I write to you bleary-eyed after a couple of late night hours on the finished retail version of Rainbow Six 3, which was released today (as in Wednesday, which actually finished here a few hours ago) across much of the US (a few lucky zones got it Tuesday.) My pre-order arrived at the store around 11.45am; I had to wait until roughly 7.30pm to go pick it up. This waiting period hurt me emotionally, perhaps permanently. It was all Mrs Shape's fault, though Ken Hom and his recipe for Tasty Pork Fried Rice was involved, but I won't get into that now. I've got it: The game that finally made me give in and buy an Xbox a few weeks back in preparation.
I wouldn't attempt, at this late hour of the day and after a mere couple hours play, to offer global opinions on RSix3 as a package. I've only been through the first few missions. Instead, since everyone who's interested will have played the demo to death as I did, I thought I'd note the differences in the final product - compared to the demo - and make a few observations, largely mechanical, all pedantic.
First off - thank heavens - they've added in a nice bright green crosshair whenever you pass your sights across one of your Rainbow pals. No more shooting the French one "by mistake." Talking of those kerayzee multinational counta-terrorist playboys, I've played that damned demo so much it was even weird to see them in different outfits. For your first real mission, you're off to Switzerland and, I must say, Weber looked dashing in what is essentially a big white arctic romper suit for grown-ups. We all had those, but he just carried it off better, y'know?
The next thing I noticed, which wasn't so snazzy, was that the analog stick no longer works when it comes to selecting commands off your contextual menu - OPEN, FLASH & CLEAR and all that. Now you have to use the D-pad to select from these commands. It doesn't feel quite so safe to take your thumb off the crucial left thumbstick during heated moments. After all, that's what will be hauling your muscly Latin-American cheeks out of harm's way in a millisecond if bullets start flying. Worked fine in the demo, don't know why they changed it.
They've reduced the number of visible stats available on your weapons as you make your pre-mission selection. Can't recall what's missing, but now there are three categories rather than five. Also, there don't seem to be many (if any) guns that were not included in the demo, and I'm not entirely certain Rainbow Six 3 is the sort of game to dole out nice bonus weapons when you 'done good.' Not a problem: it's still a healthy selection, and for the love of Christ do they sound good. Even the metallic scrape of your .45's slide against the receiver as it locks back after cycling for the last shot in the clip - clear, crisp, high-end, cinema type sound. So far only the shotguns disappoint, both of which are oddly quiet.
Sound generally is wonderful. Positioning seems to be precise, although I was camped out on the floor much further from my rear speakers than a good Xbox soldier should be. I was playing loud, and was pleasantly surprised to note a subtle-but-definately-there change in background ambience when moving from outside to inside. You hear it right away, as you pass through the doorway, as in real life. I walked in and out of one place a few times, because that tiny added effect was so real it was freaky. On the second mission (NOT a spoiler) there are crashed cars around, and you hear a faint, continuous car horn at a distance. I located the car and, having studied phychoacoustics, decided to test the physics-governed principles of the Doppler effect on that tone - and it worked! Run towards the car, the tone of the horn briefly raises a few cents; back away quickly, the tone briefly drops a few cents. Unbelievable. There's no reason to have that in there, except for twats like me, whom it impresses.
Bodies still disappear alarmingly fast, but I was given several better opportunities than the demo to test the clipping, which was exemplary. My guys blasted one gent right up against a corner at the end of a hallway; I went to investigate and, even though parts of him were touching both walls, not even a finger was clipped through. Hitman 2 had great ragdoll, but it also had some nasty clipping. Also, dead guys have closed eyes! Like that.
A few things bother me. The game is oozing realism, but I was genuinely disappointed when I shot an oil lamp - and later a fluorescent strip light - to no effect at all. Most annoying for me is the way your aim sticks to the terrorists a little, sometimes when they're even behind another object which, as well as giving away an enemy position that you shouldn't know, can get you killed. Example: two terrorists charge me. The closer one is firing madly at a member of my team several feet to my left, the other is shooting me. The aiming reticle passes over the close guy, who is not my immediate threat, and sticks on him while I try to wrestle it away and onto the man who has taken a dislike to me. Too late. Dead. Split seconds count. I've found no option to turn this brand of auto-aiming off, and the tougher difficultly level, which was my last hope, did not disable it either. I know it's harder to shoot well will a joypad than a mouse, but I'd like to be able to toggle something that alters gameplay as much as this. I managed Half-Life PS2, or Max Payne PS2, with no aiming aids, let me try with Rainbow Six 3 please.
But that's really it. If I was being niggly, I'd tell you how it's weird that recently fired weapons don't glow in the thermal vision mode, or that on an OPEN & CLEAR command, my team opened the intended door, then paused indefinitely while the chap who I presume was to lead the CLEARing part instead danced the most extraordinary infinite-loop jig.
I am still generally impressed, delighted, addicted. And wishing more than a little that a couple of magazines were not relying on me for content over the next few days, so that I could invest great wadges of daylight time in yet more terrorist suppression. But for now, sleep. And dreams of flashbangs.
I wouldn't attempt, at this late hour of the day and after a mere couple hours play, to offer global opinions on RSix3 as a package. I've only been through the first few missions. Instead, since everyone who's interested will have played the demo to death as I did, I thought I'd note the differences in the final product - compared to the demo - and make a few observations, largely mechanical, all pedantic.
First off - thank heavens - they've added in a nice bright green crosshair whenever you pass your sights across one of your Rainbow pals. No more shooting the French one "by mistake." Talking of those kerayzee multinational counta-terrorist playboys, I've played that damned demo so much it was even weird to see them in different outfits. For your first real mission, you're off to Switzerland and, I must say, Weber looked dashing in what is essentially a big white arctic romper suit for grown-ups. We all had those, but he just carried it off better, y'know?
The next thing I noticed, which wasn't so snazzy, was that the analog stick no longer works when it comes to selecting commands off your contextual menu - OPEN, FLASH & CLEAR and all that. Now you have to use the D-pad to select from these commands. It doesn't feel quite so safe to take your thumb off the crucial left thumbstick during heated moments. After all, that's what will be hauling your muscly Latin-American cheeks out of harm's way in a millisecond if bullets start flying. Worked fine in the demo, don't know why they changed it.
They've reduced the number of visible stats available on your weapons as you make your pre-mission selection. Can't recall what's missing, but now there are three categories rather than five. Also, there don't seem to be many (if any) guns that were not included in the demo, and I'm not entirely certain Rainbow Six 3 is the sort of game to dole out nice bonus weapons when you 'done good.' Not a problem: it's still a healthy selection, and for the love of Christ do they sound good. Even the metallic scrape of your .45's slide against the receiver as it locks back after cycling for the last shot in the clip - clear, crisp, high-end, cinema type sound. So far only the shotguns disappoint, both of which are oddly quiet.
Sound generally is wonderful. Positioning seems to be precise, although I was camped out on the floor much further from my rear speakers than a good Xbox soldier should be. I was playing loud, and was pleasantly surprised to note a subtle-but-definately-there change in background ambience when moving from outside to inside. You hear it right away, as you pass through the doorway, as in real life. I walked in and out of one place a few times, because that tiny added effect was so real it was freaky. On the second mission (NOT a spoiler) there are crashed cars around, and you hear a faint, continuous car horn at a distance. I located the car and, having studied phychoacoustics, decided to test the physics-governed principles of the Doppler effect on that tone - and it worked! Run towards the car, the tone of the horn briefly raises a few cents; back away quickly, the tone briefly drops a few cents. Unbelievable. There's no reason to have that in there, except for twats like me, whom it impresses.
Bodies still disappear alarmingly fast, but I was given several better opportunities than the demo to test the clipping, which was exemplary. My guys blasted one gent right up against a corner at the end of a hallway; I went to investigate and, even though parts of him were touching both walls, not even a finger was clipped through. Hitman 2 had great ragdoll, but it also had some nasty clipping. Also, dead guys have closed eyes! Like that.
A few things bother me. The game is oozing realism, but I was genuinely disappointed when I shot an oil lamp - and later a fluorescent strip light - to no effect at all. Most annoying for me is the way your aim sticks to the terrorists a little, sometimes when they're even behind another object which, as well as giving away an enemy position that you shouldn't know, can get you killed. Example: two terrorists charge me. The closer one is firing madly at a member of my team several feet to my left, the other is shooting me. The aiming reticle passes over the close guy, who is not my immediate threat, and sticks on him while I try to wrestle it away and onto the man who has taken a dislike to me. Too late. Dead. Split seconds count. I've found no option to turn this brand of auto-aiming off, and the tougher difficultly level, which was my last hope, did not disable it either. I know it's harder to shoot well will a joypad than a mouse, but I'd like to be able to toggle something that alters gameplay as much as this. I managed Half-Life PS2, or Max Payne PS2, with no aiming aids, let me try with Rainbow Six 3 please.
But that's really it. If I was being niggly, I'd tell you how it's weird that recently fired weapons don't glow in the thermal vision mode, or that on an OPEN & CLEAR command, my team opened the intended door, then paused indefinitely while the chap who I presume was to lead the CLEARing part instead danced the most extraordinary infinite-loop jig.
I am still generally impressed, delighted, addicted. And wishing more than a little that a couple of magazines were not relying on me for content over the next few days, so that I could invest great wadges of daylight time in yet more terrorist suppression. But for now, sleep. And dreams of flashbangs.
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