E3 Impressions: Best of Show by Bubba "Masterfung" Wolford
	Best of Show: Shooter Last year we were shocked and captivated by Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. Red Storm Entertainment's Wendy Beasley made a funny comment to me recently that since they were so new at last year's E3 in Atlanta that they were desperately trying to pull people into their booth and ask them to just "take a look" at Rainbow Six. What a huge difference a year makes! This year their booth was so packed it was hard to even see the monitors! The sequel to last year's smash hit has been called Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear. In our LAN group here in Houston we consider Rainbow Six a stable horse of entertainment and of immense value. I was excited to see what Tom Clancy's Entertainment was going to offer in the second edition in the series and I was even more impressed than I expected. Rogue Spear's game maturity, AI complexity, graphics, design, and mission structure remain unequaled. The game has so many enhancements it is almost impossible to list them all. This is the box to find in September! First off, the enemy AI now has psychological components that dictate how they respond to your presence. When I was watching one of the design engineers' play, he entered a room with three terrorists inside, startling one of them. Two were talking with their backs toward the player so they did not see him (Ding Chavez) enter the room. One saw him and reacted in absolute panic and terror. You could almost see his eyes widen with terror as he swung his weapon around, brought it to bear and began firing wildly, striking and killing his two buddies in front of him and totally missing the player. Quickly and swiftly he was dispatched. The design engineer chuckled lightly and smiled widely while commenting, "He lost control when I came in the room. This was a great example of how some terrorist AI players will react differently to your approach. He panicked and fired his weapon wildly due to his lack of training and fear factor." Veteran AI will not panic and will instead silently stalk you or hunt you in groups. Some enemy AI players may just run due to fear or try and hide when they hear gunshots from your weapons or see your teams. How often the AI panics will be modeled after the level of difficulty you choose to play, I suspect. Click to continue		Rogue Spear peek action. Also new is the dedicated sniper. He has his own crouch position to maximize the accuracy of his shot. However, once you are zoomed in, moving makes the aiming reticule huge and it does not tighten up as quickly as the other weapons. Crouching and staying still are the keys to a successful sniper as is a good firing position. Camouflage is still a key to Rogue Spear. Finding a good firing position where you can see the enemy and not be seen is still paramount in the game. Many missions have high weeds to help in this respect, such as the new 747 takedown mission which was heavily requested by players. Additional updates to the game include the ability to move while crouched (duck walk). You can even order your players to run and they will duck down and move quickly. Weapons are abundant in the game including the new .50 caliber sniper rifle. All of my personal complaints from the original have been addressed. Making the flash bangs and frag grenades more effective was a major goal of the Rogue Spear team. Flash bangs now not only blind you for a few seconds but also display a "colorful cloudlike smudge" on your screens that rotates colors as in real life. One Tom Clancy employee apparently offered to find out first hand if this is what happens when a flash bang fires in your eyes. Apparently he agreed! Fragmentation grenades now spray more shrapnel, which was demonstrated in a room with that was well populated with objects that take damage. This is another area of significant improvement. Don't drop a frag grenade near your persona or he will be in for a real bad day. Also, enemy AI will no longer just shoot you when you look into a room. Now they are forced to react like a real human by drawing their weapon (if it is down), lining a shot, and pulling the trigger. Do you always have to enter a room to scope it out? Now you can use the new "peek" action which allows your persona to peer around doors and look inside while only exposing your head for a few seconds. This, in addition to the AI having become more "human" makes for safer "takedowns." Continued on Page Five
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