Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield (2003)

Aaaaaaaaand I give up. 12 hours in and still stuck at the third level. Turned the difficulty down to Veteran and the first two levels became a cakewalk, now taking a break so I can reassess my approach to that fucking tunnel lol.

I'm having a blast despite the majority of my time here feeling like I'm bashing my head against the wall. Hopefully the difficulty turned down will make my first playthrough go a bit smoother and then I can go back through on Elite when I feel like suffering. Excellent stuff though, really takes a special game these days to make me actually excited to come back and play the game versus it feeling like a chore.

Playing through on Elite and it's kicking my ass. 6 hours in and I'm only on the third level. I love it, feels like a much grander experience than the OG.

I will admit that the friendly A.I. is definitely making things tougher than they should be though, considering the modding route for smarter AI (Assuming that I won't be called a cheater, that is)

Hit a wall on the 5 level. No matter what, I lose operatives or get a hostage killed. I’m using the pre-made plan that I tweaked a little, but due to the fact that the enemy placement is determined by RNG, the plan is bound to crumble under some enemy layouts.

Well, you can always take control of the team and handle the encounter yourself, but the problem is that the enemies are aimbots.

I understand that such is the nature of classic tactical shooters: in order to make the player act carefully and plan ahead, the game severely punishes them for making a mistake. But RS3 bots are on a different level entirely: they can see very far ahead, they shoot precisely through the tightest gaps, when in stress (for example upon hearing a flashbang go off in a nearby room) they act erratically, which almost always results in a death of team members.

So your plans don’t always work and it’s very difficult to handle encounters yourself. What about the friendly AI? Well, it’s bad. First of all they are not dynamic.

In SWAT 3 for example the team members are always expecting danger, they react to doors being opened, they will hold their position when fired on, they will clear the rooms properly leaving no blind spots.

In RS3 the friendly AI doesn’t react to anything, they can’t hear anything, they barely react to being shot at. Even while having the tactical advantage, like being stacked up against a door, an enemy walking through that door will 99% of the time take out at least one team member. The game even allows the player to slightly open the door to toss a flashbang in, instead of opening it wide. The AI can’t utilize this feature, they barge in trying to toss the grenade and get shot.

It’s true that Rainbow Six games are more focused on pre-planning and not real-time decision making. Your goal is to create a perfect plan that, when executed, results in a success. But you can’t plan for RNG and the AI failing to properly clear a room. Playing this alone is frustrating, despite the fact that the systems in the game are pretty deep and flexible.

There’s still a dedicated community releasing mods and keeping the servers up. It was the last RS game before the series shifted to Hollywood-esque cover based action and I respect it for sticking true to the classic tactical formula but the AI brings this game down for me. Play Ghost Recon 1 or Swat 3 instead.