Rainbow Six Siege review: Impressive multiplayer but series may have dumbed down

Series was always known as the smarter big brother to the likes of Call of Duty, but it now bears a lot of similarities

(Ubisoft)

For me, the Rainbow Six series of games was always the smarter, thinking man's shooter to the all-out, eye-bleeding brilliance of the Call of Duty series.

The John McClane of the first Die Hard film to the superhuman John McClane of recent installments.

Rainbow Six Seige still remains smarter than it's rivals, but it has still had to dumb down a bit.

Siege is impressive and a lot of fun to play, the mechanics and physics are impressive, it looks and sounds great.

Rather than the spray-and-pray madness of COD, you can't quite go in all all-guns blazing as there is still no respawning and no health regeneration - without armour you can probably afford to take three or four bullets before death - but you can certainly afford to run and gun much more than you would have done in versions past. It's still remains the most realistic shooter on the market, however.

Everything is destructible, meaning you can't just camp behind a wall for fear of someone shooting, or blowing a hole, right through it and the action is intense and responsive.

There are familiar game modes that give you a short time to diffuse a bomb, rescue a hostage or keep an area secure from your enemy. The game, like so many other modern shooters, is geared up for online play and it is brilliant carnage.

Unlike other games where you are mostly in it for yourself, the five-on-five and 10-on-10 game modes take more strategy and teamwork to achieve success than rival games. It's handy to work out who in your squad will carry what - someone should take medical supplies, maybe a shield is necessary if you are the attacking team. Do you sit and defend your space or set traps for unwitting enemies? Is attack really the best form of defence?

These are all things you are forced to think about and it's very addictive when playing with friends or a like-minded group. It'll keep you coming back for more, even if the the 12 maps are a pretty standard mix of military facilities and terrorist hideouts. In my limited time playing it was hard to guage how long it will take to level up and open new weapons, but so far, so good.

It's offline where the game really suffers and has deviated from its previous success. There is no campaign mode, no overarching storyline. Just a set of 10 'situations' (plus a bonus) that really act as an extended tutorial for success online. It's the thing that prevents me handing out a five-star review.

It's a big disappointment, but the online mode is truly excellent and good enough to make this a must-have for fans of shooters.

With the series just coming back onto the market after years away it's understandable, although it feels like the developers have followed the COD and Battlefield blueprint a little too much.