When I was younger, I played video games and tried my best to avoid school. Now that I'm older, the quest for video games to become more realistic has brought about the need for 'training' sessions that have all but replaced your basic cheat sheet. Oh, how I long to just sit down and kill things!

I have mixed feelings about Rainbow Six: Covert Ops. On the one hand, it strives to be a hyper realistic game: operatives must learn the skills needed to succeed, training is demanding, tests are taken, preplanning is paramount, the graphics are excellent.... On the other hand, game mechanics are limiting: no jumping, no dropping or picking up weapons, some of the scenarios are ludicrous in the extreme (defending a button in the middle of a jungle?!), and there are few maps in the basic game.

As in real life, operatives spend countless hours training to be ready and learning their craft only to spend a few seconds performing their actual duty. And theirs the kicker: after spending hours learning the names and capabilities of the Austrain police force, how fast you need to be moving when reversing direction in a vehical, and what the brand names of common explosives are, the play breaks down into another first person shooter.

For those of you who like to read up on the history and inner workings of what you play, this might be a decent addition to your library. But as a stand alone game, the number of maps and scenarios limits its staying power.