Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell

[Silva]

Please, pick your favorite from each series:

(no Vegas/GRAW/Conviction bulshit here, please )

Rainbow Six
Rogue Spear
Raven Shield

Ghost Recon
Desert Siege
Island Thunder

Splinter Cell
Pandora Tomorrow
Chaos Theory

MY TAKE: the original R6 is the series´best one for me, because I like small levels where you take more time planning than executing, and the first Rainbow was top notch on this (I install it till today only to play the Mansion mission ). Rogue Spear, despite its improvements over the original, had too long missions for my taste, and Raven Shield pffff.. is the worst one easily on this criteria. As for Ghost Recon, I never played Island Thunder, but found the missions in Desert Siege a little bit more cohesive and tight than the first one, so my vote goes for it. And about Splinter Cell series its a no contest for me, really - Chaos Theory, with its open-ended levels and ass-kicking atmosphere simply rapes the previous two games.

Do you agree ?

 

[sgc_meltdown]

original rainbow six does not screw around or coddle you

I also remember my AI squad members being better shots than me

 

[Sul]

In my opinion Chaos Theory along with Thief 2 is the best stealth game ever made. From the R6 series I prefer Rogue Spear. Never played any GRAW game.

 

[Silva]

The only Thief Ive played was Deadly Shadows. Great game (that orphanate is one of the most scary stages Ive seen ). Is it worth to get Thief 1/2 nowadays, just to check the stealth play ?

BTW, I heard Metal Gear is a solid stealth series too, but the only one Ive played (the one on playstation 1) looked to me like an action game with a stealth mini-game attached, or somthing like that. What do you guys think of it ?

 

[ironyuri]

The only Thief Ive played was Deadly Shadows.

A pox on your house, and your genitalia.

 

[MetalCraze]

Somebody voted for Pandora tomorrow lol

 

[octavius]

Only tried the first Splinter Cell game. Never have I watched a more rail roaded game. After the freedom to explore and the open levels of Thief 1 and 2, it was a suffocating experience.

Of the Ghost Recon games I really liked the first one and the two expansions, but for some reason that I can't remember, I didn't care much for the second one.

 

[Angthoron]

Didn't play the other series (Tried to play GR but it was too Tom Clancey Derp for my tastes) but R6 and R6 Rogue Spear were awesome. And all those gun porn mods...

 

[Carrion]

Rainbow Six: Going with Raven Shield here. It has the most realistic AI and weapons, and additions like opening doors with the mouse wheel and 3D camera shots at the planning stage improve some parts of the game immensely. The mission design and variety is not quite as good as in Rogue Spear, but all of the levels are still very good and the campaign feels a bit more coherent than in the previous games. Finishing Raven Shield did not make me feel as victorious as finishing Rogue Spear, but overall it's the better game.

Ghost Recon: I've only played the first one so I'm going with it. It's a pretty good game but not as good as Rogue Spear or Raven Shield.

Splinter Cell: I played the first two games around the time that Pandora Tomorrow came out, and I've never bothered to replay either of them, so I don't remember a whole lot about them. Out of these two I remember the first game having a few crappy missions whereas Pandora Tomorrow didn't have those. I might be mistaken because they were basically the same fucking game. Not great games by any means but alright for one playthrough, I suppose. I've been planning to play Chaos Theory for years but the series has never interested me enough to actually do that. How open-ended were the levels again?

 

[MetalCraze]

but for some reason that I can't remember, I didn't care much for the second one.

Refreshing the memory

 

[Ebonsword]

(no Vegas/GRAW/Conviction bulshit here, please )

I actually kind of like Rainbow Six Vegas 1 & 2.

 

[Menckenstein]

Rogue Spear

ISLAND THUNDER

Chaos Theory

 

[sea]

Rogue Spear was great because it improved upon the original Rainbow Six gameplay without really making any drastic or annoying changes. Raven Shield was really good but started to move too far into conventional shooter territory for my tastes and in my opinion some of the level design, interface etc. also suffered from them trying to make it a bit more action-oriented. Still a good game though.

Never played too much Ghost Recon but the original was pretty impressive at the time for its pretty huge open levels. Played some of the newer ones and they just seemed like very boring, generic shooters in comparison.

Chaos Theory is one of the best stealth games ever made. The first Splinter Cell is good and Pandora Tomorrow was alright too, but Chaos Theory took all the stuff that was good about the first two and improved the controls, interface etc. while also still making the game firmly about stealth. You can play it action-style if you want but ghosting it is still very difficult. Double Agent had good ideas in places but was too directionless (I liked the icebreaker ship level and a few others but the HQ and criminal infiltration stuff was not handled that well), plus it was buggy and crashed a lot for me. Conviction wasn't actually that bad either for a popamole game, though it was way too short. Outside of Conviction I'd say Splinter Cell is the Tom Clancy franchise that has suffered by far the least in recent years and has always had fairly solid core gameplay.

 

[poocolator]

Chaos Theory was great in coop. Many hours were spent by me playing it with tails, back before he disappeared into the void (or picked up an alt).
We'd have rules, like no killing or no getting caught, etc. Made the game tougher but more fun.

 

[Carrion]

Raven Shield was really good but started to move too far into conventional shooter territory for my tastes and in my opinion some of the level design, interface etc. also suffered from them trying to make it a bit more action-oriented.

How, exactly? I had to spend a lot more time on the planning stage in Raven Shield than in Rogue Spear where I usually just set the waypoints at random and proceeded to shoot people in the face. There were usually a bit more enemies per level in Raven Shield but that was probably because the AI wasn't superhuman like in Rogue Spear. I don't remember any notable differences in the interface, except that in Raven Shield you could see your gun. When it comes to level design, I might just agree with you.

If anything, Raven Shield felt more like a conventional shooter because people didn't die when someone shot them in the toe with a pistol, weapons weren't 100% accurate and the AI didn't usually shoot you in the head milliseconds after spotting you. Saying that Red Storm tried to make the game more action-oriented is a bit misleading since Raven Shield was much more realistic than any of their previous efforts.

 

[Silva]

The problem with Raven Shield for me is level design. Levels are too big and with too much enemies. If Rogue Spear began this tendency, Raven Shield elevated to the N potency. The end result is a clear inconsistency with the strategic side - because of the big levels and huge number of randomly spawned enemies, any plan you make gets too dependent on luck (and prone to fail most of the time) and It gets harder and harder to play in "commanders chair" (Watch mode ?). I think this was a conscious move from the devs though - since they got this shining new and improved command interface, nothing more logical than put it to good use, and the natural way to do so is increasing levels complexity and duration.

But compare this with most missions from the first game (and a lot from Rogue Spear): the missions were more like "set-pieces" in sports games: small areas with clear objectives, where you plan for 20 mins and execute in 2 min. Ready. Set. Go. End. Fast and furious, man. Thats my game.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

As an aside, this mod is worth checking out if the first Ghost Recon is your thing:

http://www.heroesunleashed.net/forums/

 

[MetalCraze]

While we are at it there is a remake of Island Thunder missions for ArmA2 (but probably mostly MP oriented, I haven't played it yet)

 

[Silva]

As an aside, this mod is worth checking out if the first Ghost Recon is your thing:

http://www.heroesunleashed.net/forums/

Ive got the Steam promotion (all GR games for 9,99 only this weekend) just to play Ghost Recon with this mod and.. fuck its AWESOME. Thanks man, you just made my day.

Metal, I will take a look at this, thks.

By the way, what Ill say now may sound weird, but I think the ArmA games are not really good tactical shooters, because the AI cant reliably use tactics at all (god knows how many times I tried to fix-and-flank, or simply supress-fire an enemy position, to no success). They are great "soldier sims" though, and their single-player campaigns are the best Ive seen in the genre.

 

[sea]

How, exactly? I had to spend a lot more time on the planning stage in Raven Shield than in Rogue Spear where I usually just set the waypoints at random and proceeded to shoot people in the face. There were usually a bit more enemies per level in Raven Shield but that was probably because the AI wasn't superhuman like in Rogue Spear. I don't remember any notable differences in the interface, except that in Raven Shield you could see your gun. When it comes to level design, I might just agree with you.

Playstyles are different for everyone, but I remember Raven Shield discouraging planning because of the random enemy spawns and, as mentioned above, the size of the levels. It was definitely a fun and tactical game, but I felt the strategy side of executing a great plan kind of suffered because the focus was put on split-second decisions rather than carefully figuring out what to do based on trial and error.

 

[Carrion]

The enemy spawns worked just like they did in Rogue Spear. You couldn't always find the same enemies in the same spots, but they didn't just randomly spawn all over the map either. There were a couple of possible spawn points for each enemy and they were all pretty logical.

I don't think the levels were that big either. There were a couple of exceptions, but most of them could be finished in a few minutes. In some of the hostage rescue missions you had to be extra careful with your waypoints and they definitely required a lot of trial and error for me.

 

[MetalCraze]

Metal, I will take a look at this, thks.

By the way, what Ill say now may sound weird, but I think the ArmA games are not really good tactical shooters, because the AI cant reliably use tactics at all (god knows how many times I tried to fix-and-flank, or simply supress-fire an enemy position, to no success). They are great "soldier sims" though, and their single-player campaigns are the best Ive seen in the genre.

No game has done AI that uses tactics well. If such AI existed wars wouldn't be fought by humans

They can get the job done though when used with mods like ASR AI, UPSMON (basically AIs can call for reinforcements and artillery support, they check nearby houses for enemies, they plant mines on the road, they garrison houses etc.), Artificial Commander (AI that commands squads - I've tried playing against it - was really challenging because it really knows how to manouver)

When I asked a dev why didn't BIS use what AI mods achieved the answer was - "people already complain that AI is too good so if we will do that there will be nothing but complaining".
Fuck dis shit. It's the same reason why vanilla has no wind simulation (people will complain that shooting is too hard and if we will make AI compensate for wind people will complain again)

 

[Silva]

Metal, I actually meant tactics employed by the player.

In Ghost Recon its very easy to setup embushes, fix-and-flank, suppressive-fire, infiltration, retreats, etc. through the command interface and your teammates AI execute it quickly and correctly most of time. The same can be said for Rainbow and SWAT games (though these occur in CQB environment and thus are much narrower in scope). But in Flashpoint/ARMA thats something extremely difficult and unreliable to do - there isnt even a "supressive-fire" command ( at least not in the ARMA2 version Ive played ), and the "flank" command simply sends the team to your side (WTF ?) wihout any consideration to where the enemy is. Besides it, the command interface for dividing up your team in smaller fireteams and keep managing it is too "micromanage intensive"/not user-friendly at all.

Thats why I think the ARMA games are great soldier sims, but not so great tactical shooters, if that makes any sense.

About the opponent AI use of tactics, well, the problem for me is more their "long-range pinpoint one-shot accuracy" than its tactical behaviour, but thats easily toned down through the setup screen, so I dont have much to complain.

 

[kingcomrade22]

Chaos Theory really is a good game. When it comes to Splinter Cell, basically 1 and 3 (which is Chaos Theory) are the good ones. 2, which is Pandora Something, is kind of boring, and all the rest after I've known as buggy turds.

I've only played ARMA 2, I thought it was pretty boring. It appeals to people like skyway, which kind of implies its tedious and not very good.

 

[Silva]

Hey guys, I just found this cool little mod for Ghost Recon. It adds bloom effect, anisotropic filter, water reflexion and better shadows. I recommend it.

By the way, I found out that you can set a cover direction for a team if you press and hold the mouse button when adding a waypoint. All this time playing the game and I never knew that.