Rainbow six is perhaps the best first person shooter of 2007, sadly overshadowed by its rivals COD 4 and MOH: Airborne
It seems a shame then that COD 4 and the likes tend to get mentioned above R6V, admittedly COD 4 Was an amazing game and its multiplayer was top notch, i was more impressed by Rainbow's pretty much complete customization of your character, from your head gear to your camo to the customizations for each weapon.
R6V is slow starting off though, the tutorial level and the subsequent level almost put me off the game alone, this was because it was long, and the environments were uninspired, somewhere in Mexico, not the bright lights from the city of sin that were shown on the front cover.
However once you begin jetting off to various casinos and other places around a fictional Vegas, things get interesting, the compact casino's lead to some memorable fire fights and things get pretty intense when the slots machine your hiding against blows and smoulders from an enemies shotgun blast, sparks flying everywhere. The tactics in rainbow six are also top notch, contraire to previous titles, everything you do on this game is on the fly, you don't know where enemies are you don't know how many civilians are in the building, as terrorists are bombing Vegas and you don't have time to plan missions.
While I'm sure that this will be a problem for some R6 fans, who like to plan meticulously, i found that without all the planning the games didn't seem as disjointed and quite frankly i'm glad they got rid of it. However just because you don't know much about the place before you enter, doesn't mean your completely clueless once inside, a map in the top right hand corner shows enemies once they have fired at you and you get some pretty cool 'toys' to play with. Such as the snake camera, this slides under doors and lets you tag two enemies, these tagged enemies will be priorities for your ai team mates.
The other cool thing i found which was different from any other game that i had seen was the helicopter ride to each mission, this essentially serves as a part loading screen, you can choose your weapons, gear, everything you want for next level, and it really does add a sense of realism to R6, something I'm sure the developers were going for.
The AI in Rainbow six is better than in most shooters, and is on par with COD 4's AI at least, enemies flank your team, shoot blindly to try and suppress you, and throw grenades in a blind hope they will hurt you. Your supporting crew throughout the game are even better, you command them with the X button and can give them a whole range of commands such as breaching a door, using a flash bang then entering a room, or just entering a room clearing it and continuing on. A good tip introduced into R6V is instead of your team mates dying, they will end up on the floor and you have to race over to them to inject them with adrenaline, another cool feature i thought.
The storyline in Rainbow six is also comparatively better than its predecessors, gone are the plans for world domination (well almost) and gone are the cheesy main villains, instead is an intricate plot that involves you as far as FPS shooters can.
The graphics in Rainbow Six are top notch, really high quality, although like all games there are the occasional bland textures, and sometimes the game does look slightly grainy, although I'm not sure whether this is deliberate or not, the lighting is good and most of the environment surrounding you is realistic, cars blow up when shot a lot, bullet holes riddle the walls etc.
The game itself also switches to third person when you press L1 against a wall (cover) this is useful as you can see if any part of you is sticking out, it also looks extremely cool seeing Logan in great detail as the cover around him is shot to bits.
The weapons in Rainbow six, both in single player and multiplayer, handle like they should, its realistic and they are well balanced as well, it's a nice touch being able to use a variety of scopes, from a hunting rifles to a snipers scope on a regular assault rifle, giving you the feeling the gun has been tailored specifically for you.
Rainbow six's multiplayer is amazing, for want of a better word. The customisation as mentioned is limitless, and you unlock new weapons to use as you progress through the rankings, the difference between this multiplayer and COD 4 (sorry i keep comparing it to COD) is that it has a lack of perks and it also gives you all the attachments for a weapon straight away.
The multiplayers itself contains the standard array of games, deathmatch, team deathmatch, attack and defend, and a whole host of others, the maps are taken straight from the single player but edited slightly to make it more accessible for large matches.
There were only two problems i found with the multiplayer, one was that because the servers are worldwide, instead of continental, i often found that i suffered from major lag while playing on an american server, something that was antagonising me greatly, i often had to quit a game and find another.
The other problem was that you had a lot of people that spawn camped, this wasn't a problem in the larger maps, but in the smaller maps it really got frustrating as you respawned only to be shot to bits quickly, it would have been nice if ubisoft had made it so you respawn in a safe area.
Rainbow six is now only £18 on play.com and frankly is one of the best bargains you can get at the moment, its thrilling single player combined with an amazing (though sometimes frustrating) multiplayer, make it a game i can't help but recommend.