Rainbow Six

What is Rainbow Six?

No, it's not a handful of Skittles. A couple of years ago, author Tom Clancy wrote a fictional novel based on the creation of a multinational anti-terrorist group called Rainbow Six. This antiterrorist group utilizes all kinds of highly trained personnel and close combat techniques to defuse sensitive situations, many of which involve innocent hostages. There are the assault specialists who go in and do the dirty work of close combat. There are also electronics and demolitions experts, recon specialists who excel at stealthy movement (you know, those skills honed by teenage males sneaking into their girlfriends' houses), and of course, the snipers who can take out terrorists from afar. Anyone could see that the novel was the perfect premise for an exciting new game! Who would make it?

Dat's what you get fo' messin wit da PO-lice

Precision shooting

Back in 1996, Virtus and Tom Clancy hooked up to create Red-Storm entertainment, a game development company. Since then, Red Storm has released a couple of games under Tom Clancy's name, including Politika and ruthless.com. However, neither of those were as popular or well reviewed as the close combat simulation, Rainbow Six.

And now for something completely different

The game Rainbow Six put you in the shoes of the antiterrorist group of the same name - you had to zip around the world to carry out hostage rescues, terrorist hunts, and more. R6 utilized squad combat from a first person perspective, but what really made Rainbow Six stand out from the rest is the amount of realism built into the game from the ground up. All real weapons were included in the game - everything from submachine guns to shotguns and pistols with real specs were part of your arsenal. One shot kills were the rule, not the exception.

You won't be needing that head anymore

Must be business class

Another big difference is that Rainbow Six is a true action/strategy game. You're given a briefing before every mission during which you pick your personnel, outfit them with weapons, and map out a strategy by which you're supposed to complete the mission. Rainbow Six was such a hit that it spawned an expansion pack, Eagle Watch, and of course a sequel called Rogue Spear.

Up close and personal

On the catwalk, on the catwalk, yeah