This game is very entertaining. Although it is a little less realistic than its predecessors, Raven Shield boasts better AI, and provides the player with an impressive arsenal of weapons to destroy things with.

I'd like to warn you now though: this game can suffer from a wide range of peculiar bugs and malfunctions, namely, bad CD keys and in some cases a reduced ability to connect to online games. My biggest complaint is the integration of Punkbuster into this game. It's software that limits and punishes people who like to cheat during online games with various kicks and bans. However, it often will kick you for trivial reasons and other things that aren't really your fault ("bad" screennames, timed out while trying to update PB clients, etc.). It's disconcerting when you're kicked from a server for every 5 minutes because of some error code you can't understand or remedy. Don't expect any help from Ubisoft or Evenbalance. The former always blames evenbalance, and Evenbalance does not post its phonenumber and will not return your emails -- they don't like helping people fix their glitchy software. Aside from that I have one *IMPORTANT WARNING*: when you connect to an online game, Ubisoft determines whether or not your CD key is allowed on that server. If you get banned, reinstalling will not help...you're just out of luck. Often times, people who get banned from too many servers will craftily sell their useless software to some unsuspecting user over the internet. The game will appear to work fine, but you will soon realize that you've been had when you try to connect to a game server -- from which YOUR CD HAS BEEN BANNED. Ask questions before buying, or you might get ripped off.

I'm a grad of Team Tactics and Anti-Terrorist training schools. With that in mind this is how I break out Raven Shield.
First off the graphics were great, quite a step up from Rogue Spear. The graphics really require a top notch video card, I tried running the game originally on a 128 card an it was very glitchy. Once I upgraded to a 256 card, things smoothed out and I had no more problems.
Game Play.
Pros: Team planning allows you to adjust the the number of team members used, the equipment they use, and the load out of weapons. Most importantly you can control entry to each and every room.
Teams move in actual team fashion, entering rooms in either storm or zipper fashion, and they are far better shots than you.
Story line, although perhaps a tad hollywood fantasy, it was engaging and you wondered what you'd uncover next. I usually hate little cinamatics between levels, but these were great!
Weapons choice is great, remember to outfit your guys with weapons YOU are comfortable using. The game in intrest of emulating the armed forces of the commandos you are pretending to be or maybe just to get you to use other weapons, loads you out with all sorts of useless weapons, so make sure you change them to what YOU like. I especialy liked the acuaracy differences between the weapons as well as knock down differences.
Armor and Cammo selection. It was great that you could pick your cammo, which made it easy to differentiate between your teams by giving each team a specific color of cammo. I also like that you were nosier and slower in heavier armor.
Cons: In a tactical team you have the lead man or point, the tail end charlie and in between you have utility men. Now the hardest thing about learning team tactics is trusting each member of your team to cover his line of fire. I can't tell you how often my Utility man would rush ahead of me and block my line of fire, then get shot himself. While engaging my target, my team members would often ignore their target to engage my target.
Team members not under my direct control would walk cheerfully into ambushes. I would often have to clear ambushes in their sector before I could send them on. Eventually I structured my assualts so that the other teams would cover my back to prevent terrorist from circling around while I cleared out all the bad guys.
A terrorist that can't be brought down by a 7.62 round fired from an asualt rifle, can easily take you out at long range with a pistol in one shot through your heavy kevlar.
Unlike Rogue Spear, this AI just could not get flash banging a room right. If you told one of your teams to flash a room before entering they would get themselves shot to pieces first then flashbang themselves. Not that it mattered, Flashbangs didn't seem to effect the terrorist at all. While your team stumbles around, the terrorist would pick you off from the very spot that the grenade went off.
Although I listed a lot of cons, overall I love the Rainbow six series. It is very realistic as far as the tactics needed to accomplish the missions. The weapons have kick. Your ability to shoot is comprimised by wounds. Team members that are not snipers have a tougher time using the sniper rifles. The missions were great. I espesially love that the bad guys don't show up in the same spots each time. I love being able to swap team members out and that as you use them they get better at certain jobs, like leadership if you put them in charge of team. I highly recommend this game. I didn't even go into how much fun this game is online. If you like FPS, then the Rainbow series is hands down the very best.

I was a big fan of UBI Soft Ghost Recon which is why I am so disappointed. What happened?! This is easily one of the worst games I've seen come out of any company, but to come from UBI Soft, is a real shock. The only saving grace for the whole game is that unlike most others, when you play a level a second time, the enemies are not in the same places and react differently. It keeps the game from getting old. What does make the game very old, very fast, is the AI. I eventually had to give up with using AI teams because they never fail to blow themselves up with thier own breeching charges, ignore terrorists 10 feet away from them or walk around corners and give away my postion. But by far the most frustrating part is what I have come to call, the sniper pistol. Here is the scene: You've spent 20 minutes clearing the level of all terrorists. You sneak up on the last one. He's 100 meters away, you have an unobstructed shot and he's looking the other way. You draw a bead on him, centermass on his back. You fire a shot but instead of dropping, he spins, kneels and fires a single shot from his pistol, killing you instantly. Eventually I resorted to god-mode just to get some entertainment out of the game. We deserve better from UBI Soft.

wass up everyone this game was cooool!!!!! super realistic!!!!
In most games(SOCOM BHD.......ETC) they make the AK-47 INNACURATE!!! in this game it is soo accurate!!!!!!


..............................it was fun

This game is very realisic. And one of the best things about it is there is a whole line up of weopons to choose from, going from 50 M82A1 sniper rifles, to M60s, to AK47's, to M16's.
But this game can become very boring after a while.
For people who like to do stealthy kind of missions... BUY IT!!!!
For people who like to grab an M60, scream "CHARGE", and run at the enemy's base while sparying bullets in all directions... DON'T BUY IT!!!! buy BattleField Vietnam!!!!