Where does the Rainbow end?

By Daniel Florido

"Roger that. The Eagle has landed."

You are Ding Chavez the leader of team Rainbow, a cream-of-the-crop international squad of special operatives.

Team Rainbow travels the world in a war against terrorists, rescuing hostages, deactivating bombs and blowing stuff up. You are armed with the latest technology and trained to use the deadliest weapons.

You are responsible for the lives of your men. You tell them what to do, and they do it, they are loyal to you and trust you with their lives.

But sacrifices have to be made I tells ya! Because the life of an anti-terrorist agent is not a pretty one.

There is no time for flower smelling and long walks on the beach.... Only death. Death to your whole team. You've been warned...

There are three guys on your team. All are very fit and healthy, they enjoy working out, Schwarzenegger movies and chewing gun powder.

They all have there own distinct voices and personalities, which adds a bit of humor and charm to the game. One guy has a really chilling, husky voice and says things like "Hostile eliminated!" and "Make him pay, Ding!" which gives you the impression he is all about the action, and that perhaps he gets a lot of personal satisfaction from his work. He's funny!

Ding was a loner at high school, but now he's popping caps into evil commie pigs. Hurrah for Clancy!

The team is graphically modelled using a small number of polygons that makes them appear a little clunky.

Sacrifices had to be made to the eye candy of this game due to the amount of programming the "team" concept requires to function the way it does. Most games have one main character. This one has four. You do the math.

After playing the game a few times you get yourself into that 'Rainbow' frame of mind, where you and your team start to work together well and you can keep them alive longer. The survival of your team is very important for success in this game.

For instance, this one time "at boot camp", I actually shot one of my own guys in the head, he died.

The rest of the team yelled at me. So I blew them away too. "We do it my way!" I did not last long fending for myself and it was almost impossible to pass the level.

These days, however, my team functions like a hungry pit bull -- we bust through the door with the OPEN, FRAG and CLEAR command, take out the first bogey, take out the guy on the stairs, and then the last guy we rip to sheds with all members of the team pumping round after round into him from all directions at close range. Yeah, we rock.

I was a bit disappointed with some of the structures and settings and level design, as I feel they have all been done before. I'm tired of warehouses and chemical plants. I think the settings need more work, more characteristics In order to make each separate mission more memorable.

Back alley combat has never been so tense

And then there was the weaponry. Team Rainbow has access to a wide variety of weapons, like automatics, semi-automatics, riffles, grenade launchers, hand-held grenades, hand guns, smoke bombs, bombs that blind but don't kill, bombs thats stick to doors and then blow up the door.

The modeling and animation of the weaponry is quite realistic. The sound FX for the weapons are awesome - really dynamic, crisp and clear.

I spent a bit of time just firing at an assortment of random objects in order to hear all the different sounds that were in the game. I was so intrigued.

I have to say the quality of the sound effects, music and general audio in Rainbow Six 3 is stunning. It creates a really nice vibe to the game.

At times it's really clever and fresh, there's this scene in a prestige mansion where team Rainbow is stalking the enemy from room to room all to the backdrop of classical music. It's pretty twisted. I love it! The online aspect also lends the game a fist-full of longevity - already you can check out who's the best in the world at rainbowsix3.com.

Rainbow 6 is a definite stayer in the casual gamers new game collection. It's a real masterpiece. The more you play it, the more you crave it. And, like all classic games, you clock it then go back and do it again. Oh yeah baby, that's what I'm talking 'bout!

Game: Rainbow Six 3
System: PS2
Players: 1-multi
Online: Yes
Developer: Red Storm Entertainment
Distributor: Ubisoft

Rating: 85%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)

Rainbow Six 3 is on the shelves now.