Rainbow Six Lockdown Catacombs

Mission: Intelligence believes that a terror group called the United Fatherland Brigade that is responsible for carrying out numerous attacks throughout Europe has a hidden base within the Paris catacombs. The team orders are to locate the base and to eliminate any terrorists that are encountered. There is no reference in the briefing material provided to indicate any other condition which may impact the completion of the mission, but that is not the reality on the ground.

Backstory: The elite multinational counter-terrorism unit codenamed Rainbow Six is called into service against a worldwide terrorist threat from an organization known as the Global Liberation Front, a group that is comprised of various leftist, anarchists, and third-world organizations opposed to western civilization. Rainbow Six is tasked with tracking down GLF cells in various countries and either capturing or killing that cells leader.

Rainbow Six Lockdown is the fourth game in the Rainbow Six series and was released in February 2006 for Windows having been developed by Red Storm Entertainment. It is the first game in the series to feature advanced graphics effects and physics objects, and the first without a pre-mission planning phase.

This series of after-action reports is intended to be a higher level summary of the flow of each mission with some commentary offered under most of the screen shots provided. The game is presently available on Steam for $9.99.

Setup Phase

The Mission Setup panel indicates that the action is to take place in Paris, France on July 10^th in what appears to be an underground facility.

The Briefing Overview panel provides the backstory for the mission as provided by the onsite coordinator Alistair Stanley. Not that it directly impacts the mission at hand, but there is no indication as to how intel came across this information and how this group ties into the GLF.

The Briefing Intel panel indicates that the first map load is a relatively short sequence with an access point (2) which is a ladder dropping to the lower levels.

The second map load consists of a large open cavern area followed by some snaking hallways which lead to a subway rail line.

The third map load shows a tight fit early on and then two large open areas that will present a challenge to move through without losing troops.

Each operator is equipped with a SA58 7.62mm assault rifle with scope, a PP2K sidearm, flash bang grenades and two operators are equipped with breaching hammers. I go along with the default BDU recommendation of the desert pattern.

Action Phase

The team is deployed outside of in an industrial area as the first objective is updated to locate and eliminate the hidden base. I don’t know how to eliminate an entire base, but I can locate it and eliminate the throngs of white people I am about to face (see Post Mortem for my rant on this).

We immediately come under fire through this door opening as we approach the sole entry point off to the left.

The team is stacked on the door and ordered to rush in (the element of surprise having already been lost).

I move forward of the AI and take out a couple of tangos to reach this area which has a ladder that drops to the catacombs below.

Visibility is reduced due to the refrigeration units above as I am first down while the others follow along behind on the ladder.

There are a ton of skulls and other bones lying about the winding tunnels. While this may have looked cool on the cover of an 80’s metal album, it just felt flat and unnecessary here.

This was a false area in that the ladder could not be used and the ammunition crates were mere eye candy (there was nothing to interact with here).

I park the AI behind me because I don’t want them racing forward into a fire fight as I try to find my way (I am completely lost without having an actual in-mission map overlay capability). During this sequence the team gets mowed down while holding a hallway.

Bloody hell…

With only one teammate left at this point I take the lead keeping them close behind as I unload on every target dumb enough to reveal themselves to me.

After several minutes of looping back and forth and crossing over my incapacitated teammates I finally reach this closed gate door which has been eluding me for some time.

Yay more skulls…

After taking out several more terrorists we make it to what appears to be a command operations room that has maps, blueprints and electronics equipment. This is an area devoid of meaning as there is nothing to interact with here or discover for intelligence (there is a voiceover dialogue at the end of the mission referencing this, but it would have been better served occurring at this point of the mission).

We approach a door to clear the level and load the next map.

All is not lost though as we encounter a security camera that I can interact with to disable. This was not mentioned in the briefing and the impact on the mission is unclear at this point.

This open cavern has multiple levels and contained several tangos that I eliminated to move forward.

There were a multitude of fused doors that had to be dealt with (I did not park the AI there which is a horrible tactical location and facing in my opinion).

After moving the AI off to a covering position, I utilized the Motion Sensor and fluid door movement technique to identify and eliminate close range targets. (This is not always foolproof though as room depth is difficult to determine and there could be one or more tangos right behind these in line of sight to the door but out of range for the device).

Eventually we would make our way into the subway area through a hole blown in the wall (why this is here and whether it was ever discovered is a complete mystery given the largely inadequate briefing provided).

Here I screwed up going around a wall and walking into the visual zone of a security camera. Although I raced forward to disable it, the color went yellow then red signifying that I had been detected (however I could not tell of a discernable reaction by the terrorists).

Moving forward to the tracks I was able to take out several tangos through some tight firing lanes that helped obscure my silhouette from being targeted.

Coming back to pick up my AI baggage we are flanked by the enemy (possibly the reaction to having been detected by the security camera earlier).

We move back towards the tracks and are greeted by Bravo Team arriving on scene to secure the area. This completes the first objective and adds the next objective which is to secure the Paris subway station.

I am down to one AI teammate and am dressed in desert BDU while operating in an urban environment, so this would have been an excellent opportunity to either take over Bravo Team or opt to have them conclude the mission.

Ain’t happening jack…

Not dressed for the occasion, I proceed anyway and just begin to destroy everything in my path.

There used to be a head there.

Let the bodies hit the floor…

My last AI teammate (who I parked behind this wall) is flanked and cannot resolve a tango which I have to take out at the other end of the hall.

Summit Strike was a console expansion to complement Ghost Recon 2 and neither game was ever released for the PC.

Port debris…

The in game advertising seems to be picking up since the beginning of the game which featured mostly Advanced Warfighter and “Got Propane?” posters.

Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight Mr. Fisher.

Uh-oh…the briefing mentioned nothing about hostages.

The Motion Sensor indicates there are a couple of tangos in an elevated position above me on a balcony. The image through the glass in front of my weapon is an unarmed hostage.

A strange thing occurred here in that as soon as I moved into the open area the hostages all stood up and bolted out of the room. An even stranger thing is that the terrorists (who have fondly been collecting skulls for some time) did not fire a single shot to prevent their escape.

I advanced on the targets on the opposing balconies to clear the area which triggered the end of the mission.

Something seems amiss here as there was no prompt to rescue the hostages or order to escort them to an extraction zone (they just ran out of the room and I have no idea where they went).

After-action Report

83 tangos killed. Chavez (me) took out 75 and the relatively inept AI accounted for eight total (at the loss of the three AI operators all during times in which they were left to hold in supposedly safe areas).

Post Mortem

This was a confused mission in that there were hostages in the final phase when none were mentioned in the briefing, and there were at least two areas that were monitored by security cameras which were also not made known to the team before being deployed. The amount of skulls and other bones in the beginning phase was way overblown in my opinion for a supposed terror outfit staffed entirely of white Caucasian males.

This type of pandering to the politically correct crowd smacks of what was done in the movie adaptation of the Tom Clancy book “The Sum of All Fears” in which the main protagonists were changed from what was in the novel to a far-right wing neo-Nazi white supremacist cabal.

Are there such hate groups operating around the world? Of course there are, however I am aware of none that seek to destroy western civilization as I know it.