As the title suggests, why should you be playing Rainbow Six Siege?

Answer, because its brilliant.

Now I know you want more details as to the whys and wherefores of this argument, so in this article i am going to try and lay out why i think Rainbow Six Siege, is still the game to play, over 12 months since its launch.

For those of you that arent familiar with the game itself, this tactical shooter pits five players against each other across different scenarios. Hostage, Bomb, and Secure among other modes. Each round you get to pick who you are going to control from a selection of 30 operators each with their own abilities and gadgets. Each game works in a series of rounds, and you are automatically put on the side of the Attackers or Defenders. Your aim is to be the better side, its as simple as that.

We could sit here and wax lyrical about who the best operator is and why you should be playing as Fuze, but that is not the intent of this article. The mission is to try and give you a reason to play this game, and firstly we are going to start with

Realism

Now the word realism gets thrown around all the time and all for a whole manor of different reasons. With Rainbow Six Siege I believe that its the closest thing that you will come to being in a real tactical situation, unless of course you are part of a real life tactical team, in which case…carry on, good work and all that.

What makes siege realistic? Well firstly you can only pick one of the characters per team, so you can’t have a whole team being Glaz and then using his overpowered thermal scope to take out everyone without setting foot inside. Another point is the weapons, all the weapons are accurate, you don’t get made up weapons on here. If anyone has been to a shooting range and fire a few rounds using an MP5, then you know how the recoil is going to affect your shooting. It is no different in this game. Now I am aware that there is recoil in a number of games out at the moment, but on Siege you don’t have a special perk that you can equip that negates that recoil. To reduce it you have to fit a foregrip, which only reduces it slightly.

Whilst is isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, it does get frustrating when you are peeking around a corner and your face gets remodelled by someone sitting staring at you. Only to have the kill cam show you that you were essentially stood in the middle of the doorway. This gets frustrating time and time again.

So a little about the realism of the game and then lets move onto the next section that makes the game great to play. We are talking…

Audio

or sound, whichever you want to use.

This game is all about the audio, from being able to tell where the enemy is breaching, to the sounds of their heavy feet upstairs. All of the sound effects play a part in the game.

If you play this game you have to have a decent headset or surround sound system for your audio, without either of these you are just guessing where the bad guys are. Don a pair of 5.1 or even 7.1 headphones and everything becomes completely difference. For reference I use a set of Turtle Beach Stealth 520’s and these are a fantastic headset, but any decent headset will work perfectly.

Once inside your game you hear everything, if you are defending you can hear the attackers throwing their grappling hooks up onto the roof, you can hear the clomping of their soles on hardwood floors. You can even hear when they smash through windows. There are so many different elements that cause the audio to be imperative during the game.

Teamwork

Whilst the realism and the audio are definitely important to the game and the success of the game so far, the one factor that should never be missed on the game is the element of teamwork. Without a team you will find it a lot more difficult to win games on Rainbow Six Siege.

With the game only being five versus five, it doesn’t take long for your team mates to fall. If this happens, all is not lost, if you are defending and are eliminated from the round you are then placed with the ability to watch through the cameras. Now the attackers can take these cameras out as they progress through the scenario, but if they forgot to, use them to your advantage. Tagging enemies because second nature with a hold of the triangle button (PS4) you leave a mark on the screen for your team to see. Alternatively when you start a round as an attacker you are given a period of time to find the objective, and you do so in your little drone. Driving around the map you search high and low, but finally you find where the objective is, once you have done so the best thing that you can do for your team is to try and park it somewhere that isn’t going to get noticed. This way if you get eliminated during the round, and after you are reincarnated as an electrical impulse, you are able to see through these drones and give your team the drop on where the defenders are camped.

You may have noticed that we haven’t even mentioned the graphics, and in all honesty, if the game is good enough in terms of gameplay, then graphics do not matter. Rainbow Six Siege is one of those types of games. Whilst the graphics are decent enough, they aren’t the best that have ever been evident in a game. With destructible environments, the game does have particle effects done well. Blow a whole in a wall and you are gifted a cloud of dust and bits and pieces scattered on the ground. Shoot a round of bullets into an enemy and it leaves a nice claret mark on the wall behind them.

Its the three factors described above that bring Rainbow Six Siege into the realm of one of the best tactical shooters out currently. I could mention about the ongoing improvements that Ubisoft are pushing out to the game. How about the new operators and maps that are provided free of charge? There are many aspects to this game that are overlooked a lot of the time, but we keep revolving back to the REALISM, AUDIO and TEAMWORK that gives this game its huge appeal to gamer’s that prefer slower more tactical shooters, as opposed to the fast twitch shooters that consume the first person shooter genre.

For more information on Rainbow Six Siege head over Here