Review on Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Lockdown

I just recently got involved with Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six video game series; I figured I should play a few to see what the fuss is all about. Naturally, I got one of the older ones, the fourth game in the series known as Lockdown (2006). Sad to say, I was quickly disappointed. This is what I have to say about Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Lockdown…

Lockdown is a decent game, but I personally did not enjoy it as much as I usually enjoy first person shooters. The main aspect of the game that disappointed me was the lack of AI with enemies and your squad. Your squad is practically useless when it comes to taking down tangos, they run out into the open, spin around a couple times, and get shot down. On top of that, your team members are constantly running into your way and blocking you; they get really annoying. Lucky for you, friendly fire is tolerated in this game; you do not need to keep your squad alive to successfully finish the mission. So, if you wish; you can take your team mates out or you can choose to play the mission alone, without a squad. Of course, the friendly bots can be useful when it comes to clearing rooms; tell them to clear one room while you clear another. Having said that, if you want to survive and finish the mission stay far away from your squad or play without them.

Its not just your squad thats lacking AI, the enemies are also incredibly easy to kill. Other than the fact that it takes about one shot to kill a enemy (on normal) the enemies take ages to fire at you. When they finally realize that your about to pop a cap in their ass, they begin randomly firing in your direction; spraying bullets everywhere. If your extremely unlucky you will most likely get hit, especially if you stand in front of a enemy waiting for him to fire; he will start shooting it just takes awhile. Its not just the enemies and your team mates that have terrible AI, the hostages are also extremely annoying. You usually need to keep the hostages alive and bring them to the extraction point, this usually would be a easy task to accomplish except for the fact that these hostages are not very bright.

On top of that, there are several bugs that I have noticed when it comes to hostages. In one mission one of the hostages kept getting stuck in the walls, and there was no way to get him out; had to restart the level only to run into the same problem again. After a slow process of commanding the hostage where to go, holding, and moving slowly I finally managed to get him to the extraction point.

On the other hand, just because a game’s characters have terrible AI, does not necessarily mean the entire game in general is failure. However, if you enjoy tactical first person shooters, get a different Rainbow Six. You can aim down your sights in the Rainbow Six series. So, I give Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Lockdown a basic 6/10, the graphics, effects, and audio are pretty well done.

Author: Timothy Francis Gagnon
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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