Rainbow Six for Game Boy

Do you remember when Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six first came out for the PC? I sure do. It introduced the intensity of one-shot kills and team-based gameplay all in a rich 3D environment. Now it is available for Game Boy and the results are, well, not so good.

Gameplay 4/10
In Rainbow Six you carry out various missions for an anti-terrorist organization Rainbow. When you start your game, you are first given a detailed briefing closely resembling the one in the PC version, where you are given your mission objectives and the intel report. Then you outfit your attack force choosing what camouflage and what kind of weaponry each member of your team will use during the mission. You can have up to 4 teams with 3 members each. Then you plan your operation on a map. This can take some time, since the cursor moves slowly and is somewhat sluggish. After your planning is done, you start the mission.

You control the action from an overhead view, although when you reach certain points in the game, the view will shift into a first-person view. You control one member of your team, and the rest follow you. The other teams are on their own following the route you have planned earlier.

As I've played the game, I have often ran into a problem in which members of my team would get stuck behind a building or a wall, and I had to go back and get them. Sometimes, members of a team that I didn't control got stuck behind something. And the only way to get them unstuck was to switch to that team and come back after them. Another problem is that you can see what is inside the building before entering it. That kind of ruins the whole idea of not knowing what to expect behind that door. You can see where the enemy is beforehand, so where is the challenge in that? Another thing is the poor enemy AI. During my first play-through, I started the game in the easiest difficulty. I could come up to a terrorist, stand there for a while, fire a few rounds, and he wouldn't do anything. Seeing that, I immediately switched to the highest difficulty and started playing again. This time the terrorists would shoot back, but still, after a long pause. There would be plenty time for me or someone in my team to shoot down the bad guy before he even raises his gun.

And there are more flaws. Your second mission is at night, so you have to use your night-vision goggles. Well, when you put on your goggles, Everything around you is either black or green. It is really hard to tell what it is you are seeing. Many times I found myself thinking while staring at a green block, Is that a building I need to enter or just a piece of scenery? Either improve the night-vision mode or don't include it in the first place! Want more problems? The game's pace is really slow. It wouldn't be bad really, but there are missions where you need to rescue a couple of hostages. During one mission, I had to rescue several hostages, and I didn't know how many exactly. Well, thanks to the game's slow pacing, it took me a long time to get to my destination, enter the building, kill all the guys, then find the hostage. Than it took me a while to bring him out to a safe location. And when I finally did, the game hasn't ended, which means there are more hostages to find. So, I had to go back into the building, and look for more hostages, which, again, took a long time. This isn't something I'd like to do for fun. Of course, slow pacing can come in handy sometimes. When you have a lot of time on your hands, such as a long airplane flight, say eight hours, then this game would be perfect.

Graphics 8/10
Graphics is the strong point of this game. Everything looks nice for a Game Boy and is very detailed. Terrorists and hostages are nicely animated. I guess they wanted to compromise on the "violence in games" issue - there are no bodies left when you shoot someone, just a pool of blood. Yeah, a pool of blood is much less violent than a dead body. But anyway, graphics look pretty good for a Game Boy, until you go into the night-vision mode. Then, as stated earlier, this game becomes no fun.

Sound 7/10 Music is great and appropriate. Sound is good, but the only sound I remember from the game is the gunfire. I don't think there is anything else. Some touches like the painful screaming of a shot terrorist would be nice.

Replay Value 3/10
I didn't even want to finish the game, and especially play through it again. The gameplay is not challenging, lengthy, and not as fun as it's supposed to be.

Overall 4.5/10
This game has numerous flaws that add up to take away the fun from the game. Lack of what the PC version was famous was lost in this Game Boy port. If you have a PC, get the PC version to see what this game should be. And those who already have the PC version, forget about this game, unless you fly a lot, and need something to pass your time.