Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Lockdown Review

The Rainbow Six series basically created the realistic, tactical shooter subgenre on its own. Hidden and intelligent enemies, one-hit kills, high-tech weapons, and realistic plotlines combined to make players feel the tension that comes with being a special operative on the frontlines of the war against terrorism. The latest game in the series is Rainbow Six Lockdown, but it strays from the path forged by its predecessors. More arcade-like and easier to beat than prior Rainbow Six games, Lockdown also features the dumbest enemies ever to appear in a Rainbow Six game. Fans of the series will probably find the game to be more of a letdown than a lockdown…

Once again you play the role of Ding Chavez, leader of Team Rainbow. Team Rainbow is an international elite counter-terrorist unit made up of the world’s top Special Forces operatives. When terrorism rears its ugly head, Team Rainbow is there to chop it off. This time out a nanotech-based artificial virus has been stolen from a lab in South Africa and it has fallen into the wrong hands. It’s up to you and your team to recover the virus and take out the terrorists who are threatening to unleash it on the world.

Each mission begins with a detailed briefing conveying the reason for the mission and its objectives. Cutscenes between missions also help to convey the storyline. It’s all done quite well and provides a rich and immersive setting for the game. Once the briefing concludes you are given the opportunity to select the weapon loadout for each member of your team. You can also just accept the default loadouts and go right into the mission. All of this is standard Rainbow Six, but things begin to change for the worse once the mission begins.

Rainbow Six games have always emphasized the importance of teamwork and this is still the case in Lockdown. You can issue commands to your team by placing your aiming reticule over an object or location and then pressing the A button. If you want to issue an order different from the default, context-sensitive order then you can hold down the A button to see a list of additional order choices. Using the order system you can have your team breach a door and clear the room beyond, lay down suppression fire, or scout ahead to look for hidden enemies. The order system is easy enough to use, but things do not always go too well because the AI for your team is lackluster, to say the least.

Your biggest team issue in Lockdown is in keeping your team together. They are constantly getting themselves stuck or lost and you’ll often turn around to find that you are completely alone. I found that I had to issue move orders at a steady frequency to ensure that my team kept up with me. The poor AI also means that your orders are not always executed too well. I’ve seen the team open a door before being given the go ahead to execute the order, for example. Another problem faced by your team is their horrendous shooting skills. Often they will enter a room and not be able to hit the enemy standing in the middle of the room five feet in front of them. Firefights often require you to take out every single enemy yourself or they would go on for hours without a casualty on either side. Your team’s ineptitude with firearms really comes to light in the end of mission statistics screen where you’ll see your teammates score hit ratios in the 1% range. That’s one hit, not even a kill mind you, for every 100 shots fired. And these are supposed to be elite warriors…

The AI of your team is genius-like when compared to that of the enemies that you face. Sometimes they will stand around dumbfounded during a firefight, continue to face in one direction as you shoot them from another, or run out into the open to make it easier for you to kill them. In spite of these boneheaded tactics, the terrorists actually have a surprisingly high survival rate. This is because the game often fails to register hits. I’ve turned the corner to find a terrorist, shot him in the head, and watched as he pushed passed me as I tried to put enough shots into him to bring him down. It happened more than once, and is just as weird as it is frustrating when it happens.

Lockdown introduces a few new gimmicks to the series. The first is that you see the action through Ding’s goggles. Most of the time this is not noticeable, but if you take a few hits bullet holes will appear in your mask and a blur effect will cloud your vision. Needless to say this makes it very difficult to see and no, you don’t have an option to take the goggles off once they become damaged. The game could really have done without this feature as it does nothing to enhance the immersion factor and instead just creates a source of frustration.

Another new gimmick is the heartbeat sensor. This device will essentially let you see through walls and determine if an enemy is waiting in the next room or around a corner. The sensor has a short battery life so continual use is impossible, but it also recharges itself quickly. You should be fine if you just use it to quickly scan each door that you reach. The problem with the device is that it removes a major play mechanic from the game. If you always know if a room is empty or not, why go through the trouble of cautiously setting up a breach and clear when you reach a new door? This is a cheat that the game could have done without, but you can always choose not to use it if you want to maintain some suspense in the game.

Lastly the game adds sniper sequences to the gameplay. Some missions will have you covering the team with a sniper rifle as they make their way to the mission location. You’ll need to pick off any enemies you see to ensure that your team makes it to their objective intact. These sequences are enjoyable enough, but can occasionally be frustrating because it is often hard to pick out the enemies when they arrive. If a guy with an RPG shows up before you notice him, odds are you’ll lose half of your team.

Lockdown really shines in the online mode and provides plenty of options for Xbox Live gamers. You can play in co-op mode and take on any of the game’s single-player missions with a real-life squad or simply team up for terrorist hunts. There are also a range of head-to-head and team-based games, including deathmatch, retrieval, and conquest games. Lockdown also has a special RPG-like online mode in which you earn credits and experience by playing online games. The experience allows you to gain levels and improve in stats such as weapon proficiency. Credits can be spent to purchase or repair equipment. You have a lot of flexibility in customizing your character and this makes for some dynamic online play as each gamer will essentially have a unique character.

If you’re looking primarily for online play, Lockdown certainly delivers a compelling game on that point. The “dumbing down” of the single layer game is a big disappointment, though, and Rainbow Six fans will find this to be a huge letdown. Rainbow Six deserves better than to become yet another arcade shooter…

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 68%.  Lockdown is a bit of a letdown for Rainbow Six fans.