The Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six series can now add Lockdown to their mounting list of successes. I enjoyed this installment even more than the last. Things seem to be just getting better. The bar keeps rising. How high can it go? I guess we will have to wait and see with the next game in the series. The graphics in the game just keep getting better. I already feel like I am there looking at the real thing. The game play has always been very immersive, but now I get the feeling when I die a piece of my soul is really being separated from my self. The feed back when you are hit could just as well be a bullet tearing my flesh from my body and limbs. I know it is just a game and I will not bleed to death playing it unless I have an aneurism from the reality that I am being transformed. I could not take my eyes off the screen or even blink for fear that it would be my last breath that I was breathing at the moment. This game has really got it all!

There is maximum action, many scenarios and it takes total concentration to stay alive. The campaign has you fighting multiple scenarios to accomplish a single mission and then move on to the next mission. One must remember your life has to last the whole mission; so if you take too much damage early on, you have to go back and restart the mission until you get it right. The missions can consist of ones that have you rescuing hostages, protecting the team, eliminating a terrorist leader, completing timed missions and surviving an all out war. Rescuing the hostages is fairly straight forward. Enter the mission, find the area where the hostages are kept and eliminate all opposition. Protect the team gets a little more complicated. You are a sniper hanging from a helicopter or sitting on a precarious roof top. You must kill all opposition so your team can advance to their objective location. This is my favorite part of a mission. The sniper set up is really good; you must select target, hold your breath, aim and when the crosshairs turn red – FIRE! This must be an elephant gun that is used - Kicks like a mule. And, these are all one shot kills. Terrorist elimination is fun. You try to get to a certain location eliminating all opposition again, but they are a relentless opposition. The AI enemy will track you and move in for the kill. The timed missions have an object (like a bomb about to explode) and you must accomplish this goal before the time runs out. There is no time to lolly-gag around or even plan your moves, just move ahead fully upright and shooting anything that moves, except your team that is. The all out war takes the real skill. You must protect a zone and the AI enemy comes at you from places you cannot even believe in huge numbers in tanks, jeeps, and helicopters. By the end of the campaign a mastery of every weapon will be obtained.

You earn a score after each mission. This score depends on time, who survived, how many hits you took, how much intelligence you have found and how well you shot. The missions can be saved and redone to improve your score. Xbox live also keeps these scores if you happen to be subscribed to it. I am and have as much fun with the real people there as I do solo. Playing against or with other real humans adds a new element to the game. No two people think the same. This really adds to your skill level by beating them. You also have the chance to get into the Xbox live hall of fame. The Xbox live experience with multi-players is the ultimate test of gaming skills. The Xbox live Multiplayer even allows players to make their own operatives.

The rewards system was a bit off for my tastes. I like to improve my character traits and weaponry to make my character unique in my own way. I don’t like winning a picture of the Dev team when I have just brutally waxed an entire army of terrorists and secured the world from another global threat, unless it is autographed (suitable for framing). Although you do get new weapons and I felt as though my character and the team is getting stronger, I felt as though I was missing or forgot somethingbah at the end, but then I play it again to check. I am sure I will be glad when they make another game in a series like this. I could play it on into infinity. The real reward system for this game is just surviving the game. The replay factor is high; trying to find that ultimately high score and maybe something you missed made me play the game over and over again.

I can’t wait till the next addition to this game comes along. Since they are consistently breaking new barriers, I will always be expecting bigger and better things to come. I hope the next installment in the series will be an Xbox 360 game that takes advantage of all this system can do. These games haven’t let me down yet! Until the next Rainbow Six game comes out, I will be satisfied for many more hours with the present edition I am playing and replaying the earlier ones.