Crime and punishment
Like with the other R6 games there is the persistent roster which means that unlike, for example, Operation Flashpoint where you get to have the same men killed in action mission after mission, in Raven Shield if you lose a guy in a mission he's gone forever and you have to make do with a rookie, one of your injured men, or someone you didn't pick first time round because his stats weren't that inspiring. This is one of the major causes of my frustration with this game - you see it isn't enough to merely complete the mission; you must also complete it with as few casualties as possible so as to keep the good guys and up the stats on the less able ones. It's kind of ironic that the game is structured in such a way that you have a whole bunch of guys who're top of the line and raring to go at the beginning of the game when the missions are relatively easy but through, y'know, wear and tear, they tend to get killed and you end up having to go in with a bunch of schoolboys on the later, more difficult, missions. I can hear you thinking 'ah, yes, but seeing as the beginning missions are easy, you shouldn't be losing men, should you?' but unfortunately even the early 'easy' missions aren't that easy and you can lose people in all kinds of interesting and messy ways.
Another element that adds tension to the game is the sound. I have the EAX thing enabled with just the two speakers and to be quite honest with you, in most games I don't even really notice it. There aren't that many times that someone takes a shot at me and I feel like looking over my shoulder to see if there's a bullet-hole in the door-frame but with this game a lot of the last sounds you hear (before getting an irritating piano-piece that signifying your death) is a noise like sitting in a metal box that's being attacked with a jack-hammer.
