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I was so bored, that I decided to look in my CD collection for older games: I fished out Raven Shield, a game I think I bought in 2004 (originally released in 2003 by UbiSoft). If I’m not wrong, back in 04, I almost finished the game, but (for some kind of reason) decided to dedicate my time to something more important.

Since the hardware has upgraded since 2003, this time, I was able to set all graphic settings to the maximum: including the gore one. After quickly familiarizing myself with the controls (making slight changes to mouse settings [fast] and different key-bindings for zoom and direction keys) during the perfect training sessions, I jumped right into campaign mode.

If you have played other Rainbow Six games before: these kind of games require a lot more strategy than the average ‘bash and crash through doors and kill everything that is in the way’ – games. Rainbow Six, for example, comes with expansive team control: portions of the game include planning, which (if you feel like it) allows you to set the waypoints manually and assign the individual team members to execute the missions. The good part is that each mission comes with 2 default plans, which are generally good enough to make it through the whole mission. Slightly confusing, however, during gameplay you can switch players and teams. Switching teams can be handy if the other team is taking too much ‘enemy fire’, which may (or may not) force you to take over command of that team. There are many weapons to pick from, too, not to mention that some team members have specific talents for (you guessed it) specific missions.

That said, in-game flow is good: it’s generally well-balanced. Some missions are tough which makes you curse why there’s no ‘auto-save’: if your team(s) die, you have to start all over again. ‘Enemies’ react fairly smart and will kill hostages if they detect one of your team members or teams. They react to noises too and will vehemently defend their (assigned) locations.

So is it good? Yes, albeit frustrating at times. If you get hit, you’re generally dead (‘start over’). Your enemies don’t always start (spawn) at the same spot, which can lead to surprising turns during the mission. But for an older game, it still stands the test of time and is actually enjoyable on nowadays faster (and better) computers. On my frustration-level, I would give it a 6, which means that “It’s sailing, but the motor ran out of fuel and there’s a big chance we may need to use the wooden peddles. Whatever”. That’s as close as a get, if you’d ask me to explain the game. However, without a doubt, if you see this game in the 10 dollar bin, I’d say ‘go for it’.