As
much as Doom was my gateway into computer games and its rich potential,
Rainbow Six and its sequel Rogue Spear were my meat and potatoes. Back
when I actually had a subscription to a gaming magazine (God, those
were the days...) this preview for a game based on a Tom Clancy novel
immediately caught my attention. I had gotten plenty bored of Quake 2
and was restless for something different and unique. The
ultra-realistic gameplay of Rainbow Six fit to a T. Still, my computer
at that time was unable to meet the minimum requirements for R6, so it
would take a couple months before I actually got into it. But get into
it I did, with a passion that now seems somewhat inhuman. I lovingly
outfitted each operative with different weapons, carefully mapped out
their mission routes and held my breath as they soldiered out to take
down the terrorists and rescue the hapless hostages. Of course, on more
then one occasion the entire operation would turn into a fiasco with
multiple casualties and hostages gunned down. Alas, back to the drawing
board.
But
multiplayer was where Rainbow Six really shined. Freed of the
cumbersome AI, it was amazing to encounter a situation where you could
be taken out by the opposing team in just one or two bullets. The added
lethality of the weapons and the reduced margin of error made for the
most amazingly tense multiplayer matches ever. Rogue Spear, the sequel
which I bought on opening day was much more of the same. I have to be
honest, Rogue Spear multiplayer devoured my life throughout 4 years of
high school and doubtless contributed to the fact that my GPA suffered
and I never had a girlfriend. Oh well, it seemed worth it, that's just
how obsessed I was with the game. Even outside the game itself, I
posted frequently on RSE's (the maker of R6) forums and made quite a
few memorable friends, who later formed their own personal forum at
planb3.com. Rainbow Six is truly an immense chunk of my life and I have
nothing but fond memories to look back on.
