Introduction
I have waited for this game to come out for some considerable time. There have been a couple (well, a few) games of its genre in the meantime but I really don't like games where you get a gun-sight reticule but you don't actually get to see the gun (and yes, I know that this is stupid but I feel that it messes up the realism). It's little things like this that can really spoil a game for me - for example, I was heartbroken when the Fight For Freedom add-on came out for Hidden & Dangerous and I found that they'd changed the brilliant, looking-down-the-sights perspective that the original game had, it put me off entirely. For this reason I have so far missed out on Rogue Spear (Rouge Spear as way too many people like to spell it), Ghost Recon + add-ons, and The Sum of All Fears. All of this is a bit of a shame really, as when the first Rainbow Six game came out I'd just read the book, and the only way to get me away from the computer was to turn the power off at the mains, but by the time I'd finished the Covert Ops expansion, I was dying to get back to the comfortable Half Life format.
Now, when I read about all of the great touches that Raven Shield had to offer I felt that this time they really may have got it right, and to be honest, I can see no reason to change this view. I admit that there are a few annoyances but I'll come those in due course.
First of all, to the relief of fans of the Tom Clancy games franchise, there
isn't a whole lot that's changed as far as the essence is concerned: you still
have a planning and an action phase, you're going into similar kind of situations
with similar kinds of weapons and against similar kinds of baddies. If this
sounds like more of the same then you're right ... but also a little bit wrong.
You see, someone once said that God is in the details, and it's certainly the
details that have made Raven Shield worth rushing out and buying despite, perhaps,
having all the other games already, so good old God - it must be nice to have
a real pro on the team.
