Assault Pack 2

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six® 3 Black Arrow™ is always at the top of the charts on Xbox Live™, and the new Assault Pack 2 aims to keep it there. For your $4.99 you get four new multiplayer maps, each of which supports the following game modes: Retrieval, Total Conquest, Survival, Team Survival & Sharpshooter.

Plenty of action in store.

Harbor Warehouse (Uddevalla, Sweden)
This symmetrical map features a large single-room storage facility with a small exterior yard at either end. The warehouse is packed with stacks of crates, barrels, and ship containers that provide plenty of cover (and plenty of opportunities for surprises).

Just over each loading bay is a small office space with a large window that overlooks the warehouse below. Before you snipers set up shop in these sweet positions, remember that there are two sets of staircases that lead to each office. One leads up from the warehouse floor and the other is built into a hallway inside the walls of building itself. The exposed staircase gives you a clear view of the players below, but they can also see you. The enclosed staircase lets you move around with a much lower profile, but you have to navigate a dangerous series of blind corners and closed doors.

The combination of high ground (in the offices or on the scaffolding and staircases leading to them) and endless cover translates into plenty of ambush confrontations at close quarters with the constant threat of being capped from above. In fact, it's hard to avoid the enemy, for long as this map's close quarters will have you running into the enemy early and often, no matter what type of match you're playing.

Lock and load in the lockdown.

Prison (Alcatraz Island/San Francisco, CA, USA)
The Prison is a smaller, modified version of a map from the original Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3. Ubisoft Montreal eliminated the basement infirmary and concentrate the action in the cell blocks and the yard.

The thick concrete walls and support columns provide cover and the guards' catwalk stretches across the entire exterior portion of the map, giving snipers a chance to literally throw down on the combatants below. Staircases and ladders provide multiple access points to the buildings at the north and west ends of the map, and inside you'll find two levels of mazes (like cells and staircases).

In fact, there are so many routes in, under, and around this map that you'll need eyes in the back of your head because you'll never know where the enemy is coming from. Communication and coordinated efforts are essential to success on the Prison map, especially in objective-based team games like Total Conquest and Retrieval.

You'll find trouble indoors and out.

Pumping Station (Hamim, United Arab Emirates)
The Pumping Station is a sprawling petroleum complex with a series of connected buildings and storage yards. Each of the storage buildings is packed with crates and barrels and each has multiple entrances and exits.

Exposed internal stairways lead to scaffolding platforms that are perfect for keeping an eye on COMSATs. A small office building (complete with cubicles, desks, kitchen, and employee lounge) sits at one end of the map, offering close-quarters experts a perfect place to strut their stuff.

Outside you'll find more stockpiles of equipment to use for cover as well as stairs leading into the buildings (and in some cases, under them).But be sure to watch your peripheral vision—the yards are bordered by hurricane fences that open up the map and let you see what's going on at the other end. You can even huck a frag grenade or tear gas from one yard to another to catch an opponent who isn't paying attention.

Throw down in the snow.

Winter Base (Murmansk Region, Russia)
The weather conditions are as important as the terrain itself in this tight, mostly outdoor map.

Each end of the map features a small basement garage with interior stair access to a platform overlooking one half of the map. Two paths run down from each platform and follow the edges of the map until they reach the raised, rocky mound in the center of the arena. Snipers will love the layout, but the thick cover provided by trees and snow-covered boulders makes sure they have to work for their kills.

Since there are only four paths from one end to the other (and since they all converge on top of the ridge), you can expect frequent and furious skirmishes as the opposing forces meet in the middle. COMSATs and Retrieval canisters will become deadly choke points that promise some truly monumental firefights.

If you ever get the chance, check out the footprints you leave in the snow—you can only lay down a certain number of tracks at a time, so when you reach your limit, your earlier footprints vanish. If you backtrack the way you've just come, you'll see your own trail disappear as it tries to keep up with you.

The new maps are well-designed to put gamers in each other's faces and let them shoot it out, proving once more that Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow knows how to givefirst-person shooterfans some serious replay value.