Gas pressure sintered silicon nitride based composites with 3 wt% $eta$-Si3N4 whiskers were prepared and change of properties according to the whisker orientation and sintering temperature was studied. The tapes with whiskers were fabricated by two different method ; conventional tape casting and a modified tape casting by using guide pins,. Orientations of the whiskers were controlled by different stacking sequences of the sheets cut from the tape. Samples were fully densified by gas pressure sintering at 2148-2273K. As the sintering temperature increased size of the large elongated grains increased. In case of unidirectional samples sintering shrinkage normal to the whisker alignment direction was larger than that of parallel to the direction and the shrinkage anisotropy increased slightly as sintering temperature increased. As sintering temperature increased the crack length parallel to whisker alignment direction became shorter but that normal to the direction did not depend on sintering temperature. In case of cross-plied samples the anisotropy of mechanical properties disappeared.