RETRO – After the fall of communism it seemed that the world is finally heading towards more peaceful day. However, the spread of religious – ideological fanaticism has killed such hopes. Since the different nation’s anti-terror units cannot do their job effectively because of international laws which could cause diplomatic complications, a new organization is created. This group was formed to counter the threat posed by these terrorists, and their members are the best commandos in the world.

This was the opinion of Tom Clancy novelist, and he decided to write a book about the topic. Clancy’s name is familiar to a lot of people: He wrote The Hunt for The Red October, The Sum of All Fears, and based on his game the game Politik was created.

“the mayor calmed the population: the shots that were fired from the blocked part of the city was just a training exercise….”

Those who played Special Operations on the hardest difficulty will probably just wave the tutorial away. Well after the eight death on the first mission you’ll probably reconsider and think that: I think I’ll need that training”. Rainbow Six is an immensely more complex game and has some breakneck keyboard command combinations. This is why doing the training first is imperative, as we’ll be able to try out all of the game’s conflicts. Once we feel we are ready for the training, we can go into the real combat situations.

“The government denies any existence of such organization.”

In Rainbow (the title also refers to the fact that our commando units are from all over the world), the briefing is not just a dry explanation of the mission as in most of these tactical games, but details an actual story: hostage situation, terrorist attacks by fanatic environmentalist, neo-Marxist, neo-nazis, and rebels.

If we have the patience we can read about a lot of other information: Our unit, other famous character’s bio, different background information about the missions, the organizations, and the terrorists, in fact, we can even read after mission article done by journalists. It is worth comparing the official story, with the actual events. As if someone had illusions about the manipulations of the press, well they’ll get to know the opinion of the topic from Tom Clancy.

If all of the necessary information has been read, we can select our squad members for the mission – of course with the more experienced members will be easier to control. During the selection of weapons, and other utilities it is a good idea to think what type of mission we are heading out for: If we are attempting a hostage rescue then it is unwise to go guns blazing, and a little more discretion and silence are required. The equipment for our commandos should be silenced MP5s, and pistols.

Finally, once everything is selected, we can determine how the action will unfold, where our units start from, where they should go, and how they should react. If someone would not like to mess around, we can just load up a pre-created strategy for the mission for us to follow.

“The prime minister did not comment on the outcome of the hostage situation.”

Once at the mission site, we take over the control of our team. However, all of the other teams will go and try to complete their pre-determined orders given by us. We can still influence their behavior: informing them to be more careful, or be more aggressive when encountering the enemy.

The dilemma between first and third person has been quickly decided by the game: We can choose both. The animation for the movement of our commandos was done based on real-life commandos during the motion capture sessions. One of the animators described how they had to animate how a guy gets hit with a baton. The commando guy kept saying in a macho way: Hit me harder, do not hold back!

Every location’s design is unique, and all of the levels have different texture elements, 3D effects. During the development, Clancy demanded that the game is supposed to be realistic as much as possible, and that was one of the primary targets for the creators. This means that in Rainbow Six there are no energy packs, weapon pickups, or other Quake-clone features. Here only the player can rely on himself and his teammates.

Speaking of difficulty: our team members can die of one bullet, although if we are good, enough we can do the same to our enemies, and not waste magazines of ammunition against the enemy. Also if one of our members dies during the machine, he is not replaceable, so we’ll start the next mission with one less experienced member. We cannot allow losing men between mission in this game.

“According to government officials, the terrorists probably committed ritualistic suicide.”

If we failed a mission, then we can restart it from the beginning. However, if we succeeded, we can go forward with the next one, and see how the story progresses. We do not want to give away the ending, but I can tell that Mr. Clancy has a few trick up its sleeves for this game’s story.

I am sad that as this game could have been an instant classic if they did not screw up the implementation. When I first started playing it, I was impressed and was better than Spec-Ops. The story, the gameplay, the theme was excellent.

They perfectly mimicked the political background, and it shows at some of the encounters. It is noticeable that Clancy did not just give his name to the game, but also took a huge role in creating this game.

The problems start to appear with the AI. It is annoying when my units bunch up behind me so much, that I cannot move back even a little bit. However, sometimes they get stuck in some locations, and it is a hassle to get them out of there. The enemy AI is not that different if our ally shoots a magazine into them, they do not take cover. No need to worry when an enemy falls in front of their partner, as they’ll just continue to walk away while whistling. Kinda shame how Clancy advertised this game on hyperrealism.

The graphics are okay; sometimes it is very pretty, but it is damn sure it ain’t no unreal.

Maybe I was a bit harsh, but I do enjoy this game that was created by Team Clancy (Especially after the weak Politik), but they still have to learn a thing or two.

-BadSector- (1998)

Publisher: Red Storm Entertainment

Developer: Red Storm Entertainment

Genres: FPS, tactical

Publication: 1998