Thoughts on Rainbow Six Siege

When I was younger, the only quality that a videogame needed to have for me to be interested in it was to be a videogame. Except for Karateka. I hated that game. It's the first game I deleted from my PC. Anyway. Today I have 455 games on Steam alone and until recently used to play regularly only Arma 3. So if a new game manages to engage me for more than 10 hours I pause and think why this anomaly may be occurring. So here are some private subjective words about Rainbow Six Siege (30 hours in).


The Good

There's no jumping. There's probably nothing that turns me off about an FPS more than jumping. I would play counter strike a lot more if there was no jumping in it. I know it's the classicestest thing you can do in an FPS, second to only shooting and followed by crouching but I don't care. Don't talk to me about jumping.
It's very structured. Each round lasts no more than 4 minutes and there can be from 3 to 5 rounds in a casual match. There's a clear prep phase when defenders establish defences and attackers do recon and then the round proper starts. There can be only one of each kind of operative per round.
No respawn during match. Self-explanatory.
If you're dead, you're not necessarily out. The dead control the cameras (my new band). They can mark enemies in-game or feedback to the live teammates their positions through voip and/or text. The options for dead attackers are rather more limited if all the drones were taken out.
Most stuff can be destroyed or shot through. This, together with the wide range of choice you have when picking operatives and their loadouts, makes every round very different. This is on the level of A3BR replayability.
Friendly fire is always on. Even in casual multiplayer (in your face, CSGO!). This is how god intended every FPS to be.
There is no singleplayer campaign. This may sound like a weird reason but every game should 'understand' what it is and what it isn't and R6 Siege is not a singleplayer game. More isn't always better, obviously.



The Bad

You have to use Uplay to play R6. You need to have your Steam friends on there to play with them.
The ingame UI takes a lot of getting used to. It's what people would generally refer to as 'terrible'. But at least right click doesn't equal 'back', like in that one fucking game that ruined my life.
You get two overlays ingame - one for Steam and one for Uplay. You can have them up at the same time. The joy is infinite. The Uplay overlay is pure trash, by the way.
You have to grind to unlock operatives and/or pay for them. R6 is not a F2P game.
There are horrible cosmetic items you can buy with grind or real money. Thankfully you can't trade them.
What you see isn't always what the opponent sees. Some particle effects are client based - while you are in smoke on your screen, the opponent may be seeing you very clearly outside of it.
It's very strange that the world of R6 Siege has no doors. It makes sense from the gameplay mechanics but just... so eerie. There isn't a single door in the entire game. Might as well called it Rainbow Six But No Doors At All Mate.


Conclusion: 7/10. No, I'm kidding. It's really good. If you like competitive tactical CQC FPS games, this is the best in recent memory.