Rainbow Six:

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3
$19.99
I purchased this game for my new xbox... and as a 45 year old man, this game is way too hard to play. I am looking to relax and need something simple. Too many commands. I am sure the game is great but it was just too complicated for me to enjoy.

Rainbow Six
$8.99
I read this book about 7 years ago so forgive me for missing the details. Here is what I remember. This book blew me away so ferociously that the next week we went out of town and I stopped at a used bookstore and bought every hardcover Tom Clancy book they had on their shelves.

The pace, intensity, and tension were so satisfyingly crafted that I just assumed that I would be as satisfied by the rest of his work, and for the most part I have been.

This novel is about Rainbow, and international group of counter terrorist agents who are set against a group of environmentalist terrorists who see human life as the ultimate scourge on the planet and the human race must be destroyed ... i found the book to be fascinating.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2
$39.99
The two player feature of this game is amazing. Playing with AI characters can be a bit difficult and distracting trying to keep everything coordinated, but communication with a reliable friend is so much funner and easier. I just wish this game had a 4 player mode without having to go online.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield
$9.99
This review is strictly from the single player perspective.

In terms of sheer sophistication and modes of play, this game is way ahead of anything else I've played (up to now, anyway). While I'm more of a run-and-gun enthusiast, this game is impressive by any standard.

I played this in the campaign mode which consists of fifteen missions tied together by a single story line. You can play each mission with a default or customized selection of AI teammates divided into 1 to 3 squads of 1 to 4 members. Team members are picked from a pool of characters, each having a predefined mix of skills that differentiate them from one another. If a team member gets killed, you can't choose him for subsequent missions. If wounded, a character can be selected for later missions, but will still be wounded (making him slower and less effective). There are enough characters so you will not run out before you complete the game, but some of them are better than others, so it's possible to use up all the most skilled team members early in the game, leaving you with a bunch of more average type operatives for the more difficult missions later in the game (which is exactly what I did).

You can also choose how each member of the squads is equipped. There are no weapons, ammo, or medkits that you can pick up during the mission. The variety of weapons is huge and includes assault weapons, pistols, several types of grenades, and heart beat sensors and jammers. Weapons can also be equipped with special sights, scopes, silencers, and high capacity magazines. You are allowed to carry a limited number of weapons, but the heavier weapons (including any attachments) will affect your ability to aim quickly and steadily. Personally, I tended to use heavier high caliber weapons.

You can easily plan out exactly how each team will advance through a mission using a planning map before you start the mission. You can have a squad proceed to a staging area and wait for a "go" signal before proceeding further. That's great for setting up a synchronized attack on the enemy from multiple directions. There are also two default plans available for each mission. The mission plan cannot be changed during the mission, but you can modify, save, and load plans each time you restart a mission.

During game play you can jump into any character in any squad and you can command the other members of that squad to hold or follow you. You can also change the rules of engagement (assault, recon, etc), although I just left it set to assault for the entire game. You cannot command individual members of a squad. If you get killed, you can switch into another character and keep going with the mission until you finish it or all the members of all the teams are dead. You can also command everyone (all members of all teams) to hold or follow.

Mission types consist of hostage rescues, preventing terrorists from setting off a bomb, or just eliminating all the terrorists. There is one recon mission where you must complete the mission without being detected.

The AI was pretty good for an older game. Admittedly, squad members will sometimes get killed for making incredibly stupid mistakes, but sometimes they will be very good at eliminating enemies (as when clearing a room). You don't have much control over where (which direction) your teammates will focus their attention, so if you place them to cover a specific area, they might be facing the wrong way to spot an enemy intruder. Enemy AI seemed fairly advanced for 2003. An enemy might attack you and then escape the area just to attack you again somewhere else. And they are exceptional at surprising you when you don't expect it.

I thought the graphics were pretty decent for a 2003 game. The game often crashed when first going into the action mode (starting an actual mission) for the first time after starting it, but worked ok after restarting the game again. No data was ever corrupted. The game has no save capability. It only remembers what missions you've finished. This can be frustrating because missions can sometimes take 15-30 minutes depending on how cautious you are. Having to restart a mission after playing for nearly half an hour is aggravating. I played the last mission almost to the end at least eight times before I succeeded.

This games gets five stars because it is exceptionally well designed, not only when it came out in 2003, but even by today's standards. It has great replay value because of the various modes of play (lone wolf, terrorist hunter, squad action, and planned mission) and because it challenges players to better their previous performance by bringing more team members through each mission alive. This game was clearly produced to compete with the all time great tactical/squad FPS titles. There is nothing average about it. On top of all that, I paid only $2.61 for which I got about 15-20 hours of play.