Publisher: Ubi Soft
Ages: Teens & up
Parental
Advisory:
Violence
Terrorism is an ugly business and Ubi Soft's Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 brings this despicable world to virtual life. It's a compelling game that is gritty, realistic and bloody.
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 is a tactical shooter that lets gamers command an elite, four-man anti-terrorist squad. As a counter-terrorist operative, players settle tense situations with force-rescuing hostages and neutralizing bad guys. And in this game, there's no room for negotiation. The game serves lots of missions against deadly, fairly intelligent foes in locations around the world, from Europe to the United States to South America.
In the challenging single-player mode, players are given a squad of characters to command. The command interface is quite intuitive-players simply point the cursor at an object and issue a command, and the squad members offer options and perform the needed task. A fantastic addition, the game supports "zulu go-code," which lets gamers assign team-members to a task and then tell them when to execute it. This is great for entering rooms from different sides to take the enemy by surprise.
Throughout, the game stresses realism. Characters can only accept a few bullets before going down and players have to crouch and sneak up on targets. Fortunately, players are given lots of firepower and grenades. The game offers limited saves at checkpoints, which can be far apart.
The game supports Voice Command technology so players may issue orders to squads, like "Open and Frag" and "Breach and Clear." To use voice commands, players need to use a headset, such as the one used with SOCOM (Daytrum Review) or Karaoke Revolution (Daytrum Review).
A fun split-screen cooperative multi-player mode lets gamers play together without going head-to-head. Gamers can also go online to play a variety of activities. The graphics look great with first rate character animations and detailed environments and the blood flies in this violent game.
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 is a great squad-based shooter. But it's for mature gamers only.
4/14/04 www.daytrum.com Editorial Staff
