Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3

"A fun game; nothing else like it on the 'Cube."

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 is a squad-based first-person shooter that is surprisingly fun and easy to get into. If you're tired of the usual shooting games, give this a try.

Controls - 8/10 - when I purchased this game, I figured that the controls would be very complicated. Luckily I was wrong, as it is very easy to issue commands to your squad members. To send the other members to a specific spot, all you have to do is put the targeting dot where you want them to go and press A. To have them open doors, defuse bombs, ect... the same rules apply: put the dot on the door or bomb or whatever and press A. Holding down A brings up a menu for more complicated orders (I'll go into more detail about those in the gameplay section). Your character, Ding, moves stiffly (if you've ever played GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, you'll know what I'm talking about). But this rarely becomes a problem because of the slower pace of the game, and it's easy to compensate for it. There's really nothing about the controls that hinder the gameplay, but it would be nice if they were a bit more fluid.

Graphics - 6/10 - the funny thing about Rainbow Six's graphics is that they are a mixed bag: some levels look great, while others look pretty bad. If you're using night vision, the graphics have a PS1 look to them - they're that bad. The Gamecube is capable of much better graphics than this.

Sound - 5/10 - in an attempt at realism, the developers left out one aspect of sound druing the levels: music. I enjoy and notice the music in videogames, and especially the music that creates tension. The loading screens have dramatic music, but the actual levels do not have any music. The sound effects are well done, but nothing special. Guns sound realistic, and if, for example, your team is in Latin America, and they knock a door down, sometimes you can hear the terrorists inside yell "policia!" A nice touch. You also hear your character breathing heavily sometimes, or if your health is low, you hear his heart beating. But music would have really helped out.

Gameplay - 9/10 - this is where the game really shines. If, like me, you only have a Gamecube, and are looking for a first-person shooter with more strategy than the typical shoot 'em up, this would be a great (and the only) choice. In each mission, you usually have three squad mates, but in a few levels you only have one. Using them efficiently is the key to success since a couple of hits will kill you. You can still complete the mission if all of them die, but not if you die. This means that sometimes you will have to sacrifice some of them by having them charge into a room filled with terrorists while you wait outside the room in safety. Luckily, though, your squad mates are very good shots, and can clear a room fairly easily. If some of them die and you still complete the mission, they will all be back for the next mission.

Issuing orders to them is easy, and if you want to do more complicated attacks, they're easy to set up. Sometimes larger rooms will have two entrances. You can send your squad mates to one door and have them wait to attack until you give the 'zulu' code (pressing Z). Then you can go to the other door give the 'zulu' code. The terrorists in the room are often distracted by the main attack, and you can sneak in and help take them out. The terrorists are not brilliant, but sometimes they'll run into the next room or hide behind an object. They are relatively poor shots, which is good because there are many small rooms in the game.

When you start a campaign, there are 15 levels that need to be completed. Once you're in the middle of a campaign you cannot go and replay the levels that you have already beaten. However, you can play a 'custom mission,' where you select levels from a list of ones that you've beaten, and then select the option to 'kill all terrorists.' This actually makes the game more fun because you can go back through a level and not have to worry about accidentally killing hostages. Indeed, then you can finally use the 'frag' option, which is, basically, cracking the door open and tossing in a grenade, and then waiting for it to go off before storming the room - that option works poorly if there's a hostage in there.

Before each mission, you also get to pick out what weapons you want to have with you. I found one gun I really like and usually stuck with that one in all the levels. Picking a sniper rifle, for example, in an all indoor level doesn't work too well. I found guns with 2x or less zoom to be the best for most of the levels. Those are just a few of the highlights of the game. The gameplay, while simple to control and issue orders, can become surprisingly deep if you want it to. After the first few missions, you might find yourself strategizing before you enter any room, which helps slow the pace of the game down. It's actually lots of fun.

Frustration factor - low - I don't usually like games where you have to constantly retry levels, but because of the set up, it's really not frustrating in this game to try a level 10 or more times. For example, typical levels will be set up like this: you start at the 'insertion' point. From there, you'll reach a point where the game will autosave. After that point, you'll reach the half-way point of the level. If you've done poorly and want to retry (like if you only have one guy left), you can. Or you can continue, and the second half of the level will load. Then there will be another autosave point, and then the end. If you die, you'll go back to the most recent save point or the half-way point. Because of this, retrying levels is not very annoying, because usually you don't have to retrace your steps very far. Yes, your character dies a lot, but you can say "hmm...so there was a terrorist behind that file cabinet and he killed me...ok, next time I'll make sure to take him out right away." But it really never got to the point of being annoying, because there was always new strategies to consider.

As a whole, Rainbow Six 3 have great replay value, It's something different, and if you like first-person shooters, check it out. I got it at Best Buy for $19.99. It's a great game at a great price!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/21/05