Rainbow Six 3 Preview

We won't be seeing a new Splinter Cell this year, but that game's developer still has an exciting, new Xbox title in store for fans of military-themed action: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3, a tactical shooter that puts you in charge of a highly trained counterterrorist unit, armed with practically every real-world weapon under the sun. Ubisoft, the game's publisher, emphasizes that Rainbow Six 3 in fact has little in common with this year's PC release, Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield. It's not just a port; instead, it's a new tactical shooter developed specifically for consoles--specifically for the Xbox, for starters, though as with Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six 3 will eventually be ported over to the PlayStation 2 and GameCube next year. However, it seems like Rainbow Six 3 is being designed expressly with the Xbox in mind.

The Rainbow Six series is credited with popularizing the now-prolific subgenre of realistic, tactical shooters. It started on the PC, and is still best known as a PC franchise, but Rainbow Six 3 for the Xbox may be just the ticket to make "Rainbow Six" a household name among console gamers, as well. The game requires no prior knowledge of the Rainbow Six fiction--it's explained right off the bat that Rainbow is an international counterterrorist unit called in to various global hotspots to take out bad guys, rescue good guys, and defuse bombs--important, covert stuff. In the game, you play as Domingo "Ding" Chavez, probably the most talented warrior in the Rainbow group. That's relative, though, as all of Ding's teammates are highly capable soldiers in their own right and will follow his orders unflinchingly and to the letter.

The game features a training mission that teaches you how to move around (you move the same way you would in Halo or any other shooter for the Xbox) and lets you try out all the different classes of weapons in a firing range. The weapon types here include pistols, submachine guns, shotguns, assault rifles, light machine guns, sniper rifles, and explosives--and, within each category, there's a significant variety to choose from. As a member of Rainbow Six, you're not going to be scavenging weapons out in the field, as you would in other first-person shooters. You'll go into a mission prepared, with whatever gear you're most comfortable with. If you know you'll be heading into urban territory, a sniper rifle and a suppressed sidearm may be just the ticket. If you're expecting a brutal close-quarters battle, a submachine gun or a shotgun may be what you need. The game models each of its numerous weapons in painstaking detail; you can either shoot them from the hip or take aim carefully, raising them to eye level. Each weapon truly has its own unique look and feel, as well as its own unique, loud, clear sound. Yet, if you're not a gun nut and can't appreciate the difference between various classes of submachine gun, you can always jump straight into a mission with Ding's default gear--it'll serve you well enough.

Being able to jump straight into a mission is one of the key differences between Rainbow Six 3 and other Rainbow Six games. Part of what distinguished the series--and kept it from appealing to fans of more action-oriented shooters--was that it required you to put together a fairly complex mission plan before diving into the action. You needed to plan your attack thoroughly before attempting to execute that plan. Rainbow Six 3 lets you plan on the fly--which perhaps isn't as realistic, but it certainly makes for a better-paced action game. In fact, Rainbow Six 3's real-time squad command system seems to work extremely well. You'll get to command your squad not just through the game's challenging single-player campaign, but also in a variety of custom missions, which will have different enemy placement and can be played through at different levels of difficulty and using different weapons.

Breach and Clear on Zulu

Issuing orders in Rainbow Six 3 is quite simple, and the game's first mission walks you through it. You can always press the black button on the Xbox controller to make your three-man squad fall in behind you--your squadmates provide covering fire, watch each other's backs, advance with you cautiously, and aim quite accurately, so you don't have to babysit them. In addition, the A button works as your context-sensitive "orders" command--depending on where you're looking when you press the A button, your squad will proceed in a logical fashion. For example, if you look into a room and press A, your squad will advance into that area. If you look at a bomb and press A, your demolitions specialist will attempt to disarm it. If you look at a terrorist who has surrendered and press A, one of your team will subdue him.

There's more to it than that, though. If you press and hold A, sometimes you'll have more than one option to choose from via an easy-to-use radial menu. For example, if you target a door in this fashion, you may order your squad to do several different things. Open, flash, and clear orders your squad to cautiously toss a flashbang grenade into the area, blinding everyone inside, before advancing into the room and clearing it of hostiles. Breach and clear places an explosive charge on the door, which may kill anyone on the other side and cause a diversion so your team can sweep in. Or, your team can simply enter and clear a room. With a little practice, you'll be issuing these types of orders quickly and easily.

The game features one more optional layer of complexity. By pressing the right trigger while using the radial "orders" menu, you can issue "zulu" commands, which are commands that will be executed on your signal. For instance, if there are two points of entry into a room, you can order your squad to breach, clear, and enter "on zulu" from one side while you storm in simultaneously from the other side. These types of tactics throw your enemies into disarray and give you just the few moments' worth of chaos necessary to bring down the bad guys.

The action itself in Rainbow Six 3 seems swift and deadly. Terrorists tend not to survive more than a couple of hits, much less a shot to the head, though for game balance reasons, you and your squad can withstand a hit or two before going down. The element of surprise seems paramount in the game, and the victor tends to be whoever has the initiative. A head-on firefight is a bad idea. Many enemies' weapons come equipped with light-amplification modules, whose blinding light may make it difficult to draw a bead on that assailant. Enemies will also attempt to use cover and will lie in ambush for any overzealous Rainbow operatives. That's why you bring your grenades along--to flush them out.

Rainbow Six 3 is a visually impressive game and will feature Xbox Live support for both competitive and cooperative play. You'll even be able to issue voice commands to your squad using the headset, though the standard A-button command system works very well. The game's brutal, tactical action, its diverse real-world locations, and its arsenal of realistic weapons make it very appealing purely as a military shooter, but the innovative command system and the Xbox Live support are what should really distinguish Rainbow Six 3 when it ships in a matter of weeks.