We had a chance to chat with the lead designer, Mike McCoy, shortly before the game’s release. Here is Part 1 of that interview.
Xbox.com: What’s the story? Who are the major characters in Rainbow Six 3?
McCoy: The game takes place in the very near future, when OPEC initiates an oil embargo on the U.S. because of its involvement in Middle Eastern affairs. Needless to say, the U.S. is not too happy with the situation, but OPEC member Venezuela decides not to respect the embargo and continues to ship oil to the U.S. This sets the stage for terrorist strikes against Venezuela to persuade them to reconsider their decision. Because terrorists attack the Venezuelans on Swiss soil, Rainbow is called in to put an end to the situation.
This is where you come in. Your name is Ding Chavez, and you lead a team of three highly trained counter-terrorism operatives. However, what appears to be an open and shut case turns out to require 14 missions in five countries to finally sort it all out.
Xbox.com: How long has the game been in development for Xbox?
McCoy: We formally started working on the Xbox version in March of this year, but we really started development when we began the PC version. You could say that the development actually started in June 2001, giving us nearly 30 months to create and polish the Xbox version.
When we began developing Rainbow Six 3 for the Xbox, we took a close look at what console players want versus what PC players want. What we found was that console players want to wade into the action immediately and not spend time planning. So, the easiest solution was to remove the planning.
This, of course, caused us to restructure how missions unfolded. On the PC, you have many objectives that you can complete in any order. Well, without planning out these objectives beforehand, they’re very hard to communicate and manage, so we decided to make the missions unfold one objective at a time. This, in turn, further simplified the menus by allowing players to skip mission briefing, skip menus entirely, and simply receive objectives directly from John Clark.
We also looked at the control differences between the two, which forced additional changes. The first thing to change was the reticule system, which was redesigned to work well with a thumbstick. Needless to say, just about everything has been either been enhanced or reworked, including the Terrorist and Rainbow A.I.
Xbox.com: How would you classify Rainbow Six 3, and why?
McCoy: The thing that I think makesRainbow stand out from the crowd is the high-tension Clancy universe. Usually, when you die, you are totally surprised and jump out of your chair. This makes your gameplay experience extremely exciting.
Rainbow has always been a very immersive shooter, rewarding players not only for shooting skills, but also for team tactics. When we began development of Rainbow Six 3, we decided to allow players to play the game totally as a shooter, totally as a tactical strategy, and any combination of the two. After all, the customer paid for the game, so why shouldn’t they be able to play it the way they want?
Xbox.com: How do you control your team inRainbow Six 3? Can you set certain actions on a time delay, for example?
McCoy: To issue orders to your team, simply look where you want them to perform an order and use your voice or the Action button. If you press and release the Action button, the team performs the default order for that location. If you press and hold the Action button, you get a complete list of all the orders, the Quick Order Interface (QOI), associated with the location. To issue an order on the QOI, simply press the corresponding direction on the D-Pad.
All of the orders that appear in the QOI can be issued using your voice communicator. It’s an open microphone system, so just look at a location and tell your team what you want them to do by saying the same words that appear in the QOI. If you don’t remember what the possibilities are, simply say, “Go, go, go!” Then, the team will execute the default order for that location. It’s just that easy.
Xbox.com: So, voice commands are an option? And, how do things change with the game on Xbox Live?
McCoy: You can control your team solely with voice commands, solely with your controller, and any combination of the two. The voice order system is an open-mic system, which means you don’t have to press any buttons before talking. To issue an order, just repeat any of the commands that appear in the QOI.
Once you go on Xbox Live, you don’t have any computer controller teammates to command. What you do have is real people on the other side of the line, who talk to you real time using the open-mic system … and they understand quite a few more orders than the computer-controlled Rainbows.
