Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3

""Tom Clancy's Pro Door Opener 2007""

All right before we get into the review understand that I will rate the game based on these three categories: presentation, graphics, sound, story, game play and re-playability.

Presentation Score: 9
The game has some really cool things in it. You will be hooked right from the opening movie, which, in my opinion, is the best video game opening I have ever seen. The menus are all pretty easy to use and you can find every thing that you're looking for. Although to change a setting you have to press X instead of A which can get a little confusing. The backgrounds for the menus are also pretty cool. Even when loading the game, which is about half of the day, it tells you some cool information about the gun that you're using or about other things related to the game.

Graphics Score: 9
These graphics are amazing. Everything is extremely detailed and looks nice. Although there are some grainy textures here and there, but aside from that the game looks wonderful. The cut scenes are really well done, especially the opening one. But, peoples faces do look a little weird from time to time, especially during the high-res CGI cut scenes. The lighting was done extremely well. It created a very good ambiance effect that really submerged you into the game. The graphics are kind of gritty where they should be, like in sewers and are really clean where they should be, like in an office building or a house. Overall the graphics are amazing and will really submerge you into the experience.

Sound Score: 10
Wow. Just wow. The sound in this game is amazing. Every gun you use sounds different. You can hear birds chirping when you're out side. In one level, where there is a large party going on in New Orleans, you can hear fire works going off every so often. Now the sound effects aren't the only thing that stands out in the sound department. The music is also really well done. For example. When one of your team-mates dies, the kind of sad music starts playing. But also in the tense shoot out situations there is some very nicely done music for that too. The music like the graphics is also some thing that will really get you into the game.

Story Score: 8
While nothing too special, the story did get the Tom Clancy seal of approval. So it's not bad. Basically its about oil, the U.S.A. and terrorism. Thats all I can really say with out giving away too much of the plot.

Game Play Score: 8.5
This is the big thing in games. It make or break a game. The game play in this game does not disappoint. You are Ding Chavez, the leader of Rainbow Six, kind of makes you wonder what happened to the other five. Anyway, you lead an elite squad of 3 people and your self. You take into combat, Eddy Price, Dieter Weber and Louise something or other. British, German and French respectively. You play the American. I was disappointed not to see a Canadian guy in there considering the game is from Ubi-Soft Montreal. This game revolves around doors and how you open them. You could just open it run in and shoot every body. But if you're not careful you will end up dead. You can tell your team to open it then throw in a flash-bang grenade to stun any body withing a certain radius then storm into the room and take out the terrorists while they don't know what's happening. You can tell them to throw a regular gernade in, or breach the room. Which kills pretty much anybody behind the door. Now, you tell your team to move just by pressing A, they will tell you weather they can move to that spot by saying roger or moving out. But if they cant go there for some reason they will tell you they cant. You can easily change your gun or weapons just by holding down L and pressing a direction. Or tapping L to switch between your back up gun and your main gun. Movement will take you a while to get used to unless you play Halo. You move forward and backwards with the control stick, and strafe left and right with the control stick. You look with the C-Stick. There are three modes of vision, there's normal, night-vision and thermal-vision. You don't really need to use them too often but they can come in handy in a tight situation. There are 15 missions, they probably wont take you long to do, maybe a week, on easy. There are a variety of weapons to choose from, but its usually better to just use what they give you. For example if you take a big machine gun into a level you might end up having to snipe somebody or lots of people which can be hard with a machine gun. Another thing about this game is that you can only tell the team to move as a whole, you can't tell one guy to stay behind and take out anybody that tries to ambush you from behind. You move as one. Oh, and within the mission there are 2 half-mission stealth stuff. Which is very annoying because you're stuck in the first person and you're like Sam Fisher or Solid Snake where you can climb around and stuff. But other than that there is a pretty solid engine behind the game.

Re-Playability Score: 8
While not having on-line like the X-Box version. This game does offer a split screen mode where you can do any campaign mission that you have unlocked on the way. But there is no death match mode or anything else. There are three levels of difficulty. Recruit, being very easy, Veteran which is a major step up and Elite which I am scared to play.

Verdict
8.5 Rounded up to a 9
While this game isn't for every one it is still a very fun game to play that you will be playing for weeks. The pros far out weigh the cons of this game. But as always unless you like games like this rent it before you buy it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/27/04