'Command, we have a hostage situation - send in Rainbow
team.' Those are words that Command would hate to hear
most - and which would definitely NOT make someone's day -
on the other hand, those words are what brings you Rainbow 6,
the all-new first-person 3D shooter for thinking people. What
does that mean? For one, that means that you need to plan
attacks before you storm in, as one shot takes you out, like in
real life - not like those lame rockets in Quake of which you
could eat one and still be alive to grab a medikit powerup,
recover fully, and fight on. But in any case, this is a bit rushed -
so read on for more info.
This is the second game of this style, the first being the
much-touted Spec Ops. As a matter of fact... this is actually the
THIRD game like that, the first one being Hostages, made by Infogrames
back in 1990 or so (thanks to all those who sent me info on the company). The
point of the game is, given a hostage situation, to free as many
hostages as you can (read: usually all) with as little casualties
as possible, both on the civilian and on the Rainbow 6 team
side (but, mind you, not on the terrorist side - you can have a
blastfest at those). This is achieved through VERY extensive
mission briefings, and, what is very unique and appealing
about this game, through very concise and detailed planning of
every mission. Concise in this case means you do everything -
pick the team members, pick the weapons, equipment, and,
which is very cool, you actually plan out the paths for your
teams to follow as they infiltrate the enemy installation. You
can, of course, let the computer use a pre-defined mission
profile - but it's definitely a LOT more fun doing it manually.
For instance, in one of the missions you have to infiltrate an oil
rig captured by some insane environmentalists who threaten to
blow it up if their demands are not met. The key to a swift
attack here is stealth - so you would pick a team that is dressed
in black camouflage (of which you have many choices - urban,
desert, green, black, etc., for different environments), as well
as weapons with silencers. In fact, I haven't tried doing the
same mission with weapons without silencers - it would be
interesting to know if the game plan changes if the terrorists
KNOW they're being killed off one by one.
But not only do you plan out the missions, you also take the
role of one of the teams as the action begins. If you notice, for
example, that Advance mode isn't working out too well during
a mission, you can change orders for any of your teams and
switch them to anything you like. Moreover, if you notice a
team's between a rock and a hard place, you can hop into the
eyes of the team leader (a Guardian Angel type of thing ;)) and
take on the action yourself.
Fighting ain't done with bare hands, though (which, actually,
would be kind of neat - but anyway.) Your arsenal includes
Heckler & Koch submachine guns, as well as Beretta and H&K
handguns. However, no other brands of weapons are available, except
for the Colt - so if you want a Skorpion or a Browning - forget it. In any
case, your weapons include: the Colt M16A2, three variations
of the all-popular MP5 (with and without a silencer and a
short-barrel one), and a modified M16, which is named the
CAR-15, as well as an everpresent 12 gauge shotgun, the Benelli M1.
You also have the Beretta 9mm with/without a silencer
and a H&K .40 caliber/.45 caliber handguns, both in the
silencer and no-silencer versions. However, there's no sniper
rifle in the game, which would definitely help in some
missions... so you're stuck using a Beretta or an M16 for those.
Aside from weapons, you have other objects to inflict mayhem
and destruction upon the filthy scum of the terrorist world.
Those include frag grenades (which is the basic infantry
grenade - no explanation needed), flashbangs (which emit a
bright flash of light and confuse the enemy for a split second,
which is not much but just enough to have him eat a 5.56mm
round). You can also equip yourself with extra clips for your
weapons, or a very nifty device - the heartbeat sensor, which,
in theory, can sense a human heartbeat up to a good number
of feet away, even across walls. Why in theory? 'Cause I
couldn't figure out how it worked in practice... but what can
you do. Incidentally, a stun grenade would be sort of neat - but
I suppose the Flashbang does a decent enough job.
However, the game also has its defects. For one, it often has an
unfinished feel - for example when you come across spelling
mistakes. Spelling mistakes are understandable in a game
that's been translated from an original, non-English version
(such as FF7 - but it was actually surprisingly correct, albeit a
bit un-English sometimes). Spelling mistakes in a game
affiliated with the top boulevard literature writer in America,
Tom Clancy, are rather unexpected, and unacceptable,
however. Unless it's a regional dialect, last time I checked
'Australian' was either written as 'Australian' or, worst-case,
'Aussie'. This is the first time, however, I saw it being spelled as
'Austrailian'. Same with '12-gauge': the game firmly believes
it's '12-guage'. And other things like that. Not to mention some
other bugs, such as some clipping problems (i.e. when you
open a door and there's someone behind it - sometimes you
see part of an arm through a halfway opened door). And, since
I'm on the complaint bandwagon, why is that when I shoot
someone there's blood on his shirt sometimes, but not on the
wall he was standing right next to? Bullet theory (and, well,
practice) states that if you shoot someone in the head, the entry
hole is significantly smaller compared to the exit hole - so
where's the blood? Show me da blood! Then again, maybe the
developer (Red Storm) wanted to keep gore to a minimum...
then again, there's a Gore setting in the menu, which is set to
'On', so there SHOULD be some extra gore... anyway.
Some graphic complaints: plants, for instance, are not real 3D
objects - they're sprites. Yes, that word that we shouldn't hear
too often anymore :). And, as Rebellion mentions it, character
graphics are somewhat blocky. In general, though, graphics
are fairly decent, and, given the wide choice of games of this
genre, that is, the lack of one, they're arguable the best ones of
this category.
The AI in the game is fairly decent - so, for instance, when you
tell your teams to execute a sequence, they don't miserably
and pathetically bomb the operation 'cause the computer can't
figure out how to go around a column in the middle of a hall
done for a Wagner opera. However, I find the members of the
team you control stay MUCH too close to the leader (i.e. the
person you control) - which can be anywhere from a nuisance
to downright dangerous. Example? If you see a terrorist in a
hallway, exchange fire, then dodge _forward_ for cover, your
teammate tends to get shot, since he follows you across the
open-fire zone. Not cool. Also, if you edge into a room, you
tend to have to PUSH your teammate out of it to get out, as he
seems to like getting stuck in doorways... and, if you got 3 team
members and you're at a dead end of a narrow hallway... then
you're VERY screwed.
Last issue to mention is control. You have 3 modes of
displacing yourself, those being stealth move, regular walk and
run. You can turn and strafe, as well - however, once you play
it for a bit you might find that the controls are a slight bit
sluggish - perhaps here they should've ripped the Quake
controls, after all. Also a tad annoying is the placement -
although you can remap them easily, it would still be much
nicer to have the A,S,D,W movement controls along with the
arrow keys.
All said, however, this game is definitely one of the best to
come out in the past while, and given the utter lack of
innovation in this particular area of gaming, any new blood is
appreciated. And, even though I REALLY don't like Tom
Clancy's novels (I hate boulevard literature) and Red Storm is
mostly known for quite average titles (Politika, anyone?),
Rainbow 6 most definitely stands out. (Maybe because
there ain't much from what to stand out? Einstein's theory of
relativity's at work here :)). Definitely worth the gaming buck.
Highs: Original concept, advanced planning options, extensive
briefings, decent graphics, arsenal fairly varied
Lows: some graphic problems, some spelling problems, no
sniper rifle and some AI glitches
Overall: definitely a winner, despite the glitches. Pick it up on
short notice, or I'll blow your house up. Down I mean. You get
the idea.
Spec Ops seemed to be the "new" age of military gaming,
which brought the player into
a 3D world of task force hit-and-run and skirmish tactics. It
looked spectacular, but it
had holes in strategy, was pretty straight-forward, and was
buggy. Rainbow Six continues
this new developing genre of 3D tactical fighting and moves it
to a deeper, more complex
level. RB6 takes a first person view instead of the third person
view of Spec Ops (although
you CAN change to a third person view, I found it somewhat
hard to control). The strategy
is high and the gameplay is strong.
The graphics are superbly detailed and some levels are full
of color (level 5 is
beautifully done). They are, however, somewhat blocky. The
engine looks similar to the one
used for Jedi Knight, so they're not bad, just not as good as
what we've currently seen
coming out. It supports Direct3D and Software. I tried both and
the software looks nice but
it's a HOG, my framerate slowed to barely anything when I
tried to run it in 800x600. It
moves along nicely with the D3D at 800x600 and it supports
1024x768 but my graphics card
couldn't handle it. The levels are usually pretty big and
well-detailed. Level 3 is a
highly detailed oil rig. I spent some time just wandering
around in it and I found a break
room with some arcade machines and some PC's, next to a
kitchen that had a microwave, coffee
machine, and a refrigerator. These boys aren't your typical
Quake designers - they obviously
took a lot of pride in going the extra mile and putting extra
detail on everything. Your units
have distinguishable features, though I didn't really spend too
much time trying to figure
out who was who.
Sound is pretty well done. It's realistic enough. Silencers are
definitely silenced, you
hear a click and watch the baddie fall down. Ambient sounds
are pretty good though there
aren't a real lot of them. My favorite part was in the oil rig,
when a terrorist was walking on the
catwalks above me and I could hear his footsteps clanking on
the metal (before I capped
him). The units will acknowledge your orders and it really does
feel like you're
communicating with your teams.
The background is about a secret anti-terrorist organization
called Rainbow Six which
is established to counteract terrorist movements across the
globe. It's jointly funded by
the UN and run from a military base in the UK. You are
assigned a squad of men who are
specialized in one of the following: assault, demolitions, recon,
or electronics. Assault
are your main units for combating the terrorists while the
others are used for support.
The roster and units are similar to the setup used in Swat 2.
Each member has stats that
indicate skills such as stamina, strength, combat skills, and gun
mastery. You will get
new recruits time to time throughout the game, depending on
how well you do in a mission.
One thing that sets Rainbow Six apart from the rest of the
flock is planning. It allows you to plan out
your missions BEFORE you even get to start them. You plan out
where you want your teams to
go and what to do when they get to a certain point. It's very
detailed. The planning map
shows all levels of a given mission and where known terrorists
and project goals are. You
just need to plot how to get the job done, hopefully with the
fewest amount of casualties.
Unfortunately, this is very REAL, so you're going to lose guys,
but skill and planning will
cut down on your losses. It does give you spare guys if some
get killed but you don't want
to make a habit of mowing down the terrorists at a loss of more
than a couple of your units.
The gameplay is very realistic. Getting shot hurts, lemme tell
ya. And where you get
shot makes a difference. You do have body armor that limits
damage but a good head shot will
usually kill you. Getting shot in the leg however, usually just
wounds you, but enough shots
and you're either dead or incapacitated for the remainder of
the mission. When you take out a
hostage or one of your guys go down, you bleed from
wherever you were shot. I thought that
was a pretty nice effect, though a little gruesome. I said before,
this game is very
realistic. It might be frustrating at first when you're getting
killed right off the bat,
but once you realize it's not such a smart idea to just go
charging into that room you'll
learn better.
Each of your units can be equipped in many ways. There's
three different types of body
armor, light, medium, and heavy. Obviously heavier is better
against bullets but it slows
you down. Based on the mission, the camouflage types
change. There's about 8 or so different
patterns, from jungle camo to urban grey. You also get a
choice of weaponry to use. These
include the MP5, the M-16, and a shotgun. Sorry to all you
wannabe snipers, there's no
sniper rifle. (Each weapon DOES have zoom so I don't really
see what everyone's complaining
about). You also have a choice of three handguns with or
without a silencer. Rounding out
your armaments are flashbangs, frag grenades, door charges,
and demo and electronics kits.
Multiplayer is well done. It's very stable, I was downloading
files from the Web on my MODEM CONNECTION and I was still
able to play. Let's see another game do that. The load times
are sort of high though since, most of the game is being run
locally and the syncronization takes a little
time to work out. Multiplayer is either cooperative, free-for-all,
or teamplay. Coop places
the players against the computer running the missions in the
game. Teamplay can be set up in
quite a few ways like last team standing, stronghold (one team
gets the base the other has
to get in), free-the-hostage (CTF), or gauntlet (one team has to
make it through a course
while the other one has to stop them). It's probably best to have
someone on a decent
connection hosting, but people with modems will still be able
to play with little, if any,
lag.
This game was one of the "Best of Show" games at E3, so if
that itself is not a good
enough reason to check it out, I don't know what is. It's
detailed, intelligent, and a great
attempt to create a small arms tactical strategy. It builds upon
a relatively new genre and
combines real-time combat with high level strategy. This is one
of the first hits of the fall
so go get it and check it out. It seems to have a few minor
bugs, but they're easy to
overlook and could easily be patched.