I braved the tail end of a queue in mid-afternoon and discovered that the 50 machines running Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege made the queue go down rather quickly. Situated in the 18+ section of EGX the massive game stage let 5v5 multiplayer be broadcast and commentated to the passing masses in the hall; nothing like a little pressure.
When we got the machines we found all 5 of the teams microphones were linked together and made it apparent that team work is the key to Siege. The first match was a defending and barricading the building, while you are attempting this the enemy has the chance to send in surveillance robots to reconnaissance the area and plan their entry to the building. To defend the areas you have to throw up make shift barricades and defensive positions within the building. The most obvious option is to board up windows and force the enemy to come in one central point in the building.
When the enemy started their advance and attempted to storm the building they were greeted with myself hiding behind a door, as they walked past they were shot in the back of their skulls and their team mates breeching other parts of the building received similar fates. The first round was successful and we prepared for our attempt at breeching.
This was our turn to send in the robots and scope out the area, now the droids work very easily and stairs can be climbed by simply approaching the staircase. The enemy can see the robots; they can then destroy them to stop your attempts at learning anything more about their fortifications. I learned by the time we were making our advance that all their defences had been focused on the lower floor so I climbed a fire escape and entered the upstairs with shotgun in hand. Clearing rooms with grenades was a sound option and the time worked together to another victory. The red team had already won 2 out of 3 games so there was no pressure for the last round which was our turn to defend and resulted in a loss unfortunately.
My end conclusion for the hand on demo was an extremely impressive one, I was not expecting the mechanics to appeal to myself and yet I found myself enjoying the game and the adrenaline that accompanied it. The game does have tension in its gameplay delivery as you know you are not only trying to kill an enemy player but also having to try outwitting and outsmarting another 5 human beings. It is a great rush playing Rainbow Six and I ended up looking forward to a game that I might have disregarded before. I will be looking forward to playing more of the Beta testing when I return home.
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