Rogue Spear: Hands On Preview by Bubba "MasterFung" Wolford
	The Impact of Weapons As I was playing multiplayer with some friends, we were trying different weapons and having fun shooting each other in the foot. What is cool about shooting each other in the foot? Well, after your persona gets popped in the foot, he limps around the maps dragging his leg. You can actually see the impact and the foot wobbling around. Nice addition! The weapon that seemed to make the biggest impact were the different sniper rifles. If you can find a good place to hide, you can assume the sniper position and camp out waiting for potential victims to stick their heads out. The Barrett Model 95 (.50 cal) quickly became one of my favorites. The M-14 was also a pleasant surprise. It is very accurate with some long range and good knockdown capability. The SPAS 12 shotgun was another pleasant surprise. It fires in full auto or single shot. They have tweaked the impact and spread of the shotguns to resemble a more accurate impact. Firing across the map now gets you more damage and more accuracy. I can remember vividly firing at someone in the bunkers map from about 25 yards away as they were running straight toward me. When he got hit with my SPAS 12, his feet lifted off the ground and he was thrown backwards about 5 yards. We both shot up in our chairs and were yelling, "OOOHHHHHH that was AWESOME"! Frag grenades are now much more powerful. They make a lasting smoke cloud and destroy a larger radius of area. When one of my friends was playing "camper" in the lookout tower of the Russian Radar Station (see maps below) he and I were throwing frag grenades at each other. He would throw one out the window and I would move. I would throw one and it would either sail over the tower or fall short and about land on me! He and I went around and around until I finally pulled a Joe Montana and hit one in the window right at his feet. Just before it went off I heard him scream, "OH CRAP"! Flash Bangs are just like I described in my E3 roundup. They make a very annoying sound in your ears (sounds like a tornado right next to you), momentarily blind you, make your persona temporarily paralyzed (can't fire your weapon) and put all sorts of funny colors on your monitor! These new babies made a great impact on our multiplayer games. FUN FUN!! Click to continue		Smoke Grenades are being considered for Rogue Spear but the team is still not sure if they will be implemented. Apparently, they cause quite a slowdown in multiplayer. They were not working in beta 1. Maps and Planning The first map is a mangled Kosovo. It has the remains of many blown-out buildings with some excellent sniper spots. Rain is falling and it sounds FANTASTIC! It actually stuck the hairs up on my skin. The map is BIG and if I had more than 4 computers this would have been an excellent map to play with lots of people in multiplayer. This mission has your team rescuing hostages from a helicopter crash. This one is graphically stunning! The second map is one of a Russian dock port facility. This is another BIG map and its levels reminded me a little of the Russian Buran test site with the multiple levels and rooms. Lots of open areas though, and some great sniper positions! The third mission is the Opera House. This map was by far the HARDEST one on the CD!! Trying to make it through solo is about impossible. Any missed shots usually get the hostages shot. We found this map to be excellent in multiplayer due to all the balconies and the high railings with great sniper points. This one is another LARGE map and is again gorgeous graphically. Recently I was talking with Wendy Beasley (Super PR woman at RSE) on the phone about the Opera mission. I was telling her how hard it was to finish the map playing without other team members (going solo on the mission). She mentioned that the team has designed some missions that virtually require you to have several teams running through the map at the same time. This is going to make people like me (who like to kill everyone themselves) actually have to depend on teammates to do their job correctly and use the multiple command maps that have been added to this version. A new challenge is always fun…. The fourth map (and the last) on the beta press CD was a strike against a Russian Siberian Radar facility. This one is smaller than the first three and was the map used in the demonstration at E3. Snow is falling and your persona leaves footprints in the snow as he runs. As a result of this, more than once I was able to find out where someone went just by following their footprints. There is a lookout station that has great positions for sniping people. This map is just the right size for good multiplayer games and is fun to run in Lone Wolf because there are "Tango's" everywhere. Go to Part Three: Sound and AI
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