Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 puts you and your elite anti-terrorist squad up against some of the most bloodthirsty gun-toting fanatics the unstable world has to offer. As with many squad-based tactical shooters, your leadership skills are just as important as your quick trigger finger, but Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3 makes leading your team as intuitive and direct as doing the job yourself (only a lot more effectively). We’ve explored some of the basics you’ll need to master if you want to guide your team to success.
Reconnaissance Is Key The commands in Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3 are all context-sensitive. If you’re looking at a corner of the room, simply press the A button to send your team directly to that spot. Hold down the button to bring up the command interface, which offers up to four specific options for your team to carry out in the context of your position. Look at a door, for example, and you can have your team burst in firing, toss in a flash grenade, or both. As you move through the various levels, be sure to scan each room thoroughly for alternate entrances and exits that you can use to surprise your enemy (and avoid being surprised yourself). You’ll probably find at least one cool thing with which you can order your team to interact.
You’re the Man Remember that the team follows your lead, and you give the orders. If you send them down the hall to clear out any resistance, don’t forget to tell them what to do after they’re done. If you make them wait too long, they’ll request orders over the radio (which is pretty embarrassing for the leader of an elite counter-terrorism squad). If you don’t know what’s ahead or you haven’t decided what the best course of action is yet, use the regroup command to bring them back to your location. The Rainbow Six squad is the best in the business, but a team without a leader is doomed to failure.
Do That Zulu Thing In the game world, “Zulu” is military speak for “Ready. Set. Go!” Zulu commands are one of this game’s best innovations, so make sure you use them as often as possible. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3 lets you issue detailed instructions to your squad that they will not carry out until you give the extra Zulu command. It’s sort of like a football quarterback calling the play in the huddle, but knowing that no one will make a move until he shouts, “Hike!”
Zulu commands set up all kinds of tactical opportunities that simply aren’t available in other games. You can storm both entrances to a room at once, for example, by giving your team the Zulu Open and Clear command. You team will stand ready outside one door and wait for you to take your position by the second door. When you hit the Zulu button, everyone goes in at the same time with guns blazing, making it exponentially tougher for the bad guys inside to react effectively.
Sound Off Like You Mean It Rainbow Six 3 is easily the best Tom Clancy game to date. It’s been one of the first to make use of real-time voice commands through the XboxLive Communicator headset. Of the dozens of context-sensitive commands available, all can be given just by word of mouth. Voice commands are familiar to anyone who has played multiplayer tactical-combat games via Xbox Live, but this game allows you to use them on A.I. squad mates in the single-player and co-op modes, when there aren’t enough humans to round out the team.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3 is more than just a top-of-the-line first-person shooter with squad-based combat. With its high degree of realism, innovative command system, and feature-packed Xbox Live gameplay, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3 is redefining what makes a great shooter.
