 |
| Oooh boy! A screenshot of the new main menu. |
Great times are here again, as you can now play the game that got me into gaming, one of my favorites of all time; except now, it's even better. Over on Mod DB, you can get Rainbow Six: Black Ops 2.0 for free! The only thing needed to install it is the equally free 7zip tool.
The mod was released last September and is a standalone installer, as in you don't need disks or the original game to play. The best part is that it includes the following original Rainbow Six games and expansions (including an exclusive Korean-only release) reproduced into their latest build of the (Black Ops v2.61) game engine:
- Rainbow Six: Eagle Watch (1999)
- Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear (1999)
- Rainbow Six: Urban Operations (2000)
- Rainbow Six: Covert Ops Essentials (2000)
- Rainbow Six: Black Thorn (2001) (including the alternative (US release) story as an activatable mod)
- Rainbow Six: Take Down – Missions in Korea (2001)
If you ain't paying attention, that's 4 games and their expansions for the price of none (beat that, Phil Swift)! But, even beyond that, this release of the game has a plethora of improvements and new features, including but nowhere near limited to:
- Further bug fixes and refinements to prevent crashing, errors, glitches, and gameplay issues.
- Graphical refinements to environments, skyboxes, lighting, and a plethora of much higher resolution textures for just about everything.
- Correction of many minor errors and inconsistencies with sounds, weapons, descriptions, and mission conditions.
- Adding new variants of existing weapons, and correcting old issues with existing weapons.
- Improved UI textures and functionality fixes for many game mechanics across the board.
From what I understand, the multiplayer features are not currently working in the current build, but it is planned to be functional in the next release, as the modders are planning to continue to work on it. I'm hoping they follow through, as it's still one of the best cooperative gaming experiences ever made.
I am so glad for this, not only for the nostalgia and literal stealing price, but because CQB tactical shooters with a slower, more methodical pace before starting the chaos is still a rare thing these days. Even more rare is a shooter with a planning phase that makes the shooter portions completely optional. The only other game similar to the original Rainbow Six concept of recent memory is the excellent Ready or Not, which is still in itself a spiritual successor to R6's only real competitor, the SWAT series of games, but that's a topic for another day.
It's nice to see the revival of the one that started the tactical shooter genre to begin with. It's also sure as hell a better gaming experience than that joke of a commie kowtowing crap game that besmirches Clancy's good name known as Rainbow Six: Siege (seriously, screw you Ubisoft). Even the little things were better then, and I still say the expansion pack Urban Operations still has the greatest intro of all time:
Even though the mod devs have promised to continue to work on it and release newer versions, I'm still of the opinion the original games are a perfect fodder for a reboot/remaster in a brand new (ie. modern) engine with a slew of modern improvements, but keeping of the old playstyle/philosophy.
With the originals, even in the mod, you can tell it's limited by the technology of the old engine and by the time/money/technological constraints of the devs (both original and the mod). Still, I won't complain about the mod release, as it still nothing short of excellent and it's certainly the next best thing. So go out and get it, it literally cost you nothing but all the time you can sink into it!
UPDATE: It appears that two days after posting this, the devs released another update with even more refinements, bugfixes, and improved textures. Nice.
No comments:
Post a Comment