Rainbow Six Siege is a lot of things, probably, but first and foremost it is this thing: a tactical first-person shoot 'em up, in which teams of players must work together to infiltrate bases, rescue hostages, and kill terrorists. Apparently.
It's basically Home Alone: The Game, with you and your friends playing the role of The Wet Bandits. Though, I'm not sure whether you ever get to bung up any plug holes with tissue paper.
Wait - what? Hang on. Did I just say "apparently" and "probably" and "not sure"? Yes. Yes I did say them things. There's a reason for that, and the reason is this reason: Rainbow Six Siege has sat beneath my telly, unwrapped, untouched, and unsullied ever since it arrived, the same day as Just Cause 3.
That's right, children: I'm going to review a game I haven't even played yet. I'm literally history's greatest maverick!
It's basically Home Alone: The Game, with you and your friends playing the role of The Wet Bandits. Though, I'm not sure whether you ever get to bung up any plug holes with tissue paper.
Wait - what? Hang on. Did I just say "apparently" and "probably" and "not sure"? Yes. Yes I did say them things. There's a reason for that, and the reason is this reason: Rainbow Six Siege has sat beneath my telly, unwrapped, untouched, and unsullied ever since it arrived, the same day as Just Cause 3.
That's right, children: I'm going to review a game I haven't even played yet. I'm literally history's greatest maverick!
SIEGE MENTALITY
You see, from what I gather, Rainbow Six Siege is primarily a game you play online, with other people. From what I can glean from reading other reviews, it's best played with a bunch of mates, so that you can chat over headsets, and co-ordinate your tactics accordingly. And this is why I've not been able to bring myself to play it. I keep going to, and then I get grounded by an inescapable ennui. I end up lolling around on the floor, sighing and lamenting.
In fact, if I didn't feel some sort of absurd sense of duty to review all of this year's big games, I probably wouldn't even have bought it. Which is a massive shame, because I've actually really liked a lot of the Rainbow Six series.
However, they've driven me away with their absurd decision to make it a game that's only available to these people: those with a decent internet connection, and enough mates to form a team with. Few of my friends play games at all, let alone online. And the one or two friends I've got who do play games online either play them on the PC - I've not got a PC - or an Xbox One. And when given a choice I buy my games for the PS4.
Yes, I could go online and find some new people to play with, or let the game find some for me, but the fact is I'm a 44 year-old man. I don't like most of the people I already know, let alone ones I've not yet met. I don't want to play video games with a bunch of 14 year-olds, who will only frustrate me with their inability to obey my orders. I've already had a life-time of that with my own awful children.
You see, from what I gather, Rainbow Six Siege is primarily a game you play online, with other people. From what I can glean from reading other reviews, it's best played with a bunch of mates, so that you can chat over headsets, and co-ordinate your tactics accordingly. And this is why I've not been able to bring myself to play it. I keep going to, and then I get grounded by an inescapable ennui. I end up lolling around on the floor, sighing and lamenting.
In fact, if I didn't feel some sort of absurd sense of duty to review all of this year's big games, I probably wouldn't even have bought it. Which is a massive shame, because I've actually really liked a lot of the Rainbow Six series.
However, they've driven me away with their absurd decision to make it a game that's only available to these people: those with a decent internet connection, and enough mates to form a team with. Few of my friends play games at all, let alone online. And the one or two friends I've got who do play games online either play them on the PC - I've not got a PC - or an Xbox One. And when given a choice I buy my games for the PS4.
Yes, I could go online and find some new people to play with, or let the game find some for me, but the fact is I'm a 44 year-old man. I don't like most of the people I already know, let alone ones I've not yet met. I don't want to play video games with a bunch of 14 year-olds, who will only frustrate me with their inability to obey my orders. I've already had a life-time of that with my own awful children.
BIG GAME
This is the second big game of this year which I wanted to like, but which arrived without a single-player campaign mode.
Star Wars Battlefront has had its moments for me - when my Internet has let me play it - but in that I'm mostly just running around on my own. I don't need a headset to play it. And if I was using a headset, all my teammates would hear anyway was me swearing about how laggy it is.
So yeah. I dunno. Maybe I'm the last person in the country who has bad internet, or maybe I'm just cursed by the Gods of Broadband, or maybe there are others like me who wouldn't mind playing online, but find the technology too unpredictable and unreliable.
It's alright for the developers, and proper games journos. They probably have nice, fast, connections on which to play things. The rest of us plebs have to make do with whatever scrag-end of fibre optic cable the local broadband providers deign to shove down our street as an afterthought.
If I like a game, I want to know I can play it when I want to play it. I don't want it to always be some poxy-arsed gamble as to whether the broadband winds are blowing in my favour. Stop making these online-only shooters, you fetid blimps.
SUMMARY: Who knows? I can't be arsed to play it.
SCORE: NOTHING. NOT BECAUSE I'VE NOT PLAYED IT, BUT BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT IT DESERVES.
This is the second big game of this year which I wanted to like, but which arrived without a single-player campaign mode.
Star Wars Battlefront has had its moments for me - when my Internet has let me play it - but in that I'm mostly just running around on my own. I don't need a headset to play it. And if I was using a headset, all my teammates would hear anyway was me swearing about how laggy it is.
So yeah. I dunno. Maybe I'm the last person in the country who has bad internet, or maybe I'm just cursed by the Gods of Broadband, or maybe there are others like me who wouldn't mind playing online, but find the technology too unpredictable and unreliable.
It's alright for the developers, and proper games journos. They probably have nice, fast, connections on which to play things. The rest of us plebs have to make do with whatever scrag-end of fibre optic cable the local broadband providers deign to shove down our street as an afterthought.
If I like a game, I want to know I can play it when I want to play it. I don't want it to always be some poxy-arsed gamble as to whether the broadband winds are blowing in my favour. Stop making these online-only shooters, you fetid blimps.
SUMMARY: Who knows? I can't be arsed to play it.
SCORE: NOTHING. NOT BECAUSE I'VE NOT PLAYED IT, BUT BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT IT DESERVES.
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