Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Lockdown [GC]

On the PS2, players receive a different set of online features instead of the PEC mode. The new Rivalry Mode enables players to fight against mercenaries in team-based, objective-driven scenarios. The modes provide as good as experience as can be had on PS2 online using Ubisoft's online system. If your connections are good, there is at least a good few hours of online play to justify the experience. We can't help but feel that the game has gone from an extremely addictive squad shooter that took up hours of our life to a retread that fails to surpass its predecessors.

Graphics If Rainbow Six 3 and Black Arrow took the series on Xbox to the game's graphic heights, Lockdown is a step down in graphic appeal, from animations to character movement. The Rainbow team does look different. There is more detail on your outfits, and the characters show more distinct facial appearances. And you get a brand new interface on the menus and weapon screens, all topped off with a neat Metroid Prime-style visor that cracks and shatters as your health is whittled away. But when you see the team run across the floor, you have to wonder who OK'ed the motion capture for these characters? You have to wonder who stuck the extra heavy bricks in their boots to make them run like cleft-foot idiots? Who said it was OK to half-skate, half stutter across a flat, non-icy concrete surface?

If the character movement isn't clunky enough for you, the accompanying animations will hammer the point home without giving you a chance to catch your breath. At least the ragdoll physics don't disappoint. They work well to show off how dead people flail, flop, and tumble when blown across a level and hammered into a brick wall. Again, it seems for every interesting new implementation, there is at least one or more basic graphic elements that step backward. Overall, the graphics are disappointing.

Sound So, I'll skip over the point I already made about the Rainbow AI team sounding more annoying than they should be and comment on the non-voice sound effects. The long laundry list of effective sounds used in Rainbow Six Lockdown to create tension, fear, and anxiety does the job that sound effects should do. Creaky wooden planks in one missions, an abundance of flies in a weird farm room in another level, the simple ticking of a clock, all these effects break up the silence to distract and surprise gamers who are already on pins and needles.

You won't hear music for most of the levels, but atmospheric music does rise when you reach certain breaks in the action, whether it's finishing off a level, nearing strangely bloody rooms, or enter a new location.

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