Thursday, September 02, 2004
Right, so I have a bit of a Rainbow Six addiction (killing terrorists and a headset for voice comms to boot... it's like the older version of cops and robbers). They released an expansion pack of sorts for Xbox, which is good because I've been playing the original over and over and over on Xbox Live with Haneal and Muk and we need new missions to run through. I've already done four missions, so... impressions!
Don't get me wrong, I like it. It's Rainbow Six with new missions. And the AI is better, baddies run around more, take cover, throw grenades, the scripted ambushes are cooler, the settings (the Underground!) are great... but... there's also a lot wrong here. The maps are WAY too linear. Look, I know all games are linear and they need to be (you have to go from Start to Finish at some point, you know?), but this is way too transparent. You have maps set in wide-open places like a Hotel, Back Alleys and the Streets of Milan and not only are they totally linear, there isn't even any attempt to disguise the fact. Streets of Milan is a great example. It's not even CLOSE to being anything like real streets. You're stuck on a road until a predetermined point when a convenient alleyway that you can walk through pops up. You can't enter any buildings until you need to pass through one. The Hotel is another great example, because you're needlessly forced to go through this circuituous route because for some insane reason, every staircase in the entire hotel only goes up one floor at a time, and access to the next floor is provided by a staircase at the other end of the building.
The game is littered with conveniently blocked passages -- gates in the Underground, couches in the Hotel, police barricades in the streets -- but what also bothers me about them is how terrorists have the bizarre knack of popping up behind them. First, there's the leap of faith question. Those areas of the Underground/Streets were blocked off by police presumably to keep the terrorists IN. So why exactly are they shooting at me from the other side of them? And why exactly can't I go there? There are tons of places where baddies will pop up from places you don't have access to. I don't mind seeing a few guys on the roof acting as snipers, but sometimes I get the feeling that almost a third of the baddies in the level are hidden in areas I can't reach, popping out to ambush me because I simply have no way of clearing them out or preparing for them.
And that brings me on to my last little flaw: Scripted events. In case you don't get what I mean here, let's just quickly explain a scripted event. A scripted event is when you progress to a certain point in a level and trigger some form of pre-determined action, be it an ambush, bomb, etc. A scripted event IS NOT when a terrorist sees you and reacts, because he can do a whole bunch of different things when that happens: Sometimes he'll run away, sometimes he'll run to you and shoot, sometimes he'll shout and chuck a grenade, or he'll call a friend, etc. In a scripted event, the ambush happens whether you're seen or not and it unfolds in exactly the same way (the same guys go to the same positions and fire/throw the same weapons at the same time EVERY time you trigger it). Now, scripted events can be really cool when done properly, but it's totally overdone in Black Arrow. At least 5-6 times a level you'll hit a certain point and suddenly and inexplicably someone comes rushing up either from an area you thought (nay, KNEW) you'd cleared or from one of those mysterious roped-off areas.
This bothers me so much partially because I really like Black Arrow otherwise and partially because it's a change from the Rainbow Six I know and love. When I started with the first version of Rainbow Six, the maps were fairly free and open; you had a planning segment to pinpoint exactly where you'd go, when and how you'd hit it; and you had a rough idea of where the terrorists were (it's called "intel") and therefore you knew how you'd take them down and clear the area. Because that's the point here, hunting THEM down and clearing the area, not waiting for them to kindly show up so we can off them. Black Arrow almost feels like a slower, more realistic Quake/Doom/Half-Life/Counter-Strike/whatever your latest FPS squeeze is.
Still, this isn't going to stop me from playing this game non-stop on Xbox Live as soon as Haneal gets back.
Posted at 6:28 AM
