4/5 ★ – fez219's review of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege.

Pretty fun multiplayer game with a good core and deep mechanics, but held back by annoying, not-fun concessions to those who whine about the meta. I really enjoyed learning some of the classes and strategizing with my buds. Fun choices for abilities, along with cool ideas like cameras to help every player participate even after death, made the game feel fresh and fun. The always-updating operator list is cool too, although the pricing feels a bit predatory. The shooting fundamentals are perfectly serviceable, and the core of the game is great! But that core is sabotoged by poor development decisions. I think pick and ban is a terrible idea that caters to a vocal competitive minority and needlessly bogs play time down with minutes of menus for zero good reason. I'd rather just get in and play. If people are upset about their operators getting neutralized, learn to play others or counter weaknesses better. I feel that pick and ban is an incredibly lame choice that serves little strategic purpose and punishes most players by wasting their time. That said, I don't feel that bad for those who "main" operators; learn to play more than one character, don't be a loser. Something that shocked me was then seeing how many players actively justify and defend pick and ban? Which is just ridiculous. They frame it as fun strategic gameplay that adds a layer to the game not in other competitive games — which I find laughable. It's a choice by the devs to slap a band aid over the actual problem of unbalanced operators. It's simply not a fun mechanic, and not one I want to see other games pick up. Like imagine a fighting game or Overwatch doing pick and ban? No thank you, please stay the hell away with these regressive solutions to balance issues that just make the game worse. Friendly fire griefing is really bad, and the game's banning mechanics don't stop bad players from ruining games. They in fact sometimes lead to unwarranted bans when you’re not at fault (I.e. clueless teammate runs in the middle of a firefight, you get punished). There's also some strange mechanics and meta stuff that just doesn't make sense. For example, different characters have better armor, but it doesn't matter because health is low and headshots mean instant death anyway. Still, the game's core is quite strong and does more than enough to set itself apart from other competitive shooters.