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By Contributing Writer Jimmy Payne Rating: Crappy Rainbow Six is a great example of a game that's fun on a PC, but terrible on a console. Even with the addition of missions from the Eagle Watch expansion pack, the Dreamcast version of this game fails to be anything but disappointing. Rainbow Six was originally supposed to be a Dreamcast launch game, but it was delayed a few weeks at a time for eight months before finally being released. You would think that all of this development time would give Majesco Sales plenty of time to improve the game, but they have actually made it worse in many ways. For example, the PC version of Rainbow Six loads pretty fast even on my Pentium 1 computer, but the Dreamcast version takes over 20 seconds to load each level. There are additional loading screens for the simplest of tasks like opening doors and going through the mission planning screens. There is also a lot of slowdown whenever a fairly big gunfight breaks out, and there's a noticeable pause between the second when you press a button and the second your command registers on the screen. The Dreamcast version of Rainbow Six is almost exactly the same as the PC version graphically, despite the fact that the Dreamcast is much more powerful than the PCs this game was originally designed for. This game shows every bit of its two years of age in the graphics department, with low polygon counts and a conspicuous lack of facial expressions. NBA 2K has ten people on the court at all times with dynamic facial expressions, while Rainbow Six usually has no more than three people on the screen, all of whom show about as much emotion in their faces as Steve Blackman. Rainbow Six's environments are also very plain, with lots of rooms that have absolutely nothing in them except generic, one-color wallpaper. Strangely enough, some of the areas in the game look great, leading me to believe that Majesco just didn't take the time to finish the game before releasing it. It gives you a very weird feeling that takes you out of the game mentally when you walk through one room thinking how nicely it was put together and then walk into another room that's no more detailed than a cardboard box. Perhaps the biggest flaw in this conversion is that Majesco did the worst job they possibly could have in porting the PC game's keyboard interface to the Dreamcast controller. Relatively worthless commands have specific buttons dedicated to them, while important things like opening doors and re-loading your weapons are accomplished by illogical commands like "press the A button while holding left on the d-pad." It's hard to be immersed in a game world that requires you to constantly pause the game and look in the instruction manual to clarify a control issue. Last, but certainly not least, there are no multi-player options whatsoever in this game. The multi-player modes were a big part of what made the original PC game so fun, and their absence is a big part of what makes the Dreamcast version of Rainbow Six a complete and utter failure. Combine the lack of multi-player modes with the illogical control set-up and frustrating interface, and you've got one of the worst PC-to-console ports ever made. Send your thoughts on this review to jimmy@mastergamer.com
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