“I Ain’t Got Time To Bleed” Review

“I Ain’t Got Time To Bleed”

Rainbow Six was easily one of the best games that

came out last year. Combining extreme realism with near picture perfect design,

it became a complete obsession for many gamers. It was also the most intense

first person shooter to come out last year due to the fact that there were no

in-mission saves and that every bullet could be completely lethal. Rainbow

Six had a good plot as well, written by superspy novelist Tom Clancy.

Now it’s

only about 5 months later and Red Storm Entertainment, the developers of the

original Rainbow Six, have given us Mission Pack: Eagle Watch,

the first expansion pack to Rainbow Six.

Eagle Watch features 6 new multiplayer modes, 2 new extremely difficult

training scenarios, 5 new single player maps, 4 new agents, and 3 new weapons.

The only real fault is that Eagle Watch is incredibly short.

The single player maps are extremely well done. Taking place at the Buran

Space Shuttle launch site, the Taj Mahal, the British House of Parliament, the

Forbidden City in Beijing, and the United States Senate. Each map is almost

completely faithful to its real world equivalent. This includes a whole new

set of textures for each map. These new surfaces are more detailed than the

ones found in the original R6 and as such the graphics are somewhat better.

Enemy placement is superb and the entire layout of each mission objective is

extremely adept. Each one of these five missions are great fun to play. Unfortunately,

there is no connecting, cohesive plot here like there was in Rainbow Six.

The two new training courses are ‘Hunt Maps’. In these, the player is dropped

into an area with a typical weapons loadout, and must single-handedly take out

30 opponents. This requires extreme skill, luck, and an act of god to win. The

Hunt Maps are easily the most challenging R6 gameplay found in both the

expansion pack and the original game.

The multiplayer

modes add some extra interest to the already excellent R6 multiplayer.

The new modes, Assassin, Scatter, Scatter Assassin, Team Terrorist Hunt, Scatter

Team Terrorist Hunt, and Save the Base all force players into developing entirely

new group strategies and add to the longevity of the multiplayer experience.

The three new weapons: the Desert Eagle .50 Pistol, the Heckler & Koch G36K

Assault Rifle, and the Heckler & Koch G3A3 Assault Riffle are also welcome additions

to the R6 purist who loves to tweak all the little things like weapons

loadouts. The 4 new agents will also make a slight difference to those who really

get into the meat and strategy of Rainbow Six.

There is also a new “Full Watch Mode” added to the game. In this, the gamer only defines the waypoint strategy and then sits back to see if his or her skill with strategy is enough to save the day without any direct intervention.

Overall, what is offered in the expansion pack is very good. It’s just that

there is very, very little of it. We at Game Revolution typically feel that

an expansion pack should always have more bulk to it than the original game.

In this way, Eagle Watch is somewhat reminiscent of the expansion packs

to the Command & Conquer games, a few new interesting ideas, some great

levels, but not enough here to recommend it highly to anyone but the die-hard

fans. In fact, the entire expansion pack can be played through in under a day

by a reasonably skilled gamer. That sort of brevity is nearly unforgivable.

“I aint got time to bleed,” was funny as hell when Jesse Ventura (now Governor

of Minnesota) said it in the movie Predator, but those just aren’t words

to make a game by.