Great tactical game (Rainbow Six - 3 Raven Shield (PC))

Member Name: matt_ben

Product:	Rainbow Six - 3 Raven Shield (PC)
Date:	19/03/05 (53 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: graphics, weapons, sound

Disadvantages: none

Team Rainbow is back in the best outing yet. This time Rainbow needs to take down a neo-fascist terror network.

If you’ve played the first two Rainbow Six games then you will easily be able to get into this one as the gameplay is similar but improved. For example in the first two games you had a little map that showed you your waypoints but now you get a little white indicator on the game screen to show you where to go next. It also tells you how far away it is.

The biggest gameplay change is that you now see a first person weapon like most other first person shooters, but there is an option to turn it off.

The game has 15 levels but they take place in only 12 different places as you will visit 3 locations twice which seems a bit of a cheap trick by the developers. The missions are good but there’s not really anything more than rescue the hostages and neutralize all terrorists. Raven Shield also has one of those annoying stealth missions but at least there’s only one and it can be completed quite easily.

The game has 57 real world weapons (14 sub-machine guns, 16 assault rifles, 3 shotguns, 7 sniper rifles, 5 light machine guns, 8 pistols & 4 machine pistols) so there’s a lot for you to play with. In the single player game there isn’t really a use for the shotguns, sniper rifles or machine guns, most of the time you’ll be sticking to SMGs or assault rifles.

The game also has 4 types of grenades that can in handy sometimes. You get frag, flash, smoke and teargas grenades. Teargas is the new type and people who are affected by it will find it hard to see so will be an easy takedown. It will also affect you (which gives a really cool effect which has to be tried out at least once) if you walk through a cloud of it unless you wear a gas mask.

You do get an unlimited amount of characters but only a few are “real” people if you get all of these killed then you’ll be stuck with the ones who are just called “backup”. You might not think this is a problem but the backups skills are no where near as good as the proper characters so it’s a good idea to try to keep them alive. Characters skills (eg. Assault, electronics, demolitions etc) will increase during the campaign but only if they live.

One bad thing is that you can’t save during a mission so if something goes wrong right near the end then you’ll have to start all over again.

The game has some very nice looking graphics. All of the weapons and models look realistic and the game runs very nicely even on a lower end system. The weapon sounds are also realistic and sound good.

The game has 9 different multiplayer modes and supports up to 16 players online on via LAN.

Gameplay: 8/10
Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 8/10
Multiplayer: 7/10
Overall: 8/10

Summary: