Siege is a tense and exciting multiplayer game which really encourages good team work and communication. If you’re looking for something to play with 4 other friends online then I would highly recommend it.

4/5

Reviewed by Sam Coles for 365Bristol.com - The leading events and entertainment website for Bristol

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