I must admit to a bit of a groan when I heard that the PS2 was getting a conversion of one of the Xbox's best-looking and most popular Xbox Live games - R63 pushes the Xbox pretty hard technically and isn't without its faults, and so I wasn't expecting much from this version for the older Sony machine.

And from first look you'd think my feeling of impending doom was right - everything; intro videos, menus, options, weapon selection screens, looks pretty much the same but a bit fuzzier. When you get into the game itself a similarly PS2-esque look continues and you soon realise that the levels are cut-down and simplified, and that you aren't going to get anything like the detailing and crisp textures, or the ragdoll physics when bad guys die that make the Xbox version such a treat… But the animation is good and there are some nice lighting and heat haze effects… Anyway, apologies for the stupid and pointless comparisons (I've spent way too much time playing the Xbox version), and onto the game.

   

Head for the mission mode and a story unfolds that's so preposterous that it's probably really happening right at this moment, but needless to say that you (Domingo "Ding" Chavez - no, that really is your character's name) and your faithful band of three (Eddie Price, Dieter Weber and Louis Loisellle) are sent all over the place to shoot bad guys and save the good guys (and girls). So there are four of you, and if like me you're numerically curious, you'll likely soon be asking where the heck the 'Six' and the '3' of the title come from, but I ain't tellin' so you'll just have to find out for yourself (or alternatively ask some smartarse like I did). But I digress - back to the game; once you've done the excellent training mode, the first mission sees you clearing a mountain village of terrorists and saving hostages. It looks great, feels cold and really gets you in the mood for some sneaky-shooting action.

   

R63 is a first person tactical squad-based shooting game, and you get to order your three amigos around much like the Ghost Recons, SOCOMs or Conflict Desert Storms of this world. The difference here is generally the missions take place inside or in relatively claustrophobic settings compared to the other games, and so your three guys act together as a unit and you can't order them about individually - sometimes this looks great and makes perfect sense and at others you'll curse the fact and they'll get in each other's way and act more like the Stooges 3 than Rainbow 6. You can order the guys to anywhere in line of sight with a simple press of X, or to open a certain door, or breach a locked door and stand back and watch as they behave in a remarkably lifelike way. All the commands can also be made by using a headset and holding L2, and the guys' speech is even lip-synched, but just as with the Xbox game I found myself using the button presses as they seemed quicker and more reliable.

Most of the time the guys will act like highly trained killing machines and do the business, but occasionally they'll blunder in somewhere and get outgunned, or inform you that a room is clear when it's not, or even blow themselves up with a breaching charge or a grenade - so like all intelligent creatures, the R63 team are impressive when they do what they're supposed to, and amusing when it does something dangerously dumb (as long as you're not the one getting hurt, right?).

   

The control layout I used had fire on R1, reload on R2, weapon select on L1 & L2, night/thermal vision on Triangle, and the various orders on square and X. All orders can be modified so the team will perform the action you want on the delayed command of 'zulu' (circle button) - this means that you can storm an area or room from two directions with a simultaneous assault - it feels cool as heck when it works and smartly this will often result in the bad guys feeling outnumbered and surrendering rather than fighting. When the bullets start flying, clicking L3 makes you crouch, allows you to duck behind objects for cover, and obviously makes you a smaller target too.

The weapons are quite possibly the single best bit of R63, they all look and sound wonderful (pistols, semi-automatics, machine guns, assault rifles, shotguns and sniper rifles) and you get either a telescopic view (if the weapon allows it) or a slightly zoomed, more accurate aiming view if you click R3. Secondary weapons are confined to the various pistols (the punchy Desert Eagle is a personal favourite) or a grenade launcher, and two equipment slots allow you to carry more hand grenades (including frag, flashbang, incendiary, smoke and tear gas varieties), breaching charges, remote charges or claymore mines. And if you pick the CS gas grenades for certain missions you might also want a gas mask to avoid getting yourself all dizzy…

   

Three difficulty settings (Recruit, Veteran & Elite) change the game completely, and completing the game's 15 missions (one more than the Xbox) on 'Elite' is a serious challenge. The levels have set checkpoints and are divided up into even chunks, meaning you never have to replay too much should you or your team buy the big one. You can also play the game as a straight terrorist hunt (no annoying hostages to rescue or bombs to defuse), and also, in a big one-up on the Xbox version play either terrorist hunt or mission mode with a buddy in a split screen. This plays well enough but there are occasional frame rate problems, and I for one like to be able to see my weapon - they disappear in the split screen mode and you just have an aiming reticule (like Ghost Recon).

Online allows up to six players, which may not seem like a lot when compared to SOCOM II's 16 (or indeed Xbox R63), but 10 themed levels are designed in such a way that they seem perfect for four or six, and the sometimes overcrowded feel of the Xbox game never surfaces. The servers are limited to European only at the moment, so lag rarely seems an issue and we've had no instances of poor collision detection either - both of which spoil the Xbox experience, where you can sometimes seem to empty a clip into an enemy with no result. We've had several enjoyable sessions, and so far had no clear indications of active cheating or gamey, loudmouthed children (unlike SOCOM II) - just lots of competitive games (Survival, Team Survival or Sharpshooter) with decent lobby chat thanks to the excellent voice coms. The game allows for messages, friends lists and ladders, so should make for an excellent clan game. Sadly there's no option to play the mission or terrorist hunt modes co-operatively online though (which is one of the best features of the Xbox game for many).

   

R63's weakest points are the occasional drops in frame rate and the annoying stealth/hold weapons missions, in which you have to creep around for a while before suddenly being told "weapons are free" at which point you can kill all the bad guys you just sneaked past - they're just a bit silly and don't really fit it with the rest of the game. Mostly though, this is an exceedingly competent conversion of an impressive Xbox game, that in many respects plays better than the original.