Once your team is outfitted you move to the Team Assignment screen where you assign characters to individual elements of Blue, Red, Green and Gold designations. You can promote characters to different spots in the element up to leader. This is important as it’s the lead position you will command individual teams from and you’ll of course want the best character placed in the lead. 

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Now you’re ready for the meat of the preparation by going to the Planning Phase, from here you will get your first look at blueprints for your objective and assign waypoints and actions. The blueprint screen gives you a standard blueprint of your objective which can be viewed in both flat or 3D mode. This helps when trying to use your minds eye to plot out movements and assessing how to use the terrain to your advantage, as well as plotting where the tangos can use it to their advantage.

The blueprint map view also offers a zoom in and zoom out feature, and the ability to pan the map around to view from any angle you wish. The only thing missing here is the ability to do a first person perspective view as all views are only top down (not a major issue it might have been a helpful addition). Or even a virtual walkthrough similar to the sand table mock ups sometimes used for missions like these. Demanding ain't I?! :)

Two sections on the left of the planning phase screen give you further options: Recon and Orders. Recon allows you to see the last known spots for terrorists as well as their disposition, whether they are static guards, roving sentries etc., and are color coded as X’s to reflect just that. You can also see where hostages are reported to be located along with landmarks you need to be aware of like insertion and extraction points, entries and exits and possible choke points that make for great ambush locations.  

The Orders section allows you to issue your individual orders to each team, giving waypoints, methods of movement and actions at each waypoint. Movement modes are Blitz, Normal and Safety and ROE are Clear, Engage, Advance and Escort. Each mode reflects different team dispositions and helps you keep the integrity and safety of both the team and the escorted hostages. 

Special Actions at each waypoint can be either Breach Door, Flash Bang Room or Frag Room so as to allow you a great deal of flexibility in giving individual team assignments. Each can be controlled by a Go Code (up to four Go Codes are available for coordinating your attacks) or done dynamically and continually until the unit is either dead or combat ineffective. If your teams take too many casualties they can “break” and not continue with their orders as team AI does morale checks to reflect real human behavior. 

Waypoints can be easily scrolled through using a VCR like interface and edited on the fly or after you’ve plotted all waypoints and wish to tweak your mission plan. This makes for a lot of flexibility and power when setting up your mission plan and is a great feature.  

You then move to the Execute Phase where you choose the team and begin your mission. Sounds involved doesn’t it? Well, the task of a CT team is the safe rescue of hostages and minimizing the loss of friendlies while maximizing the loss of the hostiles so planning is VERY important. Again I must say that with this planning interface Redstorm has put together a planning interface that is second to none, excellent job! 

Once you’ve committed your team to the op you wait while the mission loads and you’ll find yourself at the insertion point, you’ll then be in charge of one of your elements. You can easily switch team by use of the Page Up and Page Down keys. Movement is controlled using a combination of the mouse and keyboard and believe me there’s plenty to control. Everything from NVG’s and Sniper mode (your level of sniper ‘zooming’ will depend on what weapon you have, if it’s a SMG then your zoom will be closer than that of a pistol) to changing ROE mode’s and whether to hold up your team in place or not.

The control interface has been well thought out and satisfies all your needs in gameplay. Once the mission is complete you are given a debrief screen with all major stats on the mission: time taken, objective achieved, shots fired, tangos killed, hit percentage and each team members status.

This is not your typical shooter

First thing you need to remember when you play this game is .. forget all other first person shooters you have played before, this is new territory! There was a small issue on the R6 forum at Redstorm.Com a couple months ago about over lack of a weapon shown in front of you onscreen. There is no need for it and you won’t even notice it’s not there when you play this one, you’ll actually be glad it’s NOT there as it would just take up precious screen real estate and hinder your situational awareness. SA is extremely important in playing this sim through, as it moves rather quickly and the slightest hesitation can get you killed. 

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AI? What's The Scoop?

The biggest question I had when I first saw the demo at E3 was regarding the AI for both friendly and enemy characters: will it be good enough? Will it be realistic enough? The answer is a very strong yes, but there are still some areas that need work.

The enemy acts as it should when dealing with a terrorist mentality, but at times can seem a bit overzealous, even superhuman. The AI for the Rainbow team is done very well and relieves you from micromanaging and makes you truly feel you are not alone in the scenarios. Your teams can successfully follow your orders and take down tangos and rescue hostages very well, which may leave some gamers feeling left out of the action. Remember this is a TEAM effort and not a one man operation, there are no Rambos in special operations. 

Friendly characters are excellent shots and can hit both on the move and standing still, something you as the gamer will need to work on to reach the same level of expertise. Enemy AI is both intelligent and deadly, as you'll discover. Each mission will have you facing tougher enemies as the game unfolds, akin to the book. So don't be feeling let down if the first couple of missions seem easy to you, things will get tougher on you as the game progresses and the last mission has you facing some toughies in a very large environment.

The one down side I feel to this is that enemy AI seems to be some of the best shots ever. Then again, you get hit a lot in other first person shooters as well, but we as gamers have gotten used to the 'rebate on your life syndrome' where you can magically take 100 hits and still be standing. This one is knee deep in realism so think, plan and react as if this was the real thing. 

A couple of anamolies I've discovered I've passed onto Redstorm and got some feedback from Producer Carl Schnurr that sheds some light on these discoveries. Flashbangs and frag grenades don't seem to have the same profound effect one would expect from them. A frag has a blast radius of about 35 meters but that doesn't seem to be properly modeled here, but that's something that is being looked at for a patch. 

The feedback I got from Carl at Redstorm was about the flashbangs and their occasional lack of effect. Carl explained that, "Flashbangs in R6 have a blast radius of 8 meters and the effectiveness of flashbangs in real life is largely determined by the awareness and training of the person. If you're ready for it, it doesn't have much effect." While this can be true in some instances (and I’m sure it is accurate as Redstorm has gone to great lengths to ensure accuracy and has picked the brains of the great guys at H&K) I still cannot let go of what I call “the human factor” in a situation like this. 

An example is that in one mission I noticed a terrorist on the other side of the wall using the heartbeat sensor, and there was no door to the adjoining room so I had no door to open that could alert him to my presence. I popped a flashbang into the room banking it off the wall and having it land in close proximity to him. It went off and I led my team through the door firing to the left where he was. I got hosed the minute I walked in the door, and so did my second who was held up by my body as it fell to the ground.  

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While having the second guy killed by me being in his way is realistic, the tangos actions I felt were not. A flashbang is used to deafen, disorient and temporarily blind the target allowing you to have a greater chance of taking him out. In this sim the flashbangs seem to not always work in this way and do nothing more than piss him off.

Even if a person was prepared for the flash of light and sound as well as concussion, he would still have to turn away from the explosion, close his eyes and hold his ears. This would still give you an advantage on him when you entered the room, as he would have to reorient himself on the door where he is expecting you. But these characters seem to not exhibit any of these “human factors”. I think this is a combination of some tweaking needed in both the AI and weapons modeling factors of the game. While it’s a bit of a drawback it doesn’t hinder the game in the least. To be fair, this IS the first in what I hope are a series of Rainbow games, and as such there’s always room to improve on what already is great AI and weapons modeling.

I also hope this is the first in a series of Rainbow books from Mr. Clancy as well. I really love the idea of reading one of my favorite authors books and then being able to act it out on my PC. It's a great combination of literary and virtual entertainment.

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