UbiSoft has a tendency to buy companies with hit titles, and then have their own development teams produce lower quality sequels, hoping to make sales on the strength of the original games' reputations. Ever since UbiSoft bought Red Storm Entertainment and started producing the Rainbow Six games themselves the gameplay has changed for the worse, the story lines have become increasingly contrived and obviously written with more concern for political correctness than realism, and the bugs have been out of control.
There have been over a dozen patches released for Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield since it's release, and Athena Sword has even more bugs. I have never owned a game which required so many patches.
The online play is nowhere near as good as Rogue Spear (although better than Counter Strike, if you prefer realistic tactical shooters to the run-and-gun arcade style games) and the single player campaigns aren't challenging enough to provide more than a few hours of entertainment.
If you've already bought Raven Shield and are considering buying Athena Sword, my suggestion would be to wait until the price drops, which is closer to it's actual worth. In the meanwhile, there are plenty of better designed user-made levels for single player and multiplayer play available for free download all over the internet if you're looking for more content for Raven Shield.
Here are a couple of the problems and bugs found so far:
While prone with the M240G Heavy Machine Gun, there is no animation of the belt being fed through the receiver
While using an Athena Sword weapon the hand and arm models in first person view have holes in the geometry
The SM4 CQB Machine Gun points around a 15ยบ angle up
All of the Athena Sword weapons have the same firing sound with small tweeking, and not the awesome new sounds Ubi promised
The G3A3 and the G3KA4 appear to be identical to the player except for color
There are areas where textures which are supposed to be Flagged as false backdrop are not, and the skybox does not show through like it is supposed to
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Back 12 patches ago I swore I wouldn't give UBI more money. Well, I lied and I purchased Athena Sword for $29.99 two days ago from EB Games. After playing for 2 days here's my 2 cents.The new maps are poorly optimized. The strongest of computers will yield you such poor FPS in many spots you wonder why you paid $30 for the game. The new game play modes are kind of interesting, but that's it. "Kind of" interesting.
Basically, Athena Sword is a $30 map pack. You can find equal to or better maps made by the modding community and play them on Raven Shield that not only run better, but are free.
If you MUST HAVE Athena Sword wait until the price drops to $10 or $15. It won't take long for the price to drop.
Raven Shield (full version) is selling for $15 at Best Buy in the US, so I can't imagine Athena Sword lasting at $29.99 for very long.
It's just not worth $30. Hang tight until it's cheaper. Die hard Rainbow Six fans may feel driven to buy it out of loyalty to the game like me. To all you hard core Clancy fans... try to resist the urge and wait if you purchase it at all.
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Some nice new features and everything. But for a Map Pack, these maps were horribly optimized. People with the best computers get 10 FPS with everything on low on alot of the maps. Good maps and nice layouts, but horrible horrible optimization.Honest reviews on Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Athena Sword - PC
What you get for online multiplayer with this expansion are 3 things: New weapons, new maps and new play modes. While the expansion is good, it has a 'rushed out the door' feel. For example, there is a problem in multiplayer in which both sides are wearing the same color clothing on some maps. One will be solid blue, the other will be blue camo. This should have been picked up on.The maps are very attractive and of high quality, however there are odd spots in which you have to use ladders and open doors differently than in RS (you have to back away or aim at a specific spot on the door). Not a good thing to have when you are trying to hurry to a choke point. Hopefully these gets fixed.
The new weapons are interesting, but as mentioned before, one points at an odd angle, and many firing sounds seem to be muted.
The new game play modes are what really carry this expansion. While initially I was not interested in these at all, the capture the enemy game mode have my friends and I addicted. It was nice to get a positive surprise, especially with some of the minor let downs concerning the other areas of the game. Still, this mode is not without its problems as well. If you get handcuffed and are subsequently flashbanged, get used to the ringing sound, because it won't end until the round does.
I bought this only for the online play. I have no idea what the single player campaign offers.
If the patches that have been promised fix the problems present, RS:AS is a 4 star expansion. As is, the expansion rates a 3.
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