What Halo should learn from Rainbow Six

The first person shooter genre is perhaps the most used in modern gaming; it seems like every week there is a new shooter released on every console imaginable. Personally, I don’t have a problem with this. Some of my favorite games are FPS so naturally I try to play as many as I can. Developers try to mix up the FPS formula from the typical run and shoot game play and some games are very successful (BioShock comes to mind) at doing so and others not so much. Thanks to GameFly, I spent the last week playing two FPS I had yet to play, Halo 3: ODST and Rainbow Six Vegas 2. Now, I enjoyed both games but I enjoyed Rainbow Six much more than ODST and I think there are several things that the Halo universe could learn Rainbow Six.

First off, let me begin by saying I really like the Halo series. Unlike most gamers it seems, I actually enjoyed Halo 3 and I think it is a great game with many great qualities. Naturally I was excited when I heard Bungie was releasing a new Halo game that would not star the iconic Master Chief. I was excited to see the Halo universe from a different perspective. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but Halo 3: ODST, still a decent game and better than most FPS released today, left me wanting more. I beat the campaign on the Heroic difficulty on the first play through and after completing the game I had no desire to go back through and play it on the Legendary difficulty which I have done on all of the Halo games. After beating ODST, I changed games and starting playing through Rainbow Six and I immediately noticed that I was enjoying it more than ODST.

Here’s what I enjoyed about Rainbow Six and what I think Halo should learn from it:

Tactical aspect of the game – Rainbow Six is classified as a Tactical Shooter and it stands up to the classification well. There are dozens of scenarios where you must scout a room and determine the best plan of attack and in some scenarios if you don’t plan well enough, your entire team will be overrun by terrorists or the individuals you are trying to rescue will be executed. This tactical aspect of the game requires more effort than just running and gunning and adds a puzzle aspect to the game which is great.

Teamwork – Yes the Halo games have Co-op, but the Rainbow Six campaign is an AI controlled co-op that you basically control and it is very well done. This ties in with the tactical aspect of the game but it makes it very fun. There is nothing like ordering your teammates to a certain location to draw enemy fire while you sneak behind the enemy and take them out.

Equipment – I absolutely love the variety of guns, grenades, armor, clothing options, etc. in Rainbow Six. There are dozens of weapons to chose from and you can customize them even more to fit your needs by adding scopes, larger magazines, etc. Halo is severely lacking in this area. There is no customization to weapons and you are stuck with the same weapons you have been using for the last 4 games. Bungie added two new weapons for ODST, the upgraded Magnum and the Silenced SMG. While the new guns are cool, to me they were kind of pointless. It takes so much ammo to take down an armored brute that I found myself using more Covenant weapons (none of which were new) than USMC weapons.

Health System – I know a lot of us are not fans of regenerative health but I think Rainbow Six’s system is very well done; it feels almost as if you don’t have regenerative health. In other Halo games, I would run into heavy enemy fire, lob a few grenades, and run away with my tail in between my legs until my shields regenerated. In ODST your regenerative health is gone and you must use health packs to restore your health when it is low. I found myself avoiding enemy confrontations just so I didn’t need to look for a health pack. In Rainbow Six I found that most times I was taking damage I died since it didn’t take very many hits to be killed, especially on the Realistic difficulty.

There you have it. I realize the two games are completely different styles of shooters but I think the Rainbow Six Vegas series are some of the best shooters on consoles today and I think all developers working on FPS games should learn from what Ubisoft has done.

Thoughts? What are your favorite FPS games? What do you like / dislike about them?