[Note: This is a repost. Here's why: First, I initially rushed and didn't take the time to polish this up. I was in a hurry to embark on my 18-hour Halo 3 extravaganza and I cut some corners. Secondly, only two people saw it. Posting it hours before Halo 3 was released was probably poor judgment. Sorry.]

Well, fuck World War II. I'm not touching that genre again. It's time to shoot evil terrorist bastards with pretty modern-day weaponry. Sadly, this game, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3, is nearly as much of a mixed bag as Frontline. Of course, I'm a tough critic and I'm rarely satisfied with anything, which is why I've lived a cold, sad life and will probably die alone, awash in my own frustration and cynicism. The point is, I probably write these reviews on bad days, so take them with a grain of salt. I'm also completely useless at any game which requires any degree of coordination and skill, which is why I never play anything remotely realistic and I generally stick to the Halo series and anything with Star Wars in the title. So, Rainbow Six...

Rainbow Six 3 is a Tom Clancy production about an elite anti-terrorist squad consisting of gay unicorns and leprechauns. No, wait, that isn't true. But couldn't Clancy have chosen a better name than "Rainbow"? I don't understand these spy novelist types. And have you seen Tom Clancy? What the hell, man? Anyway, Rainbow is a counter-terrorism operation that holds hands and picks daisies with NATO and the US. You play as squad leader Domingo "Ding" Chavez, whose team is sent to Venezuela to sort out a sneaky bugger who got himself elected President by being a sneaky bugger. Does that clear things up? No? Good.



Rainbow Six 3 is a squad-based tactical FPS, which is the succinct, technical way of saying, "You creep around with some dudes who may or may not be helpful and you shoot at bad guys, but watch your grizzled, tough-guy ass because you don't get any recharging shields, bucko." My experience with this genre is limited, as I suggested earlier. Still, I thought this game pulled it off pretty well, being equally punishing and forgiving. You get four tiny bars of health, as do your three squadmates, and you're sent into nasty situations to kill people and/or save people and/or stop things from blowing up and/or blow something up. Pretty typical, I would guess. Unlike our friend Jimmy, from Medal of Honor, Ding Chavez isn't a very good bullet sponge. Strategy is huge, and you'll need to make ample use of cover and that little "poke your head around the corner" function, which may or may not actually help. If you run into most scenarios with guns a-blazing, you will find your ass being popped by many a cap.

I have to give credit to the squad controls and AI in this game. I can't count how many confrontations I went into where I immediately sprang for cover, only to have my squadmates swiftly pick off all the "tangos" with little-to-no effort. The commands work well, provided you're not under fire. Holding down the squad command button brings up a menu with four options. While doing this, the right trigger will toggle the "zulu" version of that menu. To simplify this for the common shmuck, zulu commands tell your squad to do something, but not until you give them the signal. This is best used when preparing to enter a room with more than one door, and it works quite well. The black button on the Xbox controller also serves as a quick "regroup/stay put" toggle.

The best part of the squad controls, however, is the integration of the Xbox Live headset. Yes, you can give your squad voice commands. Perhaps I'm just a common simpleton, but this blew me away, when I utilized it. Granted, the voice commands are limited, but they work so well, I got irked whenever I had to resort to mere button pressing again. Whatever happened to this game mechanic? Why are so few Xbox games utilizing voice? I want answers! Why can't I pop in Halo 2 and vocally tell my marine buddies to stop being spastic wanks and follow me? I can't help but think that the industry dropped the ball on this one.



The graphics are decent for 2003, and you'll find yourself in some enjoyable and nice-looking locations, be it a snowy Venezuelan village or a sunny island mansion. They get the job done and don't detract from the experience. As for the difficulty, it's not impossibly challenging, though I did find my tiny, infantile brain getting frustrated at certain points. (Essentially, this would happen whenever an objective was failed miserably and without warning. Make Hulk mad.) The game does, however, make one awful, awful, almost unforgivable mistake: It contains escort missions. Anytime I have to protect some dumb, vulnerable, mentally-retarded, shitfaced baboon from vicious hailstorms of hostile gunfire, Sharpless is not a happy bunny.

So far, I have had to do this once in RS3, and I found it just slightly over my frustration limit. I had to rescue and protect someone's wife, and the woman wouldn't stop following me around, even when I ran out from cover to kill one of the many attackers that besiege you at the end of the mission. Similarly, another hostage happened to be standing on the receiving end of an RPG. That's one thing that MoH Frontline did right. There was only one real escort mission, and your escortee was practically indestructible. No more escort missions. Stop this nonsense. Hear me, video game industry?

Now, onto multiplayer. Multiplayer is pretty decent, but I had honestly never experienced "reality-based" multiplayer before. I'm used to the Halos and Goldeneyes of multiplayer, where a couple of bullets to the tender bits don't necessarily mean impending death. When I first jumped on Xbox Live, I believe I was dropped approximately 84,000 times before I got my first kill. See, in the campaign, most enemies can be dropped with 1-2 bullets anywhere on the body. In multiplayer, you get a headshot or land a lucky grenade, or else you're dead. Nothing else will suffice. Once you get the hang of that, learn the maps, and figure out which of the many guns actually work well, multiplayer can be a pretty enjoyable experience. It's definitely a tactical experience and you're forced to rely on teammates whenever possible. There's a decent learning curve, but it's not too steep.



The game also offers online co-op for up to four players, which is a lot of fun - provided you can find someone else playing. Most tend to stick to the Team Survival gametype, and will generally only play on the same 2-3 maps. There's not a lot of imagination in the RS3 online community, apparently. Like most online gaming communities, over time their numbers diminish and they become set in their ways. For what it is, though, there's still some entertainment to be found with the game on XBL.

I like Rainbow Six 3, for the most part. I don't really have the patience to become better-acquainted with it, though. Frankly, this game just makes me want a 360 to play Rainbow Six Vegas on. Still, this game has a number of positives and it doesn't completely befuddle my dumb cracker mind with its tactics and bang-you're-dead urgency. It's certainly worth a rental, or even a cheap purchase. Unless you have Vegas, in which case this isn't at all necessary. I envy you and hate you.

Incidentally, if you're wondering how I solved my problem with the clingy wife in the escort mission (wow, that sounds dirty), and I'm sure you weren't, I'll tell you: I shut her in the bathroom with my squadmate, then finished the level alone, with God Mode on. Zero tolerance for escort missions. Zero. How I roll.

Previous Out-of-Date Games:
01 Medal of Honor: Frontline