E3 2003: Rainbow Six III Hands On

UbiSoft's newest Tom Clancy title for Xbox - impressions from the showfloor. New screens included.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the kind folks at UbiSoft know exactly how to make people happy. With Rainbow Six III, they've taken the gameplay ethics of Ghost Recon and married them to the gee-whiz visuals of Splinter Cell. The end result, we expect, is another smash hit for Xbox.

For those who like tactical covert ops, Rainbow Six III has everything. The gameplay features signature Tom Clancy realism - one shot kills, real-world weapons, input from field experts - but brings it all home in a streamlined, console-friendly package.

Gone are the cumbersome menus from games like Ghost Recon. Now, every command or ability at your disposal can be exercised without ever leaving the action.

For example, players can direct AI teammates simply by pointing their targeting reticule to a given location. They also can marshal the troops with voice commands through the Xbox Live headset.

That's right - you can tell your teammates to bust down a door and clear a room without ever raising a finger (or, more to the point, pushing a button). We didn't get to see this element in action, but a developer said it already works perfectly 9 times out of 10.

Naturally, Rainbow Six III will feature 16-player online gaming with cooperative, deathmatch, and team deathmatch modes. The campaign involves 14-16 missions across 8 or 9 maps (the specific numbers have yet to be nailed down).

One thing is for certain, the game is going to look damn good. It already features incredible dynamic lighting, soft bodies (e.g., curtains that move realistically), crystal clear textures, and an array of special effects such as heat distortion.

Even better, many aspects of the environment are destructible. At one point in the demo, which bore an eerie resemblance to the Alcatraz ambush in the film The Rock, we were surrounded by a hail of enemy weaponry that blasted a cement wall to pieces and tore railings from their supports.

The game played rather well. Veterans from the PC might scoff at the efforts to simplify a this kind of title, but it would be hard to argue with the results. Aiming was a little twitchy, and the frame-rate hiccuped from time to time, but overall it was a smooth, polished experience.

In an Xbox Live lineup increasingly dominated by copycat first-person shooters, Rainbow Six III may have the meddle to stand out from the pack.

Tony Scinta
Staff writer, Kikizo Games