Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3 isn’t your average shoot-em-up army game. Far from it; in fact, storming the buildings like a rapid response team with all guns blazing could do more harm than good.
You take on the role of Domingo ‘Ding’ Chavez, who heads up a crack squad of elite fighters. You’re dropped into some fairly sensitive situations that take you all over the world, from Venezuela to Dubrovnik. Each time the mission is different, although they are linked. For example, the first group of terrorists inspire another group to take action (even though you make sure they were unsuccessful) and there is also a concerted effort over several missions to bring down the Venezuelan oil supplies to foreign countries.
Rainbow Six 3 stands out from the crowd in this genre. Your team moves like an authentic SWAT team should; often you’ll find yourself simply watching as the team moves in to clear a room. You have several options open to you when taking command of your team. You can order the team to breach the door and clear the room. Options include: Open, frag and clear, which will grenade the room; and, open and clear, which orders the team to just storm in and shoot every enemy in sight. Alternatively, if hostages are present, you may prefer to opt for open, flash and clear – the flash will stun everyone in the room and then the team storms in to take out the enemy.
You can also command your team to act on the code word ‘zulu’, whether it is breaching a door or clearing a room.
The team is also useful for securing hostages or disarming bombs, if you are otherwise engaged.
Sometimes they cut the team down to a single operative to back up Ding. This is used for situations where a whole team wouldn’t be appropriate, like a sensitive hostage situation. It also ups the difficulty level too; if you lose your back up, there’s less chance that you will make it to the end in one piece.
The controls are quite intuitive. At the touch of a button, you can activate your night vision or thermal vision. Both come in useful for taking out the enemy, giving you an extra advantage that the lesser-equipped terrorists don’t always have. The left trigger will switch weapons for you in a flash.
One important difference between Rainbow Six and other games of this ilk is that there aren’t any medi-kits available (none that we found, anyway); you get one life with this game. At times, this can be frustrating, but in reality it makes the game far more interesting to play. You have to really think about what you want to use your squad for, and use them wisely.
On top of that, you only get three save points throughout each mission. The good thing is that you can choose them, so you can get yourself through some tough situations.
However, the missions themselves aren’t really that long, if you could play through to the end without getting killed, that is. Realistically, you won’t make it through the whole mission without losing Ding. Once you’ve been shot down, the team won’t carry on without you and it’s back to square one (or your last saved point).
Your weapons are predetermined by the game, and there isn’t any real opportunity to pick up extra weapons that your enemies drop. However, it’s also quite difficult to run out of your main ammunition; smoke and frag grenades are limited, but your machine gun has a seemingly unending supply of ammo.
It would be nice if you could control each member of the team separately if you wanted; having them act as a mindless team can get a bit tedious at times, especially when you’d appreciate the backup elsewhere.
The game is quite linear, with little opportunity to deviate from the path set. This can be a bit confining at times and marks a departure from earlier Rainbow Six games that allowed you to take different paths to ambush the terrorists.
The AI is a bit irritating at times. Although your team will move like an authentic SWAT team, the enemies aren’t as evolved. You can end up memorising their positions rather than employing real tactics as you play and replay the levels.
All in all, this is a good game. The graphics are excellent and the cut scenes (which can be skipped) are done very well. The fact that the game supports Xbox Live gives it an extra dimension, and therefore more replay value.
A great way to start out on the tactical FPS road.
Spec
Rainbow Six 3
Requirements: Xbox console
Rating 90%
Price: EUR79.99
Contact: GameStop 01-8724305
09/02/04
Ltd
