Publisher: Ubi Soft
Ages: Teens & up
Parental
Advisory:
Blood & violence
Terrorism is an ugly business and Ubi Soft's Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow brings the despicable world to virtual life. This follow-up to a popular Xbox title offers a compelling game that is gritty, realistic and bloody, and offers new missions and multi-player options.
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 new single-player campaign offers new objectives in well-executed Mediterranean and Eastern European environments.
It seems that a series of attempts to kidnap telemetry and rocket scientists pulls Team Rainbow into a precarious international situation. An international cabal of renegade military officers is trying to create a war in the oil-rich regions around the Black Sea, which, in turn, can give them an excuse to swoop in and seize control. Team Rainbow has to stop the terrorists from developing weapons of mass destruction and prevent them from starting a war.
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 feature, 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. As in the previous game, you can optionally use a headset to give voice commands to virtual team mates.
The biggest new additions lie in the game's multi-player modes. Something missing in the earlier Xbox version, the game now offers split-screen cooperative play in its single-player missions.
Lone Rush has players completing objectives with a ticking countdown clock; Total Conquest has teams battling to capture and hold designated points on a map and Retrieval asks teams to race to take possession of special objects, and defend them as they carry them back to their compounds. All are entertaining new activities. And there are some nice enhancements to the Xbox Live features that will appeal to serious online gamers.
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. As before, the game features stunning graphics. And as you would expect, the game is a violent one.
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow is among the best of the tactical shooters on the market and is well worth a look. And those who were fans of the first Xbox game will find lots to like here.
9/10/04 www.daytrum.com
Editorial Staff
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