Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 Black Arrow
[Xbox] - Impression
Written by MuadDib:
Team Rainbow Six is back in this stand alone expansion, in a
sense it is an expansion not a sequel, of Rainbow Six 3 for the XBox. You are
not require to have the original Rainbow Six 3 to play this expansion, nor do
you need to have prior knowledge to the Rainbow Six Universe.
All you have to do is buy this stand alone pack and away you go.
Once again Ding Chavez and his team is needed to rid the terrorist off the globe. The terrorists, this time, is planning to stir up a war in the oil rich Black Sea area, and it is up to Ding and his team to gather all pieces of puzzles as they travel from train stations in England to castles, rocket facilities and abandoned ruins. It feels more of a James Bond styled inspired game rather than the usual Clancy's line up of hotspots.
Like the original RS3, Black Arrow has a long learning curve, I had troubles fighting my way through the first few minutes of the mission. I noticed that the developers, Ubisoft Montreal, has rewritten the terrorists AI code, they are now smarter, however it is no a big jump though. The terrorists will now find cover convincingly, call for back up, use hostages as human shield and will frequently use flash bang, teargas and RPG launchers. Despite all these upgrades the AI can still be stupid at times and often will act in a predictable pattern. Your team AI still out perform the terrorists. (They are professionals right?)
In
terms of the visual, nothing really has changed. In fact the graphics of Black
Arrow looked identical to Rainbow Six 3 with new textures for the new
environments. For some, the graphics may be a bit out dated but it is still one
of the best looking game on the Xbox. The only complaint I have is that the
environment is still not very interactive.
The sound, music and sound effects are great, and if you have a mini home theatre you can play the game in 5.1 Dolby surround which makes the game experience much more exciting and compelling.
Black Arrow Still features the innovative voice recognition technology which if you have a head set it enables you to give vocal command to your AI teammates, But I'm still yelling in American accent. Don't worry if you don't have a headset as the game also features an intelligent reticule system that enables you to issue commands through the ease of button pressing.
Black Arrow contains 10 new exciting missions playable both
single and co 'operatively online and offline. It also support a new game mode
for offline play called "Lone Rush" Where you have to move from one place of a
level to another within a time limit, on the way kill as many terrorist as
possible and secure as many hostages to gain more time to get to the extraction
point.
For the online play it is the first game to fully support Xbox live 3.0 and
boast two new game modes 'Total Conquest' and 'Retrieval' which are RS3:BA's
'Domination' & 'Capture the flag' mode.
Overall:
Ubisoft has done it again this is another top notch game on Xbox. Because Black Arrow is developed so quickly nothing has improved in terms of the visuals but the game play still compensate the loss. The new mission is great fun and compelling. The new modes are great for both online and offline play. If you are fans of the original you should not miss this great expansion, this is also the game for those who want a serious tactical shooter.
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