Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Lockdown

"Rainbow Six: Lockup"

Despite the name of the review, the game isn't bad. It just has many glitches, and the game doesn't feel finished.

Introduction

Rainbow Six: Lockdown an FPS made by Ubisoft. It is number 4 in the Rainbow Six, and follows a different path than the previous games. Some people think it's for the better, some for the worse.

You are Domingo "Ding" Chavez, an ex-gang member who ended up joining the army after his friend was killed in a drive-by shooting, and was taken up by the CIA. You lead one of two teams of counter-terrorists. During most missions, you also dual-play as Dieter Weber, a rugged german soldier with raw skill behind his back. Weber is an elite sniper, who could shoot a fly off someone's head 500 yards away. When you play as Weber, you cover team Rainbow Six at their insertion point.

Gameplay

When I first popped the Lockdown disk into my Xbox, I wasn't expecting much more than the previous Rainbow Six games, but boy was I suprised. When playing campaign mode.

Like the previous games, you get briefed before each mission. Backround information, the main objective (rescueing hostages, assassinating an arms dealer, etc), and who you will be taking with you on your mission. After that, you get the pleasure of selecting your, AND your team's weapons. It's a nice change being able to select your team's weapons.

While on the topic of weapons, the selection of weapons is pretty good. You get the AK-47 and M4A1 in disguise, along with many other choices. Though, the bad thing about weapons in this game is that the submachie guns in this game are horribly stacked. I can understand that since most of the game is CQB maps, but some of the weapons are just ridulously imbalanced. But if you pick the USAS, a semi-automatic shotgun, then you can mow down anyone with an SMG easily.

After you select your weapons, you're put into a nice game with your squad, maybe snipe off a few guys as Weber before being deployed as Ding Chavez. Normally Rainbow Six games don't have very good AI, but Lockdown just pushes it. You SHOULD have to use tactics to progress through the missions, but the AI is just so stupid you have to shoot them in the foot to get any reaction at all. Though they do seem to smarten up a bit later on.
8/10

Graphics

The graphics in Lockdown aren't terrible, in fact they are pretty good. The cutscenes' graphics are downright amazing, and the in-game graphics are nearly as nice. There are little to no framerate problems either, which is a major plus, since a lot of games I've recently purchased have bad framerate issues. Overall, the graphics are nice, and I don't believe anyone has a right to complain about them.
9/10

Sound

The sounds on the other hand, are just downright suck-tastic. Most of the guns have this little "Tick tick tick" sound when they shoot, and they sound like toy guns the entire time. Hell, even the AI enemies' RPGs sound like little clicks when they fire. Since when does a bazooka make a click noise? On the other hand, the voice acting was so-so, especially with the german/other region's accents. Also, when you get to a really stealth part, or a nice shootout, it plays some hard rock occasionally, which is really nice when you're really into the game. While the sound is nothing to brag about, that makes up for some.
8/10

Multiplayer/Xbox Live

This is by far the best aspect in the game, and increases the replayability so much that I'll probably be playing this on Xbox Live when I'm 70 years old.

When you play multiplayer offline, you can play split-screen co-op, which is always a plus for me. You can also play many other modes, which makes multiplayer offline almost as good as online.

Multiplayer online... God, I can't even explain how good it is. It takes maybe 30 seconds to get a game of 10+ people going, and the game's only been out for a week. In addition to this, there is the added P.E.C. mode, where you can choose a class, e.g. CQB, Spec Op, Gunner, etc. Also, wen you gain levels in P.E.C. mode, you gain extra skills, and can buy things specific to their class. Like for instance, spec ops can buy a jammer, where it is hard to be seen by enemy NVG and thermal vision, making you extremely lethal in dark maps. P.E.C. mode is great, 'nuff said.

The minor downside to online play is that the maps are so small, that spawn camping is so easy. For instance, there's one map where there's two small rock rooms, and a bunker in between. We got spawn camped so badly their score was 5 times our's, and their score was topping the 400's. They stayed outside throwing nades in, and taking headshots where appropriate. But even if we managed to kill one or two of them and break out of the room, there were 2 snipers covering both doorways. Also, another map, clinic. It's excellent if you're on the winning team, but, being only a hallway away from the enemy's spawn, it's hard to make a comeback if you're losing. But, this downside is minor, and barely accounts for anything compared to the rest of the joy that is Lockdown.
10/10

Glitches

The major downside to this game is all the glitches. They're everywhere. Almost every other time I play, be it online or offline, the game locks up when loading the round. If that wasn't annoying enough, sometimes when sniping, the scope will suddenly zoom out. It happens every 15 seconds for me on single player, which hinders the gameplay a bit. Also, when you get your class-specific item online, once your item's durability decreases enough, you can't repair it anymore, which leaves it unusable. There are many more glitches I don't know of, and you can probably find them at the game's forums here at GameFAQ's, or at Ubisoft's forums. The glitches are why this game gets a 9/10, and not a 10/10.

Replability

The replayability in this game is unimaginable. Like I said earlier, I'd be playing this game until I was 70 years old if I could. Aside from all the game modes offline, Xbox Live takes the cake. Ubi outdid themselves on that aspect, no doubt.
10/10

Overall

Overall, this game is excellent, but it should have had another month or two to get the bugs out. But nevertheless, this game is just amazing, and I can't understand why some people don't like it because it's actually original. This is definitely a game you should buy, just renting it could never let you explore all of its wonderful modes of gameplay.

Rainbow Six: Lockdown's overall score is: 9/10.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/13/05