Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six

• Release Date: 1999 11
• Genre: Shooter
• Style: Squad-Based Shooter
• Similar Games: Half-Life (IBM PC Compatible), Delta Force (IBM PC Compatible), Half-Life (Macintosh)

Game Description

Not all first person shooter games are created equal. Some rely on over-the-top action and gore galore. Others encourage a more methodical approach to your plan of attack. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six takes the latter approach by not only encouraging caution and stealth, but careful planning and resource allocation, as the lives of your team members and hostages are at stake if you muff the details.

In the game, you take control of a top secret, highly trained fighting force whose sole purpose is to prevent terrorism wherever it may spring up. With its multinational support and membership, the group is able to operate in areas where a specific country's involvement could have unpleasant diplomatic repercussions.

There are two main phases to Rainbow Six's game play. First comes the planning stage where you receive your orders and then recruit task force members and plan out their assaults. You'll plan out virtually everything for your various teams from who comes along to what weapons and equipment they're going to use. With the squad management comes frequent radio contact with the various squads. Careful usage of pre planned "go codes" is vital as you only directly control one of four squads yourself, and a squad standing around is a squad wasted.

Then the action phase will plop you into the mission proper. Then it's up to you and your squads to take down the terrorist threats. Missions range from simple embassy rescues to bomb diffusing missions on oilrigs. Most missions will have you seeing only limited engagements with protracted firefights. Each member of your group has their own special skills and stats which are visibly reflected in how large your controlled character's targeting reticle is. (For example, the better the shooter, the smaller the area in where the bullet might hit becomes.) Other factors, like a character's ability to handle stress, can end up making even a very cleverly laid plan unpredictable if they panic.

The Macintosh edition of Rainbow Six also includes an extra expansion pack. Players will also get the chance to have a go at new missions from the Eagle Watch mission pack. The game offers multiple modes like training, which is recommended just to get used to the one hit kill aspect of the action sequences. There are also other modes, such as multiplayer for Internet based squad fighting, and the standard mission driven single player campaign mode. It's a tactical squad based combat simulation, and it's now on the Mac.

Roots & Influences

The 3D shooter genre was mainly brought into the limelight thanks to Doom. Rainbow Six takes advantage of the 3D freedom of movement while fusing it with strategy games for a carefully controlled and yet chaotic battlefield simulation.

Review: Overall

Welcome to the post Cold War era. How history will view these times remains to be seen, but there's that ever lurking uncertainty that fuels fears that we're set to fall into the era of the fanatic. While there's the slim comfort that we're not likely to fall under the sway of a brutal dictator, there's always the threat of terrorism striking a particularly tender spot.

Tom Clancy built up his reputation as a writer in political climates like this one, and fortunately for us, it also translates well into a game environment. You take on the role of a commander of an elite secret anti-terrorism squad that scours the globe, taking down the people that no one else can. To that end, you'll find yourself employing careful information sifting, mission planning, and your quick reflexes to successfully take down whatever terrorist threat may come your way. Your strategic planning is even more important in this game than in some due to the realistic one hit kills nature of the combat.

While juggling team members and dodging bullets may seem daunting at first, controlling the game's a snap. A well thought out key configuration, which makes your job much easier, is the cornerstone of the interface. The game takes pains to strike a careful balance between combat realism and the minutiae of actually involved in such a complex and harrying situation. The other teams are simply controlled though predetermined go codes, and potentially complex operations like picking a lock or diffusing a bomb are left to a progress bar rather than forcing you to learn the intricacies of bomb disposal yourself.

The action can sometimes be on the low side as the other teams you've assigned tasks to will sweep through their predetermined paths with cool efficiency most of the time. With the tension of having to be constantly alert so that an unseen terrorist doesn't get the opportunity to put a bullet into your brain, however, you'll find yourself plenty tense by the time a mission's over. Enemy encounters tend to be resolved almost before they begin as whoever shoots first has a distinct tactical advantage over the newly dead man. With some careful reconnaissance, terrorists usually will go down without much trouble, but the AI can set up some nasty crossfire situations if you're not careful. Although dying won't end your mission, you'll lose a solid team member and have to rely on less useful generic characters after that mission. The post mission material can be interesting as well since you're given the opportunity to page though the news wires and read of your exploits after they've been tossed through a gaggle of wily spin doctors.

Your tour of duty will take you all over the world. You'll get to see the jungles of Africa, the jungles of South America, mid ocean oil refineries, amusement parks, and with the benefit of the Eagle Watch expansion pack, you'll be able to tour real world locations like a Russian space shuttle development base. All of the levels are rendered with careful attention to detail, and even small things like bullet damage will be reflected in an area's condition after a heavy firefight. The far off draw distance is also useful, as you'll be able to see your enemies well before you're dropped into a hornet's nest. The character models and enemies are all nicely fleshed out with a goodly amount of polygons, and they'll react realistically to a wound.

Any given mission's drama is further enhanced by the action movie-style sound track. Thundering drums backed by an orchestra definitely makes you feel you've taken the part of some kind of larger than life movie hero type (even if your avatar does get gunned down a few times over the course of a mission.) It's further enhanced by the real-time team reports that filter in over the radio, and the chillingly efficient crack of the mostly silenced gunfire interspersed with a fragmentation grenade's explosion or two.

In all, here lies a game that fuses real-time strategy with high caliber action without having to resort to pitting you alone against insurmountable odds or making you into some kind of supernatural killing machine. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six encourages stealth, fosters planning, and emphasizes the downsides to charging into a pitched battle without making it impossible to handle. If you can spare the time, this game can be very rewarding.

Review: Enjoyment

There's a lot to do in this game. Creating an effective plan is almost as enjoyable as getting your hands dirty.

Review: Graphics

Nice level detail and variety to keep your eyes busy. Good looking character models and animation help considerably as well.

Review: Sound

Very atmopsheric and dramatic soundtrack helps support the action as does the good use of voice acting and sound effects.

Review: Replay Value

There are plenty of missions and ways to solve them. There's also the attraction of the multiplayer mode and the included expansion pack.

Review: Documentation

It's a well written and very detailed manual. Be sure to read it a few times. You won't regret it.

Production Credits