Blackbird killing in the dead of night… Review

Blackbird killing in the dead of night…

Considering the flood of real-world first-person shooters over the past few years,

one can easily become jaded and doubtful that not much new can be done with the

genre as a whole. I am one of those people. No matter how many fancy guns you

throw at us, there are really only so many ways you can shoot a virtual Tango.

Front and center steps Tom Clancy’s third installment in the acclaimed Rainbow

Six series of squad-based tactical FPS shooters. Yep, Rainbow Six 3:

Raven Shield has finally been deployed and your resident trigger-happy officer

has pulled himself away just long enough to debrief the uninitiated.

Aside

from a graphics engine sweet enough to eat, Raven Shield doesn’t bring

much new to the table, yet that does not stop it from being one of the top tactical

squad-based frag-fests on the market. A few extra bells and whistles will help

lure in a new, less anal-retentive crowd without sacrificing what Rainbow

Six fans have grown to love.

The plot definitely falls under the “not much new” category. A power-hungry

fanatical terrorist faction is doing what terrorists do best; namely, scaring

the hell out of the innocent masses. In steps the Raven Shield, a collection

of hard-boiled operatives representing the highest order of elite American military

op training – or so says Uncle Sam. They are the final resort when all other

options have failed.

Your job is to equip and command up to 8 of these nail-biting bad-asses (spanning

3 squads) through 15 missions over various urban environments, ranging from

London to the Cayman Islands. Sounds simple enough, eh? Well, one-shot kills

and ill-equipped squad members can really water down your rations.

After you’ve been debriefed and have equipped your squad members with the appropriate

camo, armor and munitions, you are charged with the arduous task of mission

planning and assigning a series of waypoints and tactical actions (blowing doors,

tossing flash bangs, etc.) for your computer-controlled team members to follow.

You can only control 1 of your 8 possible squad members at a time, so you will

greatly rely on the computer to do its job. But ultimately, it’s up to you to

instruct the CPU controlled members effectively. This is where many potential

Rainbow Six fans rolled their eyes and went back to playing Counter-Strike.

It can be incredibly rewarding when planning pays off, but the task itself can

easily make or break the experience for some gamers.

The planning screen is confusing at first and again all those maps don’t help

much. But effectively having one team cover the posterior of another with suppression

fire and/or smoke grenades, for instance, can be great fun. You may also pick

from a bunch of prescribed plans that work just fine, but are significantly

less rewarding than sitting with a glass of near-beer (nearer than you think)

and meticulously studying the landscape and insertion points for appropriate

waypoint assigning.

Thankfully, your squad AI and pathfinding is up to snuff. Computer-controlled

squad members navigate through the world and negotiate objects adequately. I

occasionally found myself looking back or just watching as they moved through

the game world like a well-oiled tactical unit. Still, the underrated Hidden

& Dangerous made the whole waypoint and planning feature much easier, albeit

with fewer options and after several patches for bug fixes.

For the uninitiated, this is a tough game. The enemy A.I. is no slouch and far from ill equipped, toting all sorts of high velocity firearms in order to shred your ego like Parmesan over a pizza. The maps, icons and waypoints can seem daunting to a newbie. I suggest you hit up that beefy Training session and take notes if necessary.

However,

with your “superior” training (which also comes in the form of enemy attrition)

you must root out the nefarious, and move your squad(s) safely and effectively

through the given waypoints. If you lay waste to all enemy assailants, by some

unseen act of osmosis you will have completed all kinds of minor objectives,

which pretty much makes sense. Just don’t shoot any innocents and don’t follow

that last sentence on the few recon missions that require stealth over biblical

“judgment.”

Nearly 60 exquisitely modeled real world weapons do a great deal of assisting

in the above. Rainbow Six vets will remember that in the past (Ghost

Recon included), all you saw on screen in first-person was a targeting reticule

– no forearm, hand or gun. Phooey! Now bask in the glory of actual weapon models.

Some of the pretty munitions include fourteen sub-machine guns, sixteen assault

rifles, three shotties, twelve sniper rifles and twelve machine pistols. You

can also upgrade and customize everything with silencers, high-capacity magazines

and thermal scopes. This adds a nice variety and depth, although some weapons

are far more effective in single player than others.

But the nicely modeled artillery isn’t the only shiny bullet in the clip.

Raven Shield gracefully utilizes the new Unreal Warfare engine

to bring the series up to speed. The level of detail for the urban environments

is jaw dropping. Colors are sharp and crisp and the textures are terrific. A

ragdoll physics engine serves up some impressive death animations. Though Rainbow

Six has never been known for its graphics, Raven Shield should change

that.

The single-player campaign is a bit short and relatively linear, with the

missions resembling each other more than they should. Of course, you can always

forgo this and hop into some multiplayer, which is really the meat and potatoes

of Raven Shield. It’s pretty easy to find a game. Types include Survival/Deathmatch,

Team Survival, Bomb, Hostage Rescue, Pilot/VIP escort and the ever-welcomed

Cooperative. The endless tactical strategies and healthy camaraderie carry the

multiplayer over long distances with plenty of replay value.

There really isn’t much wind resistance preventing this Raven from taking

off. No doubt Rainbow Six fans have already hit their retailer of choice,

but the new players should consider this a great time to jump into the series.

But make sure you can play online; it’s obvious the somewhat thin single-player

campaign is simply a long Training session for multiplayer. Raven Shield

might not rewrite the genre, but it does stand tall and firm against the competition.