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That time you put C4 in just the right spot and blew it when your teammates shouted, "They're on the stairs!" That time you repelled down the edifice of a building and cleared out a defender from a window, upside down That time you're playing sucked in Terris Time, and the last thing you heard was the wheezy gasp of bomber, just before a hacker team was incinerated.
Or that time a YouTuber shot the hostage in the face at the end of round five, just when you were about to win.
Oh my god, he did it!
Oh my God!
Dude
You [UNKNOWN] face.
What a monster.
The Rainbow Six Siege beta that we previewed last week was made up of these moments.
Siege is a tough, tactical game with wiley AI and even wilier human opponents.
Where a capable communicating team must plan and execute and adapt or pretty much get their **** handed to them.
What we saw in this build of siege were new operators, attackers, Blitz, IQ, and Fuze.
And defenders, Doc, Bandit, and Jager.
Note some people have already seen Doc.
Two new maps, Consulate and Harritford base.
Hosted rounds of TDM Bomb, TDM Hostage, TDM Secure Area, and PVE Disarm Bomb and Terrorist Hunt Classic.
Yes, devs have dropped the tarot hunt slaying, probably because they were getting too many tarot card SEO hits.
My overall impression of the operators were that many of their gadgets aren't as useful as the original roster in PVP but rather seemed designed for the new PVE modes.
For example, Jaeger's active defense device that stops incoming grenades would actually hurt you in PVP, where getting the enemy team to frag the hostage is a legit winning strategy.
But in the PVE disarm bomb mode, where waves of enemy AI breach a room you're defending, could be the key to stopping enemy grenades from overwhelming your fire team.
My favorite new operator ended up being Blitz, who's flash shield is essentially an on demand flashbang grenade, akin to how Sledge has a permanent breaching ability with his hammer.
When it comes to modes, Vegas fans ask and to be delivered with Terrorist Hunt Classic.
Unlike disarm bomb, the new PVE mode has no side objectives and teams go full 'Merica on a building full of white masked bad guys.
It was this mode that the enemy AI showed their prowess by free roaming the map, even flanking outside the building to pick off repelling operators.
Stay right there.
[CROSSTALK]
Take cover.
Three, two, one.
[SOUND]
Sharp old bugger.
Nice job, nice job.
When it came to gunplay, the weapons of Siege still feel a little too friendly for a tactical shooter.
The ability of those carrying shields to rapidly hip fire pistols in particular felt wrong.
Shotguns, on the other hand, were the stand-out of this build by not falling victim to the typical video game trope And delivering stopping power at decent range as a shotgun should.
Not to mention punching sweet beaky boo holes in the walls.
XSeed still needs to balance weapons a little to discourage run again tactics that could ruin its tactical aspects.
That's what a beta is for.
Our team coach kept choosing IQ solely for her weapon, and at the end of a three hour session, despite having wiped out the opposing team several times by herself, hadn't cracked her electronics detector gadget.
At the end of the day, I had a great time with the siege beta.
There's nothing quite like coming up with a plan on the fly and getting all the moving parts to work.
Each round felt like a small game of shooter chess.
The catch is that communication relies largely on people talking.
A new evolved style spotting mechanic, great directional sound, and the ability for dead friendlies to use surveillance cameras to spot enemies have all reduced the need for chatting.
But any team that's talking will probably win.
Talking and planning with a team is both Siege's greatest, and potentially greatest weakness.
I for one will not be reaching for the usual mute all button, that is necessary to tolerate playing so many other multiplayer shooter.
We'll see what the causal game is like, when the beta drops on September 24th.
For ongoing coverage of Rainbow 6 Siege, stay tuned to Gamespot.com.
Good work.
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