by:	September 15, 2005

The Rainbow Six series has quickly become one of the games people think about when they hear the name Xbox, despite the fact that the title is on other systems, and originally from PC. These games have often been very hard to get used to for many console gamers, especially gamers used to the gun n’ run tactics of Halo 2. Basically, this is the thinking-man’s shooter, hence it is a tactical shooter. This title however seem to have been watered down a tad to get more people into it, and while it is a welcomed change to get the masses to play the title, some diehard fans might not be so happy about it.

The campaign in Lockdown is the first thing that you will probably do if you want to get to know how the game works. The campaign isn’t terribly big, or for the most part challenging, and spans over fourteen missions that should take you at the most ten hours to complete. You have many characters to choose, from the main character you will probably choose and the American, is Domingo Chavez. The game is set up simple enough. Usually you have to get to hostages before they are executed, sometimes disarm a bomb, but most the time this all has to do with blowing through the same bad guys, all who mostly wear green jackets and bright blue pants. In the beginning of some levels there are parts where you sniper, but they are for the most part tacked on and have no real difficulty to them. There are quite a few aspects to Rainbow Six Lockdown than just going around shooting the bad-guys. The most obvious is giving orders for people to move out, open and clear doors to rooms, ordering grenadiers, and getting them to follow you over all. Even more interesting is the fact that if you have your Xbox Live headset plugged in, you can hear your orders from HQ, your teammates chattering and even give them voice orders. If you shout orders such as “Open and clear” when looking at a door they will do so, “secure”, “move” and “follow me” they will do what you say for the most part. The voice recognition in the game isn’t full proof, but it is definitely a neat gimmick. Otherwise you can just click A to command them. Ordering them comes into full effect when you have to enter a room with three or four enemies, you get some of your team ready to burst through one door, and you go to the other. This definitely is satisfying when you actually pull it off.

The AI players themselves can be a bit stupid sometimes, two or three of your squad mates could be shooting at the same guy for what seems like five minutes, with dozens of rounds shot, when all you do is plug them in the head with one bullet and they fall. A lot of times, the squad mates end up feeling like human shields or area-testers rather than actual squad mates. Many times they might die during a mission and you can get through the rest of it without them easily. The AI for the enemies is equally ignorant the majority of the time. They will look straight at you for a few seconds without reacting, run around, or walk from you in the opposite direction even after seeing you, and other equally stupid maneuvers. Every so often they will surprise you, or track you down but that is in very rare occasions. Still, because of the limited amount of health you have in the beginning of a mission, it still isn’t a good idea to run blindly into a room, but rather sneak around.

The sniping portions of the game have you on a rooftop or the side of a helicopter sniping at people with rocket launchers, snipers, and overall foot soldiers. To do so you zoom in with your right analog, and then you take the shot when the cursor turns red. To get a cleaner more efficient shot if you hold in the left trigger you hold you hold your breath to give yourself a steady shot. You can even hear your character sucking air in if you are using a headset. There are also parts where you must sneak around, disarming cameras with your gun, and plugging the bad-guys as fast as possible before the alarm sets up. These portions of the game are somewhat difficult, but there aren’t a whole lot of them. Another cool maneuver is the ability to look around a corner, simply be pressing the digital pad left or right. Shooting fans should get a kick out of this aspect of the game, as it makes things even better, and less chance of you getting shot. What makes the game even easier though is you have a heart-rate monitor that pinpoints where all the bad guys are with red people icons by pressing the select button. It runs out quickly, but it recharges fairly quickly as well, taking a lot of the surprise out of the campaign.

The multiplayer portion is where it is at with this title. You can have two-players split-screen cooperative, up to 16 people through system link if you choose, but for the most part it is all on Xbox Live. The most exciting thing for me on Xbox Live besides versus modes is the fact that four people can cooperate online and do the campaign of the game. On Xbox Live you can create your own character choosing from a few different classes, abilities, and so on. As you play, the better you do the more credits you get after the round and you can level up certain abilities on your character. The bad thing is to gain credits, and eventually rank up; you need to play a lot of games. The bad thing about Lockdown is, you will play fewer games online than you probably would like as many times people take there sweet time getting ready, or will simply kick you out. So it is definitely better to play the game if you got a few friends you play Halo 2, old Raindow Six games, or perhaps even Chaos Theory with. Another bad thing is, the PEC Mode in which you make your character while not required, most people only play games with this. This means you end up fighting guys who are ranked much higher than you in many cases, and because of that much higher levels. Most of the game types you find in the game are either deathmatch or capture the flag based games, and each have their own quirks but all are pretty well done. The most frustrating thing about online play is lag, as there is quite a bit, and the fact that finding a game can be a total chore.

Visually the game gets the job done. There are plenty of CG cutscenes that will introduce parts of the game that are done very well. The presentation of menus, when you zoom with your gun, sniping and so on are done well. The only problem with the game I had was it looks like a step-back from the Raindow Six using the Splinter Cell engine before, and in fact the game ends up having a muddy look to it sometimes. Also the animations can sometimes be jerky, but they still overall get the job done. The visuals can be troublesome in some areas, and actually because of anti-aliasing, you will have a hard time making out some of the enemies ahead. The sound in the game for the most part does a pretty good job, and is heightened much more when you have the headset in, making it the obvious big point when coming to communicating with everyone on the game.

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A lot of things about Lockdown feel broken in many ways, but other parts fit in pretty good. The thing about the game is, they tried to make it as accessible as possible, but apparently they forgot to make intelligent AI on both parts, a system of balance for online play, and overall an element of suspense in the actual gameplay. Visually the game is sub-par at best, and the only real reason anyone would want to check the game out besides some interesting gameplay quirks, is the headset communication, which you can do in other Raindow Six titles on Xbox already.

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