Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 Impressions

We had a chance to preview Gameloft’s latest chapter in its Rainbow Six series of tactical games for the cell, and we came away very impressed. Gameloft has done its usual marvelous job of carrying the quintessence of the console title to mobile in this one.

Phillipe Laurens of Gameloft told us that his team really tried to capture the look and feel of the Xbox title for the mobile edition, hence the transition to a three-quarters overhead viewpoint, which lends a more console-esque feel to the gameplay. Rainbow Six 3 also adopts a new cursor-based interface, which proves to be quite effective for stealth-oriented gameplay. It’s simple to move your squad around and manipulate various objects through the cursor menu, and you can now dispatch terrorists with a knife to keep the noise levels down and remain undetected.

Rainbow Six 3 will feature three playable scenarios that take you from a Swiss village to a luxury estate in the Bahamas. You must satisfy a number of objectives to complete each scenario. These can include defusing explosives, rescuing hostages, and a whole range of other missions you’d expect an elite team of commandos to tackle. Graphically speaking, there’s no questioning this title’s Gameloft pedigree: Everything is rendered in a somber but smooth color palette, and your squad’s crouch-run almost looks like it was captured off of a surveillance video.

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3 will be available for download in the second quarter of 2004.