Another great rainbow six game.
The bad: Ai is somewhat dumb
In 2003 when rainbow six 3 was released for xbox gamers started to prefer tactical shooters on consoles rather than pc where tactical shooters used to belong.
And now with a sequel rainbow six 3: black arrow
does some of the same things that rainbow six 3 did and that is what makes it good.
No if you have played the previous rainbow six games then you know what to expect.
There is no story line in the game so basically you are called in when there is a situation (involving terrorists) such as a hostage has been taken and you need to rescue them or you need to take someone out (like a terrorist leader)the missions feel very much the same in almost every mission there is a hostage that needs to be rescued or bomb that needs to be defused, but even though it does the same thing almost every mission its good.
With that being said the gameplay is pretty much the same as rainbow six 3 but it is for the good since rainbow six 3 was and stil is awesome.
The campaign will take you and your squad through 10 mission almost every single one of then is in a different environment, and most of the missions will take you about 30-45 minutes depending what difficulty setting you have it on.
But even on the easiest setting it can be quite hard to get past since there is one-shot one-kill lethality (unless you have a weapon that is not so powerful).
You command what you squad does and the game does it very well by just pointing your crosshair where you want your squad to go and then press the A button they will go there, you can also command them to regroup, hold, open doors and the tell them to do one of many things like open door grenade the clear out the room and all of this is very effective but most of the time you will want to be the one shooting since it is the best part of the game.
The .50 caliber sniper rifle that pretty much was the dominator in the multiplayer has been taken out but it was replaced with an equally deadly weapon the dragunov and the added the PSG-1.
Before every mission you will be briefed and allowed to choose your main weapon, your secondary, grenades, C4 or claymore.
There are lots of weapons in the game so you can choose if you would rather snipe or just take em out a with an AK-47.
The multiplayer is very much the same as rainbow six 3 but this is good the old survival and team survival are back, with the addition of 3 new modes, sharpshooter (which just deathmatch),total conquest which is basically a team modes where there are 3 satellite transmitter stations put somewhere on the map and each team has to try and hold them all for a certain amount of time, and retrieval which is sorta lke capture the flag except its biohazard canister and there is only one and each team has to try and get the canister and take it back to their own base.
You can also play cooperatively online either playing a mission or terrorist hunt.
In addition to the multiplayer co-op there is splitscreen co-op for up to 2 players where you can either tackle a mission together or just play terrorist hunt.
You can also play terrorist hunt on single player but if you want to play on a different map then you have to unlock by beating the mission on that map in single player, And there is also lone-wolf mode which is just you by yourself and no squad members and you have different objectives then in mission mode.
The graphics are pretty much the same as rainbow six 3 (which are awesome by the way)with a few improvements most note-able are the character animations in rainbow six 3 they did not look that great but they fixed that this time.
The sound is very good, the music is the same from rainbow six 3, the guns sound good and the character acting is pretty good.
So while it might feel the same as rainbow six 3 its not bad as a matter of fact it is good and this is a good game for rainbow six fans and people new to the series alike.
Singleplayer: 9.5/10
Multiplayer: 9.5/10
Co-op: 9.0/10
Graphics: 9.6/10
Sound: 9.0/10
gameplay: 9.7/10
tilt: 9.2/10
Replay value: 9.9/10
funnessfactor: 9.5/10
Overall score: 9.4/10 (this is the score i would have given the game if gamespot had not gotten rid of its old rating system)