It's Rainbow Six, But Not Essential
Written: Oct 13 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Excellent single levels
Cons: Buggy encyclopedia, game is too short for stand-alone
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| 3rdalarm's Full Review: Rainbow Six: Covert Ops |
I am a huge Rainbow Six fan. The series has made leaps in the realism factor of 1st person shooters. I was truly looking forward to Rainbow Six: Covert Ops Essentials from Red Storm, which seemed to promise not only more action, but a training program in counter-terrorism.
The game is packaged on two CD's. It is a stand-alone product, requiring neither the original Rainbow Six or Rogue Spear. The first CD is a multimedia encyclopedia. The second is the game itself.
I was particularly interested in the encyclopedia. It includes text, pictures, and video. The interface is arranged into a hierarchical series of "node spheres." You choose a course of study, read up, then take a series of multiple choice tests to prove your knowledge and earn ribbons. The articles cover a lot of everything, but nothing in real detail. Also, there are many topics covered that are aspects of real-world counter-terrorism operations, but not a part of successful Rainbow Six play. What is worse is that the interface is sloppy and buggy, which is unbelievable when you consider the complexity of the game itself. One would think that after creating a successful game engine, a multimedia interface should be easy as pulling a trigger. Alas, I could not even get the training disk to run on my home machine - I kept running into a .dll error caused by the executable. Tech support believes this is some sort of Direct X conflict. When I did manage to get it to run on another machine, the video clips were choppy and the test questions were garbled text. So, while the encyclopedia may be of interest to huge Rainbow Six fans, it has no bearing on the game.
The game itself contains a whopping 3 single levels plus a handful of training levels. Granted, the single levels, especially the Bolivian jungle, are exceptional, and some of the best I have ever seen. It includes tons of jungle cover, bridges, and a waterfall. Camouflage effects are incredible. The training levels include an emergency room, a hospital, a store front, a store back, a trailer park, and a junkyard. These are fun, but fairly easy to locate and master firing angles and choke points. All the Rogue Spear equipment and weapons are available, but not the silenced sniper rifle or heavy weapons from the Urban Ops add-on. There are also some multiplayer-only weapons, like the AK and Scorpion SMGs.
There are way too few levels here to call this a sequel, and in my opinion, should never have been released as a stand-alone. If the encyclopedia worked more smoothly, it would be worthwhile, but still not at the stand-alone price of this game. This feels more like an effort to entice people to buy other Rainbow Six products by giving them a "teaser."
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
3rdalarm
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Location: Baltimore, MD
Reviews written: 82
Trusted by: 31 members
About Me:
Data Specialist, Professional Volunteer Firefighter/EMT/Water Rescue Team Leader
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