Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow Review (no fat)

Game Description

Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow is a well-crafted first person shooter with a combination of healthy team management options and good online play. The game plot revolves around Ding Chavez leader of the world's greatest anti-terror team, and lifetime member of the NRA.

A group of terrorists from the former Soviet Union have figured a way to restore the USSR to its previous glory by starting a multi-national battle between the states surrounding the Black Sea. Once the smoke clears, the Soviets plan to sweep in and take over the oil rich countries. In order to initiate their mission and to give their evil thoughts a perfect execution, they kidnap a group of rocket scientists to obtain their devastating technologies. As always, Mission of Rainbow Six team is to foil their attacks and nail them down.

Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow Gameplay

Mission campaign is very much similar to most of the FPS Terrorist games. There are 10 single-player missions termed as campaign modes, as well as 14 online multiplayer maps with varying objectives and difficulty. Also there is a new split-screen mode for offline two-player collaboration; you can tackle each single-player mission with one of your friends and two AI teammates.

During campaign mode, you take on the role of Ding Chavez, a character created by the famous Tom Clancy. You will team up with three of the elite counter terrorist squad members namely Eddie, Louis and Weber.

Effectively, the objectives of different campaigns boil down to rescuing the hostages, foiling terrorist attacks, defusing bombs at crucial locations and gunning them down. While the weapon options can be chosen from an excess of arsenal, a downside in the campaign mode is that it doesn’t allows you to choose troops of your choice and you have to play with a chosen organized team. Also the team size is limited to 4 and this thus limits the entertainment which you may get in a bigger team size.

Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow Online

There are two new online game modes namely Total Conquest, Team-Based Nirvana and Capture the Flag (minus a flag).

In Total Conquest, your goal is to capture different satellite stations that are dispersed throughout the map. Once you have captured a satellite location, you can upload information from there. When the uplink finishes, you emerge victorious.

In Capture mode, you need to get hold of a canister which contains deadly biological virus. After the can is in your possession the remaining task is to deposit at any one of the specified locations

However the game tends to lag if you don’t have a fast connection so in order to play online you must ensure a good bandwidth connection.

Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow Squads

In Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow, with the help of Xbox Live features, you can create your own squad and assign a team name, logo, tag, motto, description and even an URL for those who want to create a Web site to honor their clan. These handy features although can be found in some PC games like Counter Strike, their inclusion in Xbox has a major advantage as a new generation of online gamers is on the go.

Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow AI

Enemies in Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow have become much smarter, making the game more challenging and close to reality situations. Some cool things that enemies can do apart from normal combating is yelling out your position to their comrades once they have spotted you, planning a tactical combat rather than face to face shooting and retreating. However, in certain cases, even when you are surrounded by a crowd of terrorists, you can easily escape because of their late or no responses giving the impression as if they aren’t watching at all.

Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow Controls

The pixel-perfect and highly customizable controls combined with the vast armory make for an exhilarating experience. In this age, where most of the games are plodded with poor cameras and worse control systems, it's refreshing to pick up a gamepad and have your character do just what you tell them to do.

The game has an intuitive menu for commanding your comrades and instructions range from needing backup, to signal an area is clear to tell the exact position of the enemy. This exquisite range of commands gives a feel like you are commanding your soldiers in a real battle and that they respond you with nice accuracy which is different from many shooter games where soldiers arbitrarily follow your commands and gives sense of a random movement.

The comrades themselves respond you with proper messages and keep a tight communication regarding enemy, their present position etc. Communication most of the time is done with the help of simple commands or even by tapping dedicated buttons.

Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow Visuals

Environments in Rainbow Six are quite unique and some have very complex maps with various hideouts adding thrill and excitement to the experience. There is a huge concentration on Mediterranean and Eastern European destinations, with maps ranging from an abandoned train yard and an open-air market to a sparkling castle and labyrinthine Greek ruins.

Apart from a few more details in the character models, effects of hand grenade and smoke bombs are quite realistic with effect of smoke bombs lasting for quite long and if you are near the site of explosion then be assured to be blinded out by the flash.

Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow Audio

Sound quality in Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow is quite the highlight of the game. With detailed guns, foot-steps and general audio effects, you can even distinguish between different guns and hand grenades. As on the negative side, environmental backdrop settings have failed to get the same amount of attention in audio.

Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow Summing Up

Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow is an action packed FPS which is unique in terms of great graphics, sound and variety. To its credit, it is one of the limited games that have complete online features. FPS fans will definitely enjoy the game.

Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow Cost

Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow, for Xbox, currently retails for $17.99