Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3, Gold Edition: Raven Shield / Athena Sword Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Product Description:
Rainbow Six 3 Gold puts you in charge of Team Rainbow as you lead them to victory over terrorists! Control a multinational strike force as they face off the hidden threats to peace and stability. Includes Rainbow Six: Raven Shield and Rainbow Six: Athena Sword. Play on 11 dedicated multiplayer maps & gaming modes, for thrilling cooperative combat

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