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The Tom Clancy series Rainbow Six was incredibly innovative when it first came on the scene, offering brutal realism where one shot can kill. Staged around typically close-quarter environments with terrorists spread throughout, intense strategy takes priority even over action. The latest in the series, this time made especially for the Xbox, Rainbow Six 3 adds some welcome touches, but also some regression.
The basic feel of the game remains the same in Rainbow Six 3, so those who liked the past games will enjoy it, but it will not win new fans. New to this version is slow door opening, a tool that proves invaluable in carefully clearing a room. Another feature is a thermal filter that is now available in addition to night vision, which gives you one more tool to use. Perhaps the biggest change is that you no longer plan an attack with multiple groups and act in tandem – now you have just one team. In addition, you can no longer switch between team members. If you die, you lose. This means that you must take charge as a leader, giving orders to your teammates. This is done with a simple button click or through vocal commands over the headset. The order system really is intelligent and works well, but it still somehow fails to add up to the multidimensional approach of the past games, even though you can separate from your team to provide a second angle of attack. Overall, these new features and those that return are mapped intuitively onto the Xbox controller for very straightforward controls.
The problem that comes up here is poor AI. While the terrorists aren’t the brightest, your teammates are still not capable enough, considering that they will be put upon to do much of the fighting, as they are less important than you. They sometimes show signs of talent, spotting an enemy you might not have and taking him down, but at other times, they prove too easy to ambush and get wasted. Even with the enemy and teammate AI canceling each other out, the difficulty proves too great. In the former games, easy difficulty had the guarantee that the hostage or bomb that was your objective would remain safe as long as you did not eliminate it yourself. Now, even on the lowest difficulty the terrorists are fairly quick to end your mission. The ability to have limited saves during a mission helps, but it seems a somewhat cheap remedy for a deeper problem. Like in the original, specific stealth missions interfere with the general mode of play and are uncomfortably done.
The single player campaign remains playable, helped by a well-presented storyline with cutscenes and some voiceovers. The in-game graphics are not as splendid as the cutscenes, and sometimes it is hard on the eyes trying to discern a terrorist from the surroundings, but this is realism as much as anything. The team chatter can get annoying but it can also save your life. The difficulty is the main hindrance but it proves playable.
This is where Xbox Live comes in. The online play in RS3 saves it from obscurity and makes it a solid, if not actually a great game. The usual options of co-op play or more basic terrorist hunts along with free for all and team survival matches are joined by a new “sharpshooter” mode that ignores reality and allows players to respawn. As this is one of the most played games on Xbox Live, there is no lack of games at most times of the day. The competition is extremely enjoyable as long as the games avoid significant lag, which does occasionally present a problem when too many players are in a game or when the host has a poor connection. The headset is perhaps most effectively used in multiplayer in this game. Telling teammates the location of enemies is vital, as is communicating plans on the fly so everyone is on the same page.
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It is my belief that even as online gaming grows, single player must still be made a priority. In RS3, this is not the case, as the Live play outshadows the single player value. However, everything is done sufficiently well, and the single player is deep enough that the game is worth getting for those who will utilize the online play. The difficulty of the single player and generally the talent that will be found online makes RS3 a game more fit for those with experience in first person shooters, especially realistic ones.
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