Rainbow 6 Siege Review

At first glance, Rainbow Six Siege appears to be an action packed shooter in which you clear out all them terrorists and then go home to be celebrated as a highest rank master shooter master after mowing down hundreds. In fact, however, the opposite is true, it is a game where you have to carefully locate the opponent and then take them out - preferably before they see you, and going in guns blazing is a great way to get yourself shot.

However, don't think of it as a simulator, or you will end up disappointed. Much of it looks like it may be, but it is still undeniably a game, and it plays like one. And of course, as it is a Ubisoft title, you will need Uplay.

Reinforcing the wall to prevent hostiles from getting through.

Now that I am 35 hours into said game, I think I know enough to write a review, though I still suck at actually playing. I don't think that will change any time soon, but even then it is entertaining. Much of R6 Siege is about understanding the maps and predicting your opponents, after all, if you can kill with just a single good shot then you want to take the shot before your opponents do. That said, there is a surprising amount of planning and tactics involved, with almost every direction a possible way to assault an objective.

Much of the level architecture is destructible. Walls, floors and furniture are all things that may not actually protect you from bullets, depending on what they are made of, and the best players are able to pinpoint locations of their opponents purely on the sound they make by just moving around. There are a lot of possibilities, and I've yet to find two rounds that played out the same, even the ones where I was new and just hid in a corner in the objective room with my gun aimed at a doorway all turned out different.

Of course, this sounds very well designed, but I don't believe it was intentionally done that way. The reason for that are the noob traps in the game, most notable of these being the tutorial telling you to breach a window with a charge and jump inside under the cover of that charge. If you somehow aren't dead the second you place the charge, thumping at the window, you will be dead from the people who are now aiming their guns at the window you just very clearly blew open. I mean, I suppose you can breach a window and jump in, yes that is very heroic looking and action filled. But it's a very bad idea in practice. The tutorials teach you the controls and that's about it. Attempting to use what it teaches you against players is a good way to die in loud but ultimately ineffective manner.

As taught by the tutorial - stand in front of a window and get shot

But then you can just ask someone to explain things. From my time playing I can say that the majority of players are friendly, and willing to help out. Many will understand if you don't know something or just suck, though there are a few who will scream at you in heavily accented, high-pitched English giving you conflicting orders to go both left and right at the same time before calling a kickvote at you because you're not doing what they wanted. Of course, this is a small minority in every online game, and they are easy enough to ignore with the knowledge that they are worse than you are. Even if you're as bad as I am, there is always someone worse. And they tend to be very vocal.

Games are 5v5 in PvP, both ranked and casual modes, 5 player team PvE, and solo PvE. I can't say much about the PvE aspect("Terrorist hunt"), as the bots are essentially just target practice and mostly good for learning the map. That said, it isn't bad, just not a challenge and very different from multiplayer.
There is plenty of variation with a fair amount of maps and lots of operators (classes, essentially) you can pick and unlock, with a customization system for your guns that seems to be mainly a preference thing, and a cosmetics system to go with it that is mostly very bright and obvious skins that I personally don't really enjoy the look of. Even then there is a lot of choice, a lot of options, and only a few options that are flat out bad.

Lying down behind a couch while my team is shooting.

Overall, Rainbow 6 Siege is a bit expensive, but if you can catch it on sale or have watched enough videos to know that you will like it then it is worth the buy. With a high skill ceiling, large amounts of variation and different mechanics from most other known FPS games makes it a worthwhile investment of both your time and your money.

Let's Play Stardew Valley: Update 1 - Opening Sequence

So, let's get into this. Note: I'm still going through the technical difficulties, including choosing a less terrible way to record stuff. Those will hopefully be fixed by next update.

Here's the game's title screen.

Here's the character creation screen. We'll go with some stand-in values for now but I'll open up a vote at the end of the update. 

 We can also choose one of five types of farms and that, unlike the other choices, actually has influence on the gameplay. I have no idea what's in any of them, though, so I'm going with the default for the intro.

 We cut to our grandpa at his deathbed (presumably).

He  throws a letter at us which we presumably catch.

  No, no, don't open it yet... have patience. Now, listen close... There will come a day when you feel crushed by the burden of modern life and your bright spirit will fade before a growing emptiness. When that happens, my boy, you'll be ready for this gift.

The "work" light is blinking.

 Here's us!

 We don't seem very happy.

 We open our desk to find that letter from our granddad inside.

 I've enclosed the deed to that place... my pride and joy: Ivanovich Farm. It's located in Stardew Valley, on the southern coast. It's the perfect place to start your new life.

This was my most precious gift of all, and now it's yours. I know you'll honor the family name, my boy. Good luck.

Love, Grandpa.

P.S. If Lewis is still alive say hi to the old guy for me, will ya?

I guess it's time to head off to Ivanovich Farm!

 

 As we exit the bus upon reaching our destination, we are greeted by a local villager.

Meet Robin. She'll be the source of our house upgrades and extra buildings throughout the game.

I'm Robin, the local carpenter. Mayor Lewis sent me here to fetch you and show you the way to your new home. He's there right now, tidying things up for your arrival. The farm's right over there, if you'll follow me.

 And follow we will.

 Here's our farm. Different farms have different layouts, so what we see is just a portion of the default one.

We  jump into the air in shock. Seems like the farm's a bit run-down after grandpa passed away.

What's the matter? Sure, it's a bit overgrown, but there's some good soil beneath that mess! With a little dedication you'll have it cleaned up in no time.



Spoiler: it'll take years.

A  man exits the house.

Meet Lewis. He's the town's mayor.

Welcome! I'm Lewis, Mayor of Pelican Town. You know, everyone's been asking about you. It's not every day that someone new moves in. It's quite a big deal!

He turns towards the house.

It's a good house... Very "rustic".

 "Crusty" might be a little more apt, though.

The mayor jumps up in anger, while Robin snickers.

Don't listen to her, Ivan. She's just trying to make you dissatisfied so that you buy one of her house upgrades.

Looks like the mayor's got it right.

Anyway, you must be tired from the long journey. You should get some rest. Tomorrow you ought to explore the town a bit and introduce yourself. The townspeople would appreciate that.



He starts to walk away.

Well... Good luck!





And that's that for the opening sequence. Next time we'll have actual control of our character. Now, in order to determine who it'll be, I'll need some reader participation. Just leave comments with your suggestions or with a +1 to another person's suggestion. Feel free to provide input on just one thing or several (or all) if you want to. Voting will be closed on Friday (December 16th) at 16:00 GMT.

The things we'll need to determine are:
- character gender
- character name
- farm name
- favourite thing
- cat or dog as pet
- farm type
Appearance I'll pick myself.

Farm type is the one actually important choice. We have the following options:
Standard farm: A simple plot of land, with a large amount of open space to design your farm.
Riverland farm: Your farm is spread across several islands and scenic riverbanks. Fish are more common here than usual.
Forest farm: The woods limit your farming space. However, the bounty of the forest is nearly at your doorstep...
Hill-top farm: Rocky terrain and a winding river make it difficult to design your farm. However, a mineral deposit provides mining opportunities.
Wilderness farm: There's plenty of good land here, but beware... at night the monsters come out.

Until next Sunday!

Let's Play Stardew Valley: Intro

So, I've decided to try my hand at a screenshot Let's Play. I didn't want to go to Something Awful or any other forums, instead trying to get cozy with the people genuinely interested in this, so I'm running it here.

What's Stardew Valley?
It's a rural life simulator game released in the beginning of this year. It is similar to, most notably, the Harvest Moon series, but has design elements that make it much more modern compared to that. One notable thing about the game is that it was developed entirely by a single person, Eric Barone AKA ConcernedApe. Chucklefish (the guys behind Starbound) handled the publishing but the rest is on him.

The game is supposed to be a simulator of a rural everyman - you farm, fish, chop trees, mine ore, slay monsters, marry one of the people in the small town you live in... there's a lot to do, and, while the game can sometimes get repetitive, it is still engaging. I'll cut out the repetitive parts for you though.

What kind of LP will this be?
This'll try to be an informative and completionist screenshot LP. I'll try to get to the bottom of every cave, find all secrets, level all skills to the max and, generally, do everything at least once. I'll also explain game mechanics along the line, possibly also adding some of my thoughts on them as a game designer.

I'm going in semi-blind - the one time I played this I only got to the mid- or mid-to-late game; I most certainly didn't do everything. I also have almost no idea of what changes were introduced in 1.1, and I expect 1.2 to come out while I'm running this LP, so that's fun.

Will there be audience participation?
Of course! I'll have votes on important stuff like who to marry, what kind of farm we'll start with and the character's name.

When to expect updates?
I'll try to stick to a weekly schedule with an update every Sunday. The first update will be this Sunday.