Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six®

Do not be fooled by the looks of these dated graphics. Rainbow Six has a lot to offer a player who wants a little bit more than a run an' gun shooter. This game offers players a chance to to select/configure teams, members, weapons (primary and secondary) and uniforms including armour. You can select the pathways that your teams will take during the execution of the mission, hopefully with minimal casualties. When planned correctly you can get your teams to surround a room and clear it in tandem. A thing of beauty that I find extremely self satisfiying. However, if you don't want to take the time to intricately explore all of the parts to mission planning there are default plans from the man in charge that is more than capable in order to get you throught the mission successfully. I also appreciate the one to two hit incapacitations or deaths incorporated into the game making missions very challenging and realistic. When your character is removed from the action of the game you take control of the next member of your fire team and carry on. Be sure to keep the logistics of that in mind when setting your team rosters. Keeping in the vein of realism the games story progresses through basic hostage rescue scenarios to intel gathering for upcoming missions. All of which are woven into a storyline that is intriguing to follow and makes you want to play the next mission. Overall, I had so much fun with this game I had to buy it again when a superior version of it was available to me. The music is motivating, the setting and atmosphere is well thought out and though serious the presentation is fun. I would recommend this game to people who want a shooter that is deeper than your average teaspoon.

I loved playing and watching my siblings play Rainbow Six (especially Rogue Spear and Black Thorn (please and thank you, GOG!)) back in the day. Although the modern Rainbow Sixes are great, the classics are just so good. Definitely recommended. In addition, lots of people have pointed out that RS does not work on modern versions of Windows. This is true. The game crashes at launch. HOWEVER, the game runs fine using DG Voodoo2 (I copied the D3D8.DLL, D3D9.DLL, D3DLMM.DLL, and DDRAW.DLL files found in DG Voodoo2\MS\x86\ to where the RainbowSix.exe is). Hope this helps.

I just get a black screen.

Rainbow Six is far more a tactical game than your standard FPS. The emphasis is on careful planning before the mission rather, and if you simple charge in guns blazing, either you, or a lot of hostages are going to die. It's much more a game based on intelligence, stealth and timing. Each mission presents you with a complete layout of a given area. You select soldiers based on their skill-sets, select from a wide array of weapons and then plan your egress. The map takes a bit of getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, you can plan a complicated series of actions that will have your team liquidating terrorists, flashbanging rooms and disarming bombs. The AI of your soldiers is sometimes a bit iffy. While they will often spot targets and take them out, often saving your life in the process, they tend, on occasion to get stuck in doors, but you do have a wide array of commands you can give them that they tend to execute well. The enemies, like-wise, have some AI issues. They have nigh perfect aim from any distance, so you'll find yourself trying again and again on a certain areas, but will sometimes just stand ramrod stiff while you and your team wipe them out. For those whose experience with the FPS genre begins and ends with games like HALO and Duke Nukem, you'll be in for a very steep learning curve. But once you get it down, Rainbow Six is a tense gameplay experience with a rewarding plot and lots of fun and realistic scenarios.