Rainbow Six: Lockdown

Like it or not, Lockdown is a significant departure from previous Rainbow Six titles. And let’s be honest: Odds are you’ll be in the “not” camp. In fact, the longer you’ve been a Rainbow Six fan, the more upset you’re going to be.

To start with, the action is more run-and-gun than ever; tactics are more of an option than a requirement. It may not be the most tactically sound idea to run into a room firing full-auto at bad guys, but it’s often perfectly effective. And the sniper segments are like playing Hogan’s Alley without the cool lightgun. As for the whole one-shot, one-kill principle? You can now heroically take a clip or so before expiring.

Incredibly, even the storyline doesn’t live up to the Clancy name. Cutscenes feature generic evil guys smoking and blowing stuff up in slow motion while Rainbow angrily looks on and the latest nu-metal rock hit blares in the background. Uwe Boll might as well have written the dialogue as it features Rainbow members valiantly promising not to let each other die – and of course they defiantly disobey orders and sacrifice themselves for the rest of the group. By the end of the campaign, it feels like such a parody that you half-expect Kim Jong Il to show up and start singing, “I’m so rone-reee!”

The sole redeeming factor of Lockdown is Persistent Elite Creation Mode, which essentially turns your multiplayer avatar into a persistent online character. You can customize his look and class (field medic, engineer, etc.), and he’ll level up as you play, unlocking new abilities. It’s damn awesome, but it’s exclusive to Live, so that means the game’s best feature is available to only 10 percent of the Xbox community.

Really, Lockdown’s not an awful game, but it’s a mediocre installment in a series where the bar – and our expectations – have been raised very high.