Rainbow 6: Lockdown (R6L) is the latest entry in the venerable series of games drawn loosely from Tom Clancy novels. The first game in the series, Rainbow 6 (R6), defined the tactical-shooter genre, and its various successors from Rogue Spear (RS) to Raven Shield (RvS) have embraced and extended that genre in entertaining ways. In many respects, R6L represents the most substantive break in the series, so the main questions to be answered are whether it remains a worthy successor or is at least a good game in its own right.
R6L clearly stands head and shoulders above its predecessors in every visual respect. The models are better, the animation is better, the textures are more detailed, the shaders provide beautifully subtle touches, and the special effects are a couple of notches above anything that has come before. The early Tom Clancy games were lacking in the visual department, compared to other games of their era, but whereas RvS put that issue to bed R6L goes still further. The game looks great.
Better still, all that eye candy doesn't come at an insurmountable price. Granted, I'm playing the game in SLI, courtesy of Gorthaur the Cruel, but even with a last-generation card the game runs well. With a good SLI system, gamers can expect to crank it up to 1600 x 1200 with 4x anti-aliasing (AA) and 8x anisotropic filtering (AF). My older, single-card system will push that resolution with 4x AF (no AA). The game seems pretty scalable despite the beauty, and unlike its predecessor—neither Red Storm Entertainment nor NVIDIA have bothered to fix their AA problems with RvS—I've yet to see a single graphical glitch.
What's not to like about that?
Unfortunately, the audio is a big step backward in my judgment. The audio in RvS was absolutely superb, making it a very tough act to follow. But it seems like the developers didn't try very hard this time around. Some of the gun sounds seem to have been re-compressed at too high a ratio, the music is absolutely terrible compared to Bill Brown's beautiful score (though that's a subjective judgment), and the Rainbow operatives seem to have developed a freakish preference for wearing Dutch, sabot-style clogs.
Seriously, whereas the counter-terrorist teams of yore stealthed their way across the virtual terrain with only a gentle creaking and swish-swish noise to betray their presence, the R6L operatives clomp, tromp, and stomp their way into battle as if they're wearing tap shoes! What goofball thought this was the right direction for the audio?! Today's Ding Chavez makes more noise turning his head and looking around than some of the guns did in RvS. It's inane.
Worse, the game's audio was quite broken when it shipped. Using hardware mixing resulted in terrible clicking and popping artifacts, to say nothing of the runaway feedback possible with the EAX reverb. Using software mixing made the situation better, but the game was very hard to enjoy in terms of its audio. The patch seems to have taken care of the implementation issues, though it does nothing to address the complaints about the content itself.
On the one hand, the interface is arguably improved in its flexibility. RvS covered the basics, but R6L makes it possible to stack up at an entry point and coordinate assaults far more easily. Yet on the other hand, R6L completely abandons the planning interface of its ancestors, presumably in an attempt to be more friendly to the tactically challenged. In my book, that's the politically correct way of saying they've dumbed it down for a bunch of console jockeys.
The default key mappings have also been simplified, if one takes 'simplified' to mean "made like every other first person shooter (FPS) game". The ability to remap keys works well enough, so I was able to duplicate the control scheme of the previous games, but the concession is more than psychological. The changes to the default key mappings are just another example of homogenization. The developers might as well have been crafting Battlefield: Rainbow or Rainbow Quake for all the fidelity R6L shows to its interface heritage.
Still, once you get past the franchise betrayal and try to appreciate R6L on its own terms, the interface is useable. I wish it were possible to customize the heads-up display (HUD) a bit more, and I wish the HUD gave me more information about my team members and what they're doing. But as my father used to say: if wishes were horses then beggars could ride. The interface is serviceable for the game's focus; it's just not the interface one expects for the Rainbow series of games.
If I've complained thus far, then I must positively excoriate its game mechanics. R6L is similar to its predecessors in roughly two respects: (1) shooting the bad guys is a major part of the game, and (2) the bad guys happen to be terrorists. Beyond these respects the similarities end. To begin with the most glaring departure, R6L largely abandons the planning phase, which was crucial to counter-terrorist operations in prior games.
That approach had its own problems to be sure, which were largely compounded by the weaknesses of the games' artificial intelligence (AI), but it did fulfill one important design goal: it forced the player to think. The player had to sift through the intelligence data in the briefings, pick a team from the roster, equip them carefully, and then command their progress through the mission. This approach could be frustrating at times, particularly when having to play and replay a mission over and over to get it right, but it's one of the things that distinguished the Rainbow games from a common FPS.
In contrast, R6L has briefings, but the material presented is essentially useless. It's also still possible to choose each team member's equipment, but the guns are so generic (given the game's bargain-basement approach to weapon modeling) that it just doesn't seem to matter much. Taking down terrorists at close or long range seems roughly as easy with an assault rifle as it is with a shotgun. Frankly, I found myself using the pistol much of the time simply because it never runs out of ammunition.
Worse, the game seems to have no randomization. At least in the former titles there was some uncertainty as to where the terrorists might be. It was often a good idea to have a sniper as a spotter or use a heartbeat sensor when entering a tricky room, which always heightened the sense of tension and realism. No matter how good your plan was, it rarely survived contact with the enemy, and part of the thrill was adapting to the unexpected.
But the bad guys of R6L all seem to read exactly the same playbook, exactly the same way, every single time. I always know where the RPG-toting fanatic on the roof is going to be; I always know where the bad guy behind the dumpster is going to be; I always know precisely in which window to expect a gunman to appear. This lack of variation isn't obvious during the first run-through of a mission, but it has painful consequences for the game's longevity.
More unforgivable, at least in my view, is that the developers abandoned clips completely. The primary weapons still run dry and need to reload, but bullets apparently come from an econo-size bag that is apparently poured into the weapon. One of the defining characteristics of the previous games was that you had to manage your clips. You could always change out one clip for another, but the old one wouldn't somehow be reloaded magically while it was in your belt. Heck, some of the signature moments of game play in RvS involved frantic reloads during tricky close quarter battle (CQB). R6L jettisons clips altogether in yet another concession to console-style game play, and trust me when I say that it sucks.
The very worst thing that can be said, though, is that ballistics have been simplified to the point of idiocy. The recoil of a weapon is a measure of the degree to which its shots will vary, whereas the accuracy is a measure of how close the first shot will be to the center of the cross hairs. That's it. Automatic weapons don't kick upward with extended bursts. Bullets don't drop. Different weapons don't have different grouping patterns. And different fire modes don't vary groupings differently from weapon to weapon.
I can remember spending hours in RvS practice-firing weapons into fixed targets in order to discover their nuances. There isn't a single weapon in the RvS arsenal that's entirely useless. There are some that I rarely use, but each gun in that game has its own unique characteristics. I don't think I have ever seen another game that gives the player such a wealth of different guns and makes them all matter. The absurdly simplified mechanics of R6L only make me appreciate RvS all the more, insofar as I can't even begin to care about the weapons in R6L. They're all so generic that any one is about as good as any other.
The only worthwhile experiment R6L adds to the franchise is its attempt at a decent wounding system. It's not entirely clear to me how it works, but it seems to be a bit more forgiving. It's not that I'm opposed to a very realistic one-shot-one-kill model; it's that you could die from being shot in the big toe in RvS. The ultimate, I think, would be a system that copes with damage in terms of how much body armor the operative is wearing, the type of weapon and ammunition fired, and the location of the hit. Taking lead in the gun arm, for example, should greatly affect accuracy but not kill, or at least not instantly. In short, I give R6L credit for trying; I'm just not sure it's quite right.
The one truly positive change I can identify is the inclusion of a quick save feature. I would have killed for such a feature during the opera house mission years ago. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that R6L includes the one major feature I've been complaining about for years; i.e., the game tries so hard to be a generic FPS in every other respect as well, so why not a quick save?
Suffice it to say that the game mechanics of R6L are dumbed down to the point where they're practically indistinguishable from any mindless console FPS. R6L does provide a certain amount of fun, but it's the vapid fun of blasting wave after wave of idiots, not the sense of accomplishment that comes from defeating an intelligent enemy through good tactics. I could complain about the Olympic-sprinter movement speed, the lack of a prone stance, and plenty of other such issues, but what's the point? In comparison to its predecessors, R6L's mechanics are like getting out of the deep end in favor of a trip to the kiddie pool.
There are two words that dominate all popular culture these days, namely, 'darker' and 'edgier'. If I close my eyes and concentrate, I can practically project myself psychically into meetings populated by idiotic business creatures yammering stupidly about the game's need for darker and edgier material. What do we get from Prince of Persia, for example? A darker, edgier prince with each iteration. So what do we get from R6L? A darker, edgier tale because—wait for it—"this time it's personal".
I don't know where they get the hack writers who barely string together even the flimsiest premise necessary to justify shooting terrorists, but the developers would have done better buying a story from a gumball machine. I'm not going to spoil the "surprise", but let's just say that there's nothing interesting about the story of R6L. The story is so tired it's been asleep since before the game shipped. R6 rocked. RS rocked even harder. RvS seemed pretty derivative, but it still got the job done. In comparison, R6L seems to have given up all pretense of providing a worthwhile story.
Tom Clancy should insist his name be removed from the moniker altogether; he should be embarrassed at this point.
The content is a mixed bag. On the one hand, the environments are as diverse and beautifully realized as one could hope for in a game. The 747 in particular brings back memories of operation "Perfect Sword" from RS, though this time around it's more detailed and less engaging (because of the game mechanics). The roster of operatives has a lot of old favorites and a few new faces. And if anything the mission objectives at least seem well thought out and nicely compartmentalized.
Yet on the other hand there's much with which to quibble, starting with the biggest omission of all in my view: a large and worthwhile selection of toys to play with. RvS was practically a counter-terrorist's wet dream, given its impressive selection of outfits, hand guns (semi- and full-auto), sub-machine guns, assault rifles, light machine guns, shotguns, and all kinds of gadgets. In contrast, the cupboard of R6L feels pretty bare. Perhaps this is because the weapons are all so similar there was little point in including more of the same? I don't know, but this time around I feel gypped.
The AI manages to be better and worse at the same time. On the one hand, I didn't notice any of my highly-trained counter-terrorist colleagues stupidly humping the wall rather than walking around corners. Yet on the other hand, I did notice a disturbing tendency in the new breed to walk into my fire stream. It would be nice if the good guys were a wee bit smarter.
The one highly positive thing I can say about the AI is that enemies are no longer impossibly accurate. The single-player aspect of RvS featured terrorists who could spin on a dime and hip-shoot the left—and only the left—testicle of a gnat fifty yards distant with a silenced pistol. The different AI settings basically amounted to two options, cakewalk and impossible, which diminished the enjoyment of the single-player game by no small degree. In contrast, the thugs of R6L aren't so ridiculously accurate.
Of course, it must also be noted that they're still dumb as a post in virtually every other respect. Goons with RPGs will fire off their missile then stand stupidly rooted to the spot, practically begging for death. Waves of terrorists will sally forth running stupidly at the player. Many of the bad guys will use cover, but their tendency to stay in one place makes it trivial to flank them. Suffice it to say that game AI still has a long way to go before it's believable.
In summary, I would have to say that the game provides a fair amount of content. What it does provide isn't great, but only some of what it provides is lacking. I've seen a lot better, but I've also seen a lot worse. R6L features decent bang for the buck in this respect, particularly in terms of the number of missions and their objectives.
When I first sat down to write this, I was going to rant and roar. RvS was my favorite multi-player game for a long time, and I absolutely hated R6L for everything it got wrong. But after thinking about it for a while, I realized that most of what I didn't like had nothing to do with the multi-player specific aspects of the game. The faults of R6L are many and varied, but they're largely faults with the game mechanics, not the multi-player features.
In fact, I think the developers deserve some praise for trying something new, though that praise must be weighed against the negatives. So let's start with the good stuff. First, they made it easier than ever before to host a multi-player server. Whereas the prior games in the series required fussing around with initialization files to do the job right, the would-be-admin for R6L can simply launch LockdownDed.exe, set his options, and start the server. It's a lot easier and quicker to get a server up and running with R6L than with RvS, and I appreciate that. I'm not so enthused about having to use the Ubi.com service, but at least it works.
Second, in a clear nod to the popularity of games like Battlefield 2, the addition of "classes" to the game provides a welcome diversion. I honestly haven't dedicated enough play time to comment intelligently as to whether they hold up over the long haul, but I have enjoyed much of what I've seen. It's hard for me to take them seriously because I'm wed to the thrill of the more classic game modes, but it's definitely worth noting that the developers added a brand new way to enjoy the Rainbow franchise.
The basic hook is that different classes have access to different weapons, different armor, and move at different speeds. Play as recon and you'll tear around the map so fast it will make your head swim; play as a demolitions expert, however, and you'll plod from point to point—though the power of the grenade launcher does make up for that rather nicely (grin). It seems that most folk play recon on the public servers, largely because the guns aren't varied enough to make up the difference in movement speeds, but that could be my limited experience talking.
Third, the respawn cameras are a nice touch. To be crystal clear: I don't like respawns at all in a tactical shooter. My favorite mode will always be team adversarial. In other words, one side plays against the other, quarter is neither asked nor given, death is final (until the end of the round), and the last team standing wins the round. That's the classic mode of play for the Rainbow series, and it's the mode to which I gleefully devoted roughly a thousand hours of my life over the last decade or so. But if you're going to allow respawns, being able to see what's around cuts down significantly on spawn raping, and for that alone I applaud the developers.
Fourth, and perhaps best of all, the developers seem to have purged all the screwy glitches from the game. The single most frustrating aspect about RvS was the awful hit-detection code. I can't count the number of times I've seen the muzzle of somebody's gun literally blasting flame through the torso of an opponent without doing any damage. Couple that with the frag lock, scope lock, ladder lock, and God knows how many other bugs, and it's a bloody miracle RvS was any fun to play. In contrast, I've seen one glitch in R6L in several hours of play. One glitch. That's it. That's a huge step forward.
But all is not wine and roses in R6L. When the game shipped its multi-player aspect was completely broken. I don't mean partially broken, folks, I mean completely unusable in major respects. If you tried to log on with your old Ubisoft ID, you were screwed. If you tried to connect to a server and failed—which happened more often than not given the crappy problems with connecting—you had to exit the game completely and restart or sometimes even restart your computer.
And getting connected was only the first hurdle. Staying connected was even tougher, thanks to frequent disconnects and crashes back to the desktop. When you managed to get connected, your user name most likely showed incorrectly. And did I mention the bugs in starting a game from the lobby? I don't know why the developers of the Rainbow series seem to have so much trouble doing networking. So many other games get it right effortlessly that you'd think they'd just buy an engine or hire the right people. It's hard to fathom how a game could ship so badly broken; it's like they didn't even bother testing it.
And this is to say nothing of the deliberately user-hostile approach to multi-player gaming. R6L requires you to enter a completely different key for multi-player gaming, and from the posts I've read the keys are hard to get right and sometimes invalid right from the outset. Worse, the only way to play is to connect to the Ubi.com service, which requires you to click past their ridiculous license every single time you play and suffer through its awful performance and limitations. Honestly, multi-player interfaces from ten years ago are much better than R6L. Thankfully, the patch seems to fix the lag issues, connection issues, and crashing issues, but the other troubles remain.
To be fair, R6L isn't a bad game when judged in isolation. Post-patch it actually manages to be entertaining in its own right for what it does provide. It shipped in a broken state, and Ubisoft handled the situation abominably—the game was released on February 16, 2006, and the first (and likely only) patch was released after more than four months of total silence—but I do at least feel like I'll get some portion of my money's worth now that it's playable. If you're looking for a somewhat-more-than-mindless shoot-em-up then R6L is pretty to look at and has its moments. If you're looking for something deeper, though, you'd be better off buying RvS.
The bottom line is pretty simple: the Rainbow series has always provided white-knuckle, tactical game play with a focus on realistic weapons, environments, damage, etc. As a sequel in the franchise, R6L is quite disappointing. I don't know what sort of drugs the developers were taking, but the changes to game play neither embrace nor extend the Tom Clancy brand at all; they give it the finger. The focus on tactical combat, realistic weapons, realistic damage, etc. is what defines the series, and R6L throws all that to the wind in favor of a dumbed-down console shooter.
Ubisoft has shamed the Tom Clancy franchise with R6L, if in fact they haven't ruined it altogether. I would love to think that the upcoming Rainbow 6: Vegas will return to the series' roots, but there's no way in hell I'm buying a copy until I'm sure the final product isn't the broken hunk of unsupported crap R6L was when it shipped. I got screwed for four months, buying R6L as I did, and only the patch will allow me to get some value from it. So at this point I'm considering the Rainbow franchise dead. Requiem in pace. I'll still keep hoping for a Lazarus moment, but I'll believe it when I see it.
07/14/2006