Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six - 3 Review

Anannya Sen’s Review

The mobile conversion of the console classic of Rainbow Six 3! Nice game and decent longevity.

I have the unique position of playing Rainbow Six 3 after playing the sequel Rainbow Six : Lockdown. R6:3 came out late 2004 and R6:L came out mid 2005. You'd think the follow up would be better right? Hmmm.

Graphics are ok, definitely not as good as R6:L. Taking into account that the game came out last year the graphics would definitely have been pretty good for the time. It's only now that graphics on mobile phone games are beginning to take a leap forwards. They are 2D and the backgrounds change sufficiently depending on what mission you're on. There's not a lot of detail on the sprites as they are fairly small, but you get enough to get an idea of what's going on. There are little touches like phones and chairs etc so while the game does have an overhead view, the developers are trying to make it as realistic as possible. Basically the graphics are ok for the game.

I was disappointed with the sound. The sound in R6:L has been beefed up a lot as there was very little sound in here. There is no in game tune and the effects are pitiful to be honest. A tone now and again when you die or something blows up and maybe 2 tones when you complete the mission. They definitely got it right in the sequel.

The controls are actually a little easier, especially after having played R6:L. You can move your pointer around using the D or key pad and press the main button or 5 where you want to go. The missions don't really need you to use flash bombs so the only other buttons you have to remember are Zero to turn your movement pointer into a knife pointer for silent kills and 3 or 9 to throw a grenade. That's about it and when you get to a door then you get 4 options to choose. This did take a while to register and it got a little annoying now and again when it took 5 seconds to open each door. There is a sniper mode as well which you can access by pressing *. This enables you to not only get some distance on your shots but also to see further as well (little hint there).

The playability is great. Funnily enough, in my opinion it plays better than the sequel. I suppose the main reason for that is that this game is actually quite hard. You can't hide in doorways in this version but there are plenty more guards and the sniper mode is cool. The scenario is the usual terrorists have kidnapped, blah blah blah, defuse this, blah blah blah. What makes the game playable is the fact that although you have to rescue people and defuse the bombs, the game is pretty hard. There are a few areas where you have to take some risks and some where you think 'sod it, bring it on!' and you engage them all. You can pick up grenades but it's the knife kills which are the most interesting. The headshots are a little easier in this version for some reason, I think that you can be less accurate which is why in R6:L they made the accuracy more of a challenge. Definitely a fun game to play.

Lastability is really good as the missions take quite a while. There are several scenarios each with 4 missions increasing in length and difficulty. The game autosaves once you have completed a mission but one drawback is that the savepoint is at the start of the mission. There are checkpoints spaced throughout and if you choose to continue this is where you'll start, however, if you quit at a checkpoint and start the game again it will be from the beginning of that mission. Some of the missions take up to 15 minutes to complete giving you a lot of game time. The game is easyish to play on the tube as well.

Overall a good game to play which is fun and challenging.