User Reviews (1 - 8 of 8)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Fan of Ghost Recon / SOAF / R6 / RS / UO? Look here

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: January 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I've been an avid Tom Clancy FPS PC fan since the first Rainbow Six was released almost 10 years ago.

Recently, I had been playing America's Army: Operations since its release in July of 2002. But after awhile, the game got repititious (same weapons kits over and over and over again), cheaters became rampant (aimbots and engine mods up the wazoo), and deathmatches (to me) were exciting when Doom first came out in 1994. The multiplayer aspect NEEDS to have some type of evolution.

Fast forward to Rainbow Six 3 Gold Pack! You get the Athena Sword expansion pack along with Raven Shield for a great price.

Rainbow Six 3 is based on the same Unreal 2 engine used for America's Army Operations. You can go prone now for more stable sniping positions (wasn't possible in Rogue Spear). You can slowly open doors, toss a frag/flashbang/smoke and close the door in one fluid motion.

*************************
Game Engine: I'd say its pretty decent for a tactical FPS.

There are some glitches like getting stuck by a door, and not being able to lean in certain spots on the maps. There is also a bug where you cannot move when you first deploy in a multiplayer game. If you hold down the forward key, you can only move forward until you let go and wait 1-2 seconsd.

I'd like to see a more powerful M67 frag grenade. Right now, you can toss a frag and only breach a door w/o hurting the tango right behind it. The M67 is supposed to have a 15m blast radius which should effectively clear the room of all tangoes, blow out all the windows, and cause a ringing in your ear if you're in the area.

I'd also like to see Lean Toggle like in AAO. I have to hold down the lean key, strafe key, and movement key - I start playing hand yoga on my keyboard afterwhile.

********************

Weapons Choices:

Athena Sword adds a few extra firearms but IMHO, the overall selection is better than the standard choices for many of the other Tom Clancy games.

It lacks variety of pistol calibers, pistols, and proper damage modeling. For instance, the game has 45 Auto (ACP) as having LESS damage than 40 S&W. In reality, 45 Auto cuts a larger temporal wound cavity and expands to nearly 3/4" after hitting ballistic gelatin.
The choice of JHP (Hollow Points) has no effect on damage in the game. I can shoot a soft-target in the head with JHP and it may take 2 more shots to finish the job.

I would like to have seen a 44 Magnum Desert Eagle, a Glock 20 (10mm Auto), and maybe .380 ACP and even 22 LR.

For rifles, they did a decent job of choosing the most common battle rifles. What they left out were the M203 40mm grenade launcher, M136 AT-4 Recoil-less anti-tank launcher, and GP-30 Russian grenade launcher. I'm pretty sure they did this because Rainbow is supposed to be a HRT-type team and NOT a full-on military assault team.

I would have liked to see multiple accessories:
suppressor + high capacity magazine + mini-scope because that is more realistic. You can slap on a Beta mag on a M16, along with a Gemtech and Trijicon ACOG w/o any problems. The rifle would be REALLY heavy, but it's do-able in real life.

**************************

Graphics:
The character modeling is decent, and I love the ragdoll physics! Some improvements are in order but otherwise it's fairly decent!

The rifle modeling, OTOH, leaves something to be desired. The iron sights weren't done right on the M16/M4.

*******************************

Single Player:
The maps, as usual, were fairly robust. There's lots of detail and the environment is just overall very realistic.

Multiplayer:
Typical deathmatch stuff, but Athena Sword adds Count Down and some other stuff.

My favorite is Cooperative Tango Hunts. I'm not sure if this is new because I've never tried Rainbow Six or Rogue Spear multiplayer, but Cooperative play against the PC isn't all that bad. Just pretend you're playing against 40 people that all have aimbots, accuracy mods for pistols and submachineguns, and occaisonally look in the wrong direction.

*********************

Sounds:

Rifle sounds are sometimes accurate, and sometimes not accurate.
Pistols are way off for most except the SIG P228 9mm. The P228 makes a "POP POP POP" sound, which is the same as you'd hear with any 9mm Luger semi-auto pistol. In fact, 45 Auto pistols sound the same as well, just like firecrackers.

but in the game, the HK Mk 23, P228, Glock 17 (Iron Wrath Addon), and USP 40 S&W all make different sounds when fired. My guess is that they did this for variety. It would be rather boring to hear the same sound effects. However, I find myself choosing the P228 + High Cap mags all the time because it sounds more realistic.
I recommend you download some of the Raven Shield community map packs and practice by yourself.

Overall, this game is totally worth it and I hope my review wasn't too boring.

Tactical gaming must have!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: September 30, 2004
Author: Amazon User

If you're looking for a "run & gun" action title, skip this game and look into Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, or DOOM - this is a tactical shooter. This title is great, if you're looking for a first person shooter with a little more substance and realism to it. Right off the bat you're in charge of mission execution/planning, team selection, and choosing specialized weapons kits (flash bang grenades, heartbeat sensors, etc..) for your operators. Instead of running into rooms and shooting everything in site, you will have to carefully lead your team in hostage rescues and similar missions (great use of the mouse wheel to slowly open doors to peak in, or throw a flash bang grenade). Great graphics (especially with a higher end graphics card)and great gameplay. Multiplayer online for Rainbow Six 3 is where it's at, though. Hook up with others and form a team to cooperatively complete missions and eliminate tangos, or go team against team and try to eliminate each other. Another great thing about this game is its use of the Unreal graphics engine. This game's engine looks great and is not too taxing on the graphics card, plus it is easy to make modifications (mods), or custom maps/missions with the Unreal engine (tons of great maps for free download already, which just enhances the replay value!). As with all games, this one isn't perfect, as the computer AI (your teammates and enemies) could use a bit of polishing and some of the missions are pretty difficult, but overall, a great game. If you like this game, you may want to look into Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, which is very similar.

Best Tactical Shooter I have played yet.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: May 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield and the expansion pack Athena Sword are two of the greatest tactical first person shooters to hit PC in the past few years, if not ever. You may know the name Rainbow Six from the previous games, Rainbow Six and Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear. If you are a fan of those games, this game is a must buy for you. These games offer stunning graphics (runs on Unreal Tournament 2003 engine), amazing game play, a great single player mode, and of course online multiplayer.

General Game:
The graphics are a huge step up, especially from the previous games. The game runs on the UT2003 engine and supplies very good graphics, especially for a tactical shooter. The sound is great, and plays a key role in the game. Listening for enemies around you is key to survival in this game. You have to listen for foot steps, magazines being reloaded, doors opening, glass being broken, etc. This makes the game very realistic. Character movement is also somewhat new. Now you can go into the prone position and lay on the ground to fully stabilize your aim and accuracy. You can still peek your head around corners. One feature they removed was being able to climb up boxes etc, I feel this is realistic because no tactical anti-terror team would climb around on boxes. Also another realistic feature is not being able to jump, no one jumps around to dodge gun shots.

Single Player:
Most video games (especially FPS games) do not offer a good story line. This is not the issue with any Tom Clancy game. If you like games with a little more to them then killing, then this game is for you. The story lines are very interesting fiction-based stories involving politics, terrorism, and world conflicts. It is great being able to plan your teams' execution, you pick your teams' weapons, armor, electronic kits, explosive kits, lock pick kits, grenades, flash bangs, you name it. The only problem with single player seems to be the Artificial Intelligence. The AI is a lot smarter in these games then in the previous, but still need some work. If you have the AI set on Elite or Veteran they become almost impossible to beat unless you use smoke grenades to stop them from firing.

Online Multiplayer:
This has to be my favorite and most played part of the game. All you need to play is an internet connection (preferably broadband) and an ubi.com account to play. Multiplayer is my favorite part because you play against other players across the world that are much more skilled than the AI, and makes the game more challenging and different every time you play. There are special multiplayer maps dedicated to the game, so you will see new things in multiplayer that you did not see in single player. There are also tons of user made maps on the internet and great to play as well. There are also multiple game modes available to play online. Team Survival (Team death match), Survival (Death match), Co-op (you and other people against AI), and many other fun game modes!

Athena Sword:

Athena Sword adds some new missions onto the game. Many more weapons and some game fixes. Athena Sword is defiantly worth a look, especially with the new weapons added. With the Gold pack you get both games for a very low price, a great deal!

Overall, if you are looking for a great tactical shooter, great graphics and sound, get Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield and Athena Sword Expansion! After the single player move on to multiplayer and really test your skills against the rest of the world!

Tom Clancy's Games lovers read this!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 9
Date: March 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Great Game and just if u like the "rateing" thing there is it.

Single Player

Sound: 9 out of ten- Its proberly me but its crisp if u have a good computer if you dont have one and your buget is anywere between 2000-5000 dollars try alienware

Story: 9.5 out of 10- Great! The good (you) the bad (your enemies) and the ugly (the mastermind behind the evil plot)

Graphics- 7.75 out of 10- its not the greatest graphics ever seen but hey 10 out of 10 is rarely given out on this catigure

Gamplay- 9.5 out of 10-its great and when you are fooling around.... kill the hostage

Overall- 8.5

Multiplay

Sound- 8 to 9 out of ten- it gets fussy becouse your playing with thousands of people and the sever goes very slow

Graphics- 7.75- Same thing as single player

Story- 0 out of 10- Its multiplayer u kill people im not even going to count that in the over all

Gameplay- 10 out of 10- Its fun killing people in online and trying to be first

Overall-9 out of ten

Two words: LAN PARTY!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: September 06, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you love "thinking", fast paced, realistic, first person shooters... Not quite as by the book as SWAT 4 but much more fun with wider variety of weapons and equipment.This gives you some versitile call outs. Great graphics...you can check a tangos shave in this one or fire a shot thermal.Athena sword offers some expansive maps for a little hide an seek. Great gameplay, fast no paging and AI hears twigs snap not to mention you killing their teammates. Sound is very realistic allowing great distance and direction recognition for opponent location id. Great games great price. I bought a set for the team.... two words LAN PARTY!!!

Awesome tactics.....framerate a bit slow in Athena Sword

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 06, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is absolutely the best tactical shooter I've played, hands down. The tactics are realistic, much better than the Counter-Strike methodology of jumping up and down and dodging backwards and sideways to evade bullets. Other than tactics, there is a dizzying array of lethal implements, and you can choose how to outfit your team, either to be stealthy, or to load them all to bear with enough weaponry, ammo, and ordnance to wage a six-month guerilla war. I only have two gripes with this game, firstly that it took me quite awhile to memorize all the keystrokes required in gameplay, so the included quick reference guide for the default action keys came in most handy. Secondly, when you decide to load Athena Sword, the framerate is rather slow and skippy, which degrades the gaming experience. I have heard the same from several online game testers, but at the same time my computer has integrated Intel Extreme cruddy graphics hardware, so that might be contributing to that. Overall, an excellent game experience!

Raven Shield

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 19, 2006
Author: Amazon User

It was over way too fast. Nice replay value though. Overall very good game. Storyline was good and graphics were awesome. I liked the new equipment and imporvements from the last Rainbow Six. Good game.

Strategy is incredible in a FPS.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The idea of this FPS is to kill all the terrorists on a map using teamwork and limited supplies. The missions are also a lot of fun too, such as bugging phones, rescuing hostages, and the like. The main (and most interesting) difference between this FPS and another is that you do not have a particular amount of health, just a full circle that goes to half or none. Sometimes, if you are lucky, you can get away without hurt from getting shot. However, there is also no healing in the game, making it more of a strategy than a Ramo Mode type of game. Very enjoyable, both campaign and multiplayer. Also, there is an adversarial mode as well.

Review Page: 1 

Actions