[Editor’s Note: These impressions are from an eight-hour hands-on session with the final version of Rainbow Six Siege. We’ve only played the PC version, and everything was unlocked for us, so this review in progress does not yet factor character progression into account. Our final, scored review – which we plan to have ready by the end of the week – will.]
Rainbow Six Siege pulls me in opposite directions at the same time. On the one hand, the moment-to-moment gameplay experience is fantastic. Every second of the short rounds matter, walls and floors won’t protect you, and sound tactics win matches. But, like other 2015 multiplayer-focused shooters such as Evolve and Star Wars Battlefront, there’s not a lot of there there. My time with Siege so far leaves me feeling like this Rainbow Six revival is a skeleton with not a lot of meat on its bones.
Siege reboots the long-running Rainbow Six series as a five-on-five, attack-and-defend competitive shooter that’s as much about blowing holes in the world around you as in your opponents. Destruction is no gimmick; shooting through walls, blasting through floors and ceilings, and keeping as much of your corporeal Special Forces husk behind fragile cover during firefights is key to extending your life in each of the respawn-free modes. Using a gadget to detect the presence of an enemy and fragging them through what would, in most other first-person shooters, be an indestructible hunk of drywall isn’t just satisfying; it’s thrilling. And while Siege isn’t the best-looking shooter out there in terms of environmental detail or character models, it includes memorable touches like the arterial blood spray that coats the wall behind your target when you off them. It looks like something truly terrible happened in that spot.
Playing defense (in applicable game modes) is a strategic rush because you know the attackers could burst through a wall at any moment. When defending an objective, you’ll have 30 seconds or so at the start of a round to fortify key areas with barbed wire on the floor, barricades, reinforced doors and windows, and more, to limit the enemy’s ability to approach their target from certain angles. I haven’t liked fortification in a shooter this much since Gears of War 3’s Horde mode.
Rainbow Six’s audio deserves special mention here, too, because the only soundtrack to each map is the sounds each player makes. Sure, there’s the obvious stuff like gunshots, but it’s the little noises like the suction of a breach charge being placed on a wall or floor, or the metallic rustle of an enemy wading through a barbed wire trap that, if you listen closely, can clue you in on what the other guys are about to do. Then, when things get loud, delightful chaos ensues.
That offense-vs.-defense is reflected in Siege’s Operators – 20 characters (10 attackers and 10 defenders) each team can choose from, each with unique skills. I’m rather partial to Sledge, who can instantly pound holes through walls and floors; Thermite, who can laser-cut his way through reinforced doors or windows; and Pulse, who can detect nearby heartbeats through any surface (though defender Mute can block any nearby gadget as a counter). On the other side of that spectrum, I couldn’t find a use for the Stimpack gun-toting Doc, as very few firefights ended with wounded teammates – guns tend to be so lethal you’re either alive or dead, with nothing in between.
I’m also happy with most of the 11 included maps. Bank is an early favorite, as there’s a basic cops-and-robbers fantasy fulfillment in trying to rescue a hostage from a bank vault while the other team is leveling walls to try and get to you.
While the maps have enough variety between them, the adversarial game modes feel very similar. Hostage, Bomb, and Secure Area are all variations of, “Try to get into a place the other team is keeping you out of.” The CTF-like Hostage carries the most potential, since it ostensibly has the added goal of grabbing a human-shaped flag and carrying it out of danger, but in my experience no one ever even got to the hostage, let alone rescued him/her. Instead, an overwhelming majority of rounds ended with one team getting wiped out.
As for the returning Horde-like Rainbow Six favorite, Terrorist Hunt, where you and your team hold out against waves of AI enemies? Normal mode is a bit of a misnomer. On that skill, the CPU-controlled creeps have fairly lousy aim and won’t take advantage of many of Siege’s new mechanics outside of shooting through walls. Crank it up to at least Hard and you’ll have a better, more realistic, human-simulating challenge with your friends.
Finally, there are Situations: 10 single-player training missions (on the same 10 maps) that spotlight half of the 20 included Operators. They serve as decent tutorials for multiplayer proper, but because you don’t have AI teammates at your side, they teach you little about the tactics and choices you’ll have at your disposal when other people get involved. After that, the bonus Situation 11 that unlocks after you complete the other 10 actually backfires as a pleasant surprise. Not because it’s bad – quite the opposite! It’s a five-player bespoke Terrorist Hunt scenario, complete with an intro cutscene, a unique gameplay hook I won’t spoil, and a post-mission cutscene that basically announces, “Rainbow Six is back! And we’ll totally hook you up with a proper co-op campaign next time, promise!” It’s effectively the developers saying, “Here’s everything you wanted in a narrative-driven campaign that we totally could’ve given you!” It’s a tease.
Besides not yet having playing on real-world servers under a full launch load, I also haven’t yet tested the character progression, as my eight-hour pre-review session on the final build had everything already unlocked. This will be a key measure of Rainbow Six Siege’s appeal, as access to many of the accoutrements, be they weapon attachments, weapon skins, and even new Operators, are obtained either through cashing in the in-game currency earned while playing, or by paying real-world money to accelerate the process. While it’s not quite pay-to-win, if it ends up taking a painfully long time to get the extra goodies, it’s going to make those real-money microtransactions look awfully shady. At least Ubisoft has promised that all future add-on maps will be distributed for free.
Check back throughout week for more on Rainbow Six Siege, including our final, scored review.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews and Xbox Guru-in-Chief. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan, catch him on Podcast Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.
.
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét