Ah, Rainbow Six! The old, slow-paced tactical shooter now comes with a huge number of micro transactions and the curse of Uplay. Rainbow Six Siege is the latest instalment from the Rainbow Six series of tactical shooters. It is fun to play but difficult to master!
Ah, Rainbow Six! The old, slow-paced tactical shooter now comes with a huge number of micro transactions and the curse of Uplay. Rainbow Six Siege is the latest instalment from the Rainbow Six series of tactical shooters. It is fun to play but difficult to master!
Of course, it does come to us from Ubisoft, who have been very disappointing this year for PC gamers. Siege, however, is a nice addition to the series. Players of the Rainbow Six franchise will be able to adapt to the game’s controls and mechanics quite easily. New players who have played FPS games before will not find the game too difficult as well.
Rainbow Six Siege - first impressions
The menus are good, not fantastic. They went with too much detail on the menus, which is neat but not really required. Because it is a competitive game, simple, straight forward menus would have worked better. You will immediately notice the in-game currency systems, which really don’t suit a $60 game. You don’t need to spend money on packs to unlock characters, as earning in-game currency is easy.
The options menu is good as well. It is an alright PC port, not great by any means. Before starting a match, you can select a custom load out. You will need to spend time and customize your guns to suit your style. There is a slight learning curve, but not very steep so don’t worry about that.
Rainbow Six Siege - gameplay
Consider this game a tactical shooter without limits. Each match you land into is a different story. It is a story the player and the team create. Anything is possible if you know how to do it.
Siege has one of the best and balanced level designs that I have ever seen in a video game. You can completely destroy walls if this is what your team decides. The destruction system is very realistic. A tougher wall will require more explosives to destroy.
The load out system is very functional and usable. You can customize your weapons, and boy oh boy! customization really matters in this game. If you want to win, you must have the right weapons and the right attachments. You will need to plan your attack or defence with your teammates and equip yourself accordingly.
You can work in several different ways, and there are three main modes. I like the AI in this game in the terrorist hunt mode. The AI really responds to audio information. They will hunt you down if they hear you running and try to look for you if they hear gunshots. The audio is great, so a good pair of headphones is what this game deserves. The guns don’t sound all that great, but they still sound better than most gun sounds that Ubisoft has produced this year. By listening carefully to the gun noise, footsteps, explosion and damage to the real estate, you will get an idea of where your enemy is. Using the audio information is crucial in this game, and a team that uses it effectively is the one that usually wins.
Being a tactical shooter, it is obvious that the guns are by no means easy to control. If you keep firing your weapon nonstop, your gun’s spread will go all over the place. On consoles, this is very noticeable. Even when aiming down the sights, landing shots is very difficult. That is the reason why Siege’s guns are not good for long range shooting. Fortunately, most of the shooting takes place in tight environments. On PC, it is a little easier to control the guns. Nearly all of the guns behave the same way, but a few good attachments make them a little more forgiving. Because of the very similar behaviour of the guns, I recommend that you do not spend too much money on purchasing new guns, as the reward isn’t that high.
Even though the levels are designed almost perfectly, a lot of real estate isn’t used. You will find that most teams will stick close to the objectives and not use any kind of tactics to flank or engage the enemy whilst being in non-target buildings.
Rainbow Six Siege - graphics and performance
The game looks great and has some awesome decals! The blood splatters are absolutely amazing and really realistic. The gun models are highly detailed and the lighting effects are cool as well. There are a number of graphical options that can help you get better FPS if your card can’t handle it. The game can run on mid-end cards from 2013 easily, but don’t expect very high FPS. The game is by no means very well optimized, and even on consoles random frame drops are common.
It is an Ubisoft game, so we can’t really expect their PC ports to be great anyway.
Rainbow Six Siege - review summary
Rainbow Six Siege is not so great because of a number of reasons, due to which I can’t recommend that you buy it at $60. The community is great and your teammates will listen to you, but the servers are horrible. The Uplay integration makes the game almost unplayable sometimes. A $60 game should not have micro transactions and the game modes are severely limited. You will land on the same map over and over again!
Only buy this game if you are looking for a nice friendly community and want to work as a team to get to your goals. Otherwise, games like Arma 3, which are much more realistic, exist.
Review Score: 8/10
Altamush Khan ‘Attish’ is a professional video game director and video game critic.
