Once again you are thrust into the role of Domino “Ding” Chavez, leader of a highly trained unit of commandoes who specialize in black-ops. Your team consisting of Eddie Price, Dieter Weber and Louis Loiselle must fight against an organization intent on releasing a deadly virus as well as trying to save one of their own. They’re back and this time it’s personal.

Gameplay:

Lockdown retains many of the key features seen in previous incarnations, which basically means you are mostly wandering around from one area to another, clearing the zone of all terrorists with the occasional hostage rescue. Seasoned Rainbow gamers will notice straight away that Lockdown leans more towards arcade than a tactical style of game. This isn’t a bad thing but you kind of feel the game has been dumbed down for ‘Run & Gun’ play. Lockdown also gives you the chance to play as Dieter Weber (sniper) at the beginning of some levels, breaking the pace of the game. Unfortunately this is nothing short of being a ‘Duck Shoot’ where the bad guys always turn up in the same place. The main terrorist to take out here is the RPG man, if you fail to kill him, than more than likely his rockets will take out the rest of your squad that you were supposed to protect but don’t worry because you only control Dieter at the beginning of the level and starting again will not be such a setback.

Another different feature is the option to save your progress anytime throughout the mission and as long as you don’t abuse it, you might find the levels challenging. The A.I. of the enemy in most areas of the game are ok, but and there always seems to be a ‘but’, there are cases when the A.I. is either completely stupid and blind or psychic by throwing a grenade into your vicinity even though you have been as quiet as a mouse. Another new feature is the HUD, this 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. That really concludes the offline style of game but it’s the online multiplayer mode that makes this game shine from any of its previous versions.

LIVE offers several types of game play – Deathmatch, Retrieval and Conquest as well as Co-Op for missions and terrorist hunts. Another feature that is brand new in the Rainbow Six franchise is the ‘Persistent Elite Creation’ or better known as PEC. This is where you must choose 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. These characters 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.

Graphics:

Lockdown seems to be a step backwards as far as graphics are concerned. The characters look blocky and grainy and the guns lack any real detail as seen in previous versions. The Infra-Red mode is terrible to say the least unlike the night vision which works extremely. Unfortunately switching between different view modes has been compromised, unlike in previous versions where you were allocated two buttons – one for each mode, Lockdown only has one button, which means you have to cycle through the different views to the one you want, wasting valuable time in a fire fight. Before every mission, the briefings are presented with a nice series of animated slides with narration followed by an extensive menu from which to kit out your team.

Sound:

The voice acting is decent enough as well as the occasional in game music. You still have the radio chatter from the rest if the team when they are acknowledging your orders. Bullets, explosions and breaking glass are on par with what you would expect from a shoot’em up game.

Longevity:

The offline game will take you no time to finish because of the availability of unlimited saves, so unless you have LIVE, this would be indeed a rent rather than a buy. Online play extends the life of this game slightly due to the amount of games similar to this but it is the PEC mode that really makes this game worthwhile since it will take a huge number of hours to build your character into a formidable force.

Overall:

Overall this game seems to have been developed more for LIVE than offline play. The graphics seem to be a step backwards in the franchise but as I have said before, the PEC mode is the saving grace of this game.

Pros:

• PEC mode via Live.
  

  Cons:
  

  • More Arcade than tactical.
    
  • Run and gun game play.