Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege is one of those rare beloved games of the past decade that didn’t need to exist when we have other shooters like Putin vs ISIS and CS:GO I guess are the biggest examples. The story is very self contained in the most out of the box way. It’s not knowing what happened, its knowing how it happened. This story will forever be in the back of my mind when playing most other games, hardly anything I have played even compares to this marvel of story telling genius, the twists and oh my, the darkest of turns, things that even the greatest writers couldn’t even make up. I don’t want to tell you too much, so before you read this, I would recommend buying this game, or at least watching some content on it, because this game really smashes the likes of Santa Girl VR and the visual indie masterpiece that is Hades. Anyway, now you have watched/played some of this gods work we can get down to business.

So we start this story in the household of the famed Bristol Family, this family were well known in the local community for being exceptionally wealthy, not only this, but also their devil of a child Winston Bristol was known as the local spoiled brat that got anything and everything he liked. Winston was sick and twisted, not in a Jeffrey Dahmer way, more in a Wants to watch people battle it out to the death for fun kind of sick and twisted. Of course little Winston rarely got to live out his dreams of watching people fight to the death, as you know, its not particularly common in the modern world, even when the Bristol Family thrived their were few fights that went to the death.

Like most things, his proper blood lust came later in life, his got his first taste for this on his 14th Birthday where he had been given 3 new nannies to teach him the way of the teen life, but of course he instantly had nefarious thoughts, eventually he started talking behind the backs of these innocent women, making them all hate each-other, then he would try to pit them against each-other. This of course wasn’t a piece of cake, he really had to say some horrible things, but he didn’t care of course, he was remorseless, this was in his nature, he finally started to get them to fight by asking them to, for a price of course. He realised from this young age that money really is everything and most will do literally anything to get their hands on some juicy cash, even beating their colleagues to death. Which is exactly what happened, 2 of the nannies managed to rupture the lung of the other, they sadly died not that far after this rough event.

Of course when the police checked the scene of this gruesome crime, they of course didn’t think it could have been the kid that did this and Winston new this would happen and managed to not only frame his very wealthy parents, but also get off Scot-free, it was the perfect crime. From here on little Winston gained control of the entire Bristol estate in which he used to manipulate more poor souls to fight it out for his general enjoyment, he was so strapped for cash, he didn’t even notice it as a proper expense. He never needed to work, he just spent all day making up new scenarios to put people into to make it more and more fun for him and difficult for the victims.

The Bristol family owned many a thing, including a large Scientific research company and a metric load of property, which is where the riches of this family originally came from. Of course Winston used his mass scientific knowledge and resources to make his fights even more interesting, one of their most interesting discoveries was, an advanced lighting system that when exposed to an open wound or even just a simple paper cut would easily heal hit within only a few seconds. This meant that he could force people to fight to the death with little to know risks, which of course kind of defeated the point, but its one of the main ways he managed to stay not caught for so long.

If this story wasn’t messed up enough, it gets worse, a lot worse. Winston managed to adopt children, still to this day, no one knows how this feat happened, although we all have an idea, usually a parent should be checked to make sure they are fit to be a parent, but everyone thinks that Winston just bribed to inspector to pass him, which yes is exceptionally unmoral, but as someone that pit people against each-other to fight to the death, this is literally nothing. He didn’t just adopt 1 or 2, he adopted an entire orphanage worth, around the 80-90 mark, remember Winston is wealthy and had no guide in this field, he also had a large house with enough rooms to easily house all these children.

So What is the next step from here, well of course train them into your own private militia, he hired in ex special forces to show these kids the ropes of fighting styles, gun play and even computer hacking in some cases. He let the different children choose what they enjoyed doing best, whether it was making traps or going stealthy and sneaking around unnoticed, he let them run wild in his house as long as followed his every move in the time that counts, the fights. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself, how would you name or even remember names for so many children. Winston was smart, he gave all his children a sort of nickname, we can call it a codename, like Echo, Frost or Glaz, just as some examples. All these kids were different ages, ethnicities and family backgrounds, none of that mattered, the only thing that mattered is how efficient they were in the battle.

I said before that the Bristol Family had a large network of property around the world, Winston used these various properties for his fights, he would usually pit up to 5 vs 5 people at once on these properties, where they would be forced to fight with various weapons, including real guns, knives and even other brutal melee weapons such as sledgehammers. People would get hurt, in some cases die, but luckily for him, he had science on his side, where he could easily wipe memories and heal wounds to a point that no one could tell or remember a difference.

I said it gets worse, we’re almost there, don’t worry, we’re almost done. Eventually Winston realised he could earn even more money from this, he found out that some of his eccentric billionaire friends also enjoyed watching people battle. So he setup a system where the children had to listen to the commands of these important people, so its as if they were in a real video game and had control of their own avatar. The children have to listen to the commands or they will be shocked, electrically. The only down time these poor children had was between matches and whilst the important people were sleeping. In which time they were either sleeping themselves or training to be better at their chosen craft.

So, I told you it was a dark tale, but this is just the beginning of what this wickedly marvellous game is about, if you want to find out more, you will have to put in the hours properly, I would say I am only about half way to knowing the real depth of this story. This is certainly one of my darker reviews so I hope I haven’t offended anyone, but I am just talking about some key points in this game. I understand its not very normal to ask to buy a game and play it before a review has even started, but this is a special case that had to be addressed.

The developers of this game clearly have their heads screwed on correctly as this game is priced fairly appropriately for what the game is, unlike some of the other gaming masterpieces I have not only witnessed but also played and reviewed (so check them out as well). I would whole heartedly recommend this game, it may have been one of the darkest tales I have ever heard and told people about, but its well worth it, as no other games gets even close to rivalling it. Next time you’re searching through amazon for some useless garbage you have convinced yourself you need, like a pocket popcorn maker, forget it and buy this game.

I’ve heard people who served say that your time in the military is what you make of it. Putin vs ISIS, one of the deepest and most realistic military combat simulators. This game is allows you to make your own fun using its vast array of conscientiously recreated military hardware and brilliant, all-embracing battlefields. It requires immense effort and patience before you can glean any amount of what you’d traditionally think of as gameplay from it.

What it offers in return is some of the best military simulator gameplay the world has ever seen, some of the positions this game puts you in makes you feel more immersed than any VR game ever could. I don’t really understand why this is game was even released to the public, it seems like it would genuinely help train the military, with the advanced tactics and large control scheme you need to know and easily use to even just move around in this game.

Now I am in no way saying this makes the game bad, in fact, the complete opposite, this game is so good because it’s hard to play, when people are looking for a Military Simulator, they are usually not looking for something like Heroes and Generals for example, a game where no one works as a team, you cannot be revived and there is no real coordination. When someone says “I am a big military simulator fan”, they’re talking about your Squads, your Armas, etc and now we have this masterpiece of a game to add on top of this.

This game specifically takes a bit of getting into, you need to be eager and determined to play this game, a bit like being in the real military, now before any current or ex solider jumps onto me, annoyed, hear me out, this game is not something you want to miss out on. I have had many a conversation with the makers of this game (Nikita) and they are some great guys, they have you back. They have meticulously gone round many an army base to get insights and inspiration from many aspiring people, which is how they have made this game feel as real as it does.

They made sure to craft this game and the situations it puts you in around real life and real people. Something I love about this game that many other similar games don’t do is that its not just multiplayer. Sometimes I want to get back and talk to many different people just to get my military sim fix. So I am very lucky to have this game now, this games single-player is eerily good, I mean seriously I have played many different and I sometimes forget I am not talking to real people. I asked the devs about this and they answered with an answer I was not expecting, if you haven’t played this game, I need to explain this to you, most military simulator games are very much based on communication and this game nails this even in single-player.

When going into a single-player session you can pick 3 different positions, Squad Member, Squad Leader or an even superior roll, each one has a completely different play-style. Lets start at the top and make our way down, when you choose what they call “The General” its basically a strategy game, you are looking at a map and can see all your different objectives and where all the friendly soldiers are. Using your voice you can order any squad leader into any location you want, then you can watch over them with your eye in the sky. Drones play a big part in this part of the game, they allow you to monitor the battleground without getting your hands dirty in the field. When you order someone to do something like push forward into their impending doom they will, but not without questions, yes the fake people in the game respond with tailored answers, when I asked 3 squads to push to their deaths, they told me its a suicide mission, I replied, forcing them to do it, I actually felt bad.

Next role, the Squad Leader, you take orders from The General and if you don’t listen to them he gets annoyed, I would say being a SL is harder than the previous as you have more voices in your head, you have the general telling you what to do, other SLs telling you off for not responding, then you have 10 squad members who’s opinion of you change depending on the time you log in. So if you are playing the game late your Squad will be constantly annoyed and second guessing you.

Now onto my favourite role, the plain old Squad Member, this is the best role if you want to sit down in the evening and play a Military game without having to deal with real people, as a squad member you just need to listen to your SL and reply with Yes Sir, or if you’re that way inclined you can ask you SL questions and the game does a very good job replying, making it seem like you are actually talking to a real human being.

I am now going to talk about something that I many other games have never even tried, at least to this detail and with the very realistic graphics that this game has.

If you took the building destruction from Red Faction Guerilla, the Squad based Communication system from Squad and the amazing gun-play and customisation from Ground Branch you get this game, add onto that the massive maps with helicopters, jets, tanks and other armoured vehicles and you get a spectacular game. It’s not all good, at the moment they only have two teams, the Iraqi Militia and Russia, I have been told this was done so they could get everything else to the detailed degree they’re at. I can respect that, as I have said I have talked with the guys over at Nikita and they say that more teams will be added very soon.

In these reviews I always talk about the story behind the main characters, or the graphical detail, today I am talking about immersion. This game has successfully made me believe I was a part of an active battlefield and that’s just in the single-player mode, when you have maps as big as these with 100 v 100 battles its insane. You really need to think about whether you want to go The General or not as it comes with a great deal of responsibility. You have to decided if you want to control 10 different people and their squads. If you do go down that route its fun, very fun in fact. Both the multiplayer and single-player parts of this game have swallowed me whole, to the point I forgot I was even looking at a 27 inch monitor using my hands to control my character, I felt a real weight when something went wrong because of me, I felt more than I ever thought I would when playing any game let alone a military simulator.

If you haven’t purchased this game yet, why not, this game is only 79p, I am not sure if its a price glitch or if Nikita are just a charitable company that want their game to be played by all, rich and poor. Speaking of “Played by all” this game can be run on anything, I have tried this on business laptops with no dedicated GPU that although running on low settings could still hold 60 fps at 1080p, which is very impressive. I have been told that the devs are working on a version for Linux and Mac OSX, so then literally everyone can play this phenomenal game.

Before I leave I want to talk about a feature of this game that every communication based game should have. Have you ever been in a game of Squad for example and someone has no mic, say no more, I have also had such experiences and it can be extremely annoying.

This game doesn’t stand for this.

When you open this game it looks through your audio devices for a microphone, then asks you to say a sentence into the mic to not only make sure it works, but also make sure you can be understood, so this also negates the times you will be interacting with people with loud static filled audio. This can deter people from playing this game, but I guess it pushes out the people that aren’t determined enough.

So what are you waiting for buy this game, next time you want a coffee from Starbucks, spend you money on steam to not only support Nikita, but also play this extraordinary game.