Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Athena Sword

by Ubisoft

Product Features

• All-new single player campaign with 8 missions that span the Mediterranean world
• Safeguard the world order in 5 new multiplayer maps
• Seven new real-world guns, for a massive total of 64 weapons to choose from -- a shooter fan's dream come true
• Incredible new multiplayer modes - Adversarial Terrorist Hunt, Adversarial Scattered Hunt, and Capture the Enemy

Product Details

• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B00008Z0IB
• Item Weight: 5 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: March 9, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #18,649 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Game Informer Review

This add-on for last year's Raven Shield is so stereotypical of an expansion that it boggles the mind. New content (maps, weapons, etc.) is all you get here; there's no technological improvement to be found anywhere. Of course, many would argue that none are needed.

The good news is that nothing is broken from the original – R6 aficionados will find everything they love intact, from planning to execution. However, nothing has really been fixed either. The new campaign falls prey to the same issues that have plagued every R6 game I've ever played – namely, much of the time the outcome of a mission is decided by the AI rather than player actions. On some missions, it's not all that uncommon for one of your squads to get wiped out in the first minute. And with no voicechat or voice command support, you can't even curse your dying moron allies. To top it off, it's pretty short – five hours should get you through it. Multiplayer gets a significant boost with Athena Sword, though. With five extra maps, seven additional weapons, and three new modes, the replay value of R6 is higher than ever.

Nothing here is really going to change anyone's mind about the franchise – if Rainbow Six isn't your thing, then don't bother with this. If you still find yourself playing Raven Shield instead of the newer FPSs though, Athena Sword will only make you fall in love with it all over again.

Concept:
Give the Tom Clancy fanclub some new missions and maps to do their thing with

Graphics:
No better than those of Raven Shield. Textures are pretty basic

Sound:
The only thing it's good for is locating terrorists around corners

Playability:
Strangely enough, the squad control is worse than the recent Xbox edition of Rainbow Six 3

Entertainment:
If you don't like R6 in the first place, nothing here will change your mind

Replay:
Moderately High

Rated: 7.25 out of 10
Editor: Adam Biessener
Issue: May 2004

2nd Opinion:
Athena Sword makes no contribution to improving the elements that make Rainbow Six titles unique. The mission planning and team setup are still great ideas, but they remain ultimately useless since your AI allies often get gunned down after their first two steps. Sure, you could just tell everyone to stay put while you do the mission yourself, but that sort of defeats the whole "team-based operation" concept. Your meat-shield comrades make the solo campaign frustrating, but there are enough additions to the set of multiplayer options to hold the attention of current R6 fans.

Rated: 7 out of 10
Editor: Joe Juba


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Product Description

Rainbow Six 3: Athena Sword puts you in charge of Team Rainbow again. In this thrilling new expansion pack, you track down the last desperate elements of a terrorist group in the Mediterranean. These last few cells are holding onto deadly chemical weapons, and they'll use them to destroy millions of lives -- unless you lead the world's premier counter-terror force and neutralize the threat.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Wait until the price drops to buy, March 11, 2004

By 

Andrew Baye (FL, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Athena Sword (CD-ROM)

Despite the rave reviews by UbiSoft employees posing as customers, Athena Sword, like Raven Shield, is substandard and buggy.

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 15º 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

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Wait to Buy - If You Buy at all, March 12, 2004

By 

"deserteagle99" (Bridgewater, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Athena Sword (CD-ROM)

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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Wasn't worth the money, March 12, 2004

By 

Eric Nebil Hovis (Charlotte, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Athena Sword (CD-ROM)

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.