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| Game: |
Tom Clancys Rainbow Six Lockdown |
| Genre: |
Shooters |
| Developer: |
Ubisoft |
| Publisher: |
Ubisoft |
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| Related Links: |
Coming Soon. |
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Tom Clancys Rainbow Six Lockdown Preview: |
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Rainbow Six Lockdown Community Day Hand On:
There are not many Xbox Live players out there who haven’t heard or played at least one Tom Clancy game, especially one from the Rainbow Six franchise. Let me welcome you to the latest instalment featuring Team Rainbow against the continuous threat of global terrorism. Unlike previous missions, Team Rainbow has been attacked and this time it’s personal!!
On Friday 3rd June, Ubisoft hosted a community day allowing invited guests the opportunity to play and for many it was their first time, Rainbow Six Lockdown. The venue was Microsoft’s headquarters based in Soho, London, where you were greeted by Ubisoft representatives – Chris Easton and Ian Chambers. Along with 30 other journalists / gamers, we were all led to this room where every TV was displaying the Rainbow Six logo. A quick introduction and several short videos later, we were finally able to grab a controller and wage war against the enemy.
There are several major differences between Lockdown and earlier incarnations of Rainbow Six in both single and multi-player mode. Starting with the single-player campaign, the first noticeable difference is that you can now choose your level of difficulty between ‘normal’ and ‘challenge’. In ‘Normal’ mode, there is a fair amount of assisted play especially when aiming at the enemy as they appear with white boxes around them, so the more proficient gamers out there will probably jump straight into ‘Challenge’. The A.I. has been improved enabling the enemy to use more deadly tactics like flanking, suppression fire and room clearing. Lastly, the single-player campaign has dual perspective game play letting you play as Ding Chavez or on some occasions Dieter Webber – the team’s sniper.
Depending on which character you are controlling will depend on how the HUD looks, which has also been radically changed. Ubisoft wanted the gamer to feel more immersed, so the HUD takes the form of the special glasses that each member of the team wears. Vision thru the glasses will be affected by the environment, so if you are standing out in the rain, droplets will start to appear blurring your vision. The glasses also act as a health indicator, so the more damage you sustain; more cracks will appear until it is nearly impossible to see thru them. As mentioned earlier, on some occasions you will have control of Webber and the HUD changes to a square digital scope with zoom, so you are able to pick off the enemy from afar. There are a total of seven Sniper missions littered throughout the 16 mission campaign.
As well as being able to play the single campaign mode, 4x4 screens had been set up for system link multiplayer action. Since the game is still in development with a release date scheduled for September, this was the only way to experience team play without logging onto Live. Several modes can be played including ‘Total Conquest’, ‘Team Sharpshooter’, ‘Team Survival’, and ‘Retrieval’ as well as two Co-Op modes consisting ‘Terrorist Hunt’ and ‘Mission’. The games had all been set to ‘Total Conquest’. In this mode there are three points on the map, each with a satellite dish that had to be taking under your team’s control. The controls are identical to previous versions, so it was very easy to pick up and play. One difference I did notice was that I no longer had to change weapons to grenades in order to throw them, the left trigger automatically brought up the distance loop. Movement around the map was very fluid with lots of destructible scenery and I had great pleasure shooting the opposition with ease especially Ben Talbot (OXM magazine) as they tried to regain control of the satellite that I was guarding.
They say time fly’s when you’re having fun and the next time anyone looked at their watch; it was lunch time with pizza supplied by Ubisoft. After lunch a tournament was created by Chris Easton. After listening to the rules, we all had to group up into 4 player teams (notice I didn’t say men, as one gamer was female) and wait around to find out who we had to compete against in a game of ‘Team Sharpshooter’. I teamed up with a couple of guys from a clan website and one other gamer, calling our team ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ due to the fact that when the team was photographed…..two of the members (not me) had their eyes shut. Anyway, it was a close battle but the team I was on, got knocked out in the first round by one single point. Of course it doesn’t help when one of your team can’t shoot straight to save his life. (Not me as I was the team’s highest killer).
Well, with time on my hands, our team played against some of the other losing sides in a friendly where we emerged victorious, but like I said, it was for fun. There’s one piece of information I have left to last about the game and that’s the ‘Persistent Elite Creation’. This is a welcome addition to online clan games and is exclusive to Xbox Live. Your online character is linked to your gamer tag and you can only have one character at any one time, so you must choose wisely which one of four classes in which to build up. The classes are ‘Commando, Combat Medic, Engineer and Special Ops’. Each class have their advantages and disadvantages which means playing as a team is crucial to survive against other clans. As you progress and build up your character, you will be able to unlock special skills, weapons and tools. A good example is the Engineer. As you level up, you will be able to learn hacking skills, place traps and even deploy turrets. How does this help your team? Well, with your hacking skills, you will be able to open doors that no other character can and thus lead your team on a more direct route to the objective, or in some cases direct the enemy team on a route that you have trapped or lay in wait to ambush. This character can only be used in career play, so for those of you who just want to play in a standard game will not have to worry about meeting them.
Back to the tourney, ‘Team C’ were declared winners with each of the members winning a copy of Lockdown to be sent to them a few weeks before release. Afterwards, everyone went to the pub but since I know what travelling on the underground is like during rush hour decided to leave at this point.
Like I mentioned before, this was a hands on day showing nearly everything from the game but not the final code and from what I have seen so far and played, this game will be a must have for Rainbow players. It was a great day and well organised by Chris and Ian, but lets not forget Emma who did a great job keeping everyone happy with cold drinks and friendly chatter. Looking forward to the next event!!
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