Review – Ready Or Not
A police sim based on the idea of a non-PVP Rainbow Six Siege is not something I thought that I would see, to be entirely honest with you. A game where you need to work as a commanding officer to bring down those who threaten chaos and the safety of people you know. That is essentially how Ready Or Not is advertised to you while looking at it online, ready for you to pick up and learn what goes into planning a full on raid of a building, whether it’s a house, a shop, or wherever else you may be led.
I was gonna do my work… then I got high.
From the off, there was a part of Ready Or Not that didn’t feel right. Your “teammates” have absolutely no intelligence to them. They do exactly as told and only as told, and that’s only if their AI can figure out how to get there. If you ask them to breach a door in a small hallway, though, you’re screwed as the AI won’t be able to figure out how to get everyone to the door in order to have someone breach it. You will also need to be careful in situations where there’s a specific person you’re told to arrest because the AI on both sides is VERY trigger-happy.
While I am aware that Ready Or Not was released originally on PC, there’s something about it releasing with a lot of the content locked behind DLC that isn’t my favourite idea. Especially when you look at some of the subjects you miss out on, like home invasions and boat jackings, as opposed to already active scenes like drug dens or convenience store holdups. I am also aware you can technically access the DLC if you join someone online who is playing it, but so far, my experience with people online is teammates that run through rigged doors, people that don’t understand friendly fire exists, and people that are even more trigger-happy than the AI, which is saying something.
We went from bong to bomb very quickly.
An interesting part of Ready Or Not, though, is the fact that your AI teammates have stress levels; in some cases, they will need to be taken off of missions to see a therapist. I know we all play games to get away from real life, but it’s an interesting touch that’s been included because it does show the real and human side to what the police deal with and will have to go through in order to do a mission effectively. Stress levels don’t really jump much when a mission goes well, but if you have two officers die on a job, then the two remaining will absolutely need a hand from the therapist, and you will need to hire some new members.
The ground is always so messy. It’s a surprise that none of my wounds are infected.
There are quite a few visual issues I have come across in Ready Or Not, including stuff that definitely isn’t meant to block an under door camera, but does, traps not showing up on the camera, even though they’re there, and… well mostly a lot of issues with using anything besides just your eyes to see things. Could this be chalked up to technology not being perfect? Sure, but I think that would be giving an out to some glitches that aren’t meant to be there.
One spot that Ready Or Not does really well is its audio. For the most part, they let the sounds of the world build the atmosphere instead of using music that could mask the sound of people walking around. The voice acting isn’t perfect, specifically your character using the same “come in” voice line regardless of what you’re reporting, but if you’re reporting “officer down”, he just starts yelling it halfway through the sentence. Another annoying part is when you arrest a suspect, they can obviously keep talking. Unfortunately, they only have a few voice lines, and most maps aren’t big enough to get out of the zone where you can hear them, so they just repeat the same things over and over again.
We’re going in loud!
Overall, I don’t think I was ready for Ready Or Not. Either that, or Ready Or Not wasn’t entirely ready to release. There are some real glaring issues that make the experience less than enjoyable, while there are significantly fewer aspects that genuinely build on making this game as good as it could be. As someone who’s generally not a fan of PVP, Ready Or Not seemed like the perfect alternative to Rainbow Six Siege X, but maybe it was not ready after all.
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Graphics: 7.5 There are definitely some graphical issues, mostly to do with using the under the door mirror and other items that aren’t just for your own eyes to see. Outside of that, it’s a decent looking game. |
Gameplay: 4.5 Ready Or Not is massively hindered by the fact that the AI is absolutely horrendous. The concept is perfect and was ready to be a ton of fun, but without a group of friends with a brain in their head, since most randoms seem to be missing that, you’re very hindered. |
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Sound: 6.0 There are some spots where the voice lines were just blended together and don’t exactly make sense. Other spots where characters only have a few lines to go between and don’t know how to shut up. The voices aren’t so much the issue, but the repetition and lazy way of blending lines is. |
Fun Factor: 4.0 When playing alone, you’re unfortunately limited to playing the game pretty much the same way the whole time. When playing with randoms, you’re pretty much stuck playing alone because randoms will run in like it’s Call of Duty. |
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Final Verdict: 5.0
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Ready Or Not is available now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
Reviewed on Xbox Series X.
A copy of Ready Or Not was provided by the publisher.
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