What a time to be alive. We are in the midst of a revolution in gaming and the old run and gun first person shooter has been changed to the new ultra-realistic style of shooter thanks to Redstorm Entertainment. Gone are the days of unlimited health packs and ammo crates, instead we are faced with real-world style action where one shot can and does kill.

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a huge fan of the Rainbow Six series by Redstorm. A simulation of anti-terrorist operations has been something I’ve been longing for, for as long as I’ve been playing PC games. Last year we saw a revolution in shooter design when Redstorm blew everyone away with Rainbow Six. One year and three design tweaks later we have Redstorm’s latest, Rogue Spear.

Dig the 'Karate Colonel' ready to kick ass!

I can’t tell you the rush of excitement I got when I laid my hands on this one, I felt like a kid at Christmas with a new toy and WOW, what a toy it is!

From the music (the best in any game I’ve ever played) to the updated and nicely refined graphics and tweaked AI, Rogue Spear is an excellent title. Do I see a repeat of last year’s awards in Rogue Spears future? Well, suffice it to say that the rest of the tactical shooters coming out more than have their work cut out for them.

A Great Follow-up

Rogue Spear is a great follow-up to last years award winning Rainbow Six and Eagle Watch mission pack and it’s taken large strides towards the pinnacle of ‘perfect game’ status. But there are still some clipping problems and the AI, though very much improved, still suffers at times from either being Barney Fife stupid or too Arnold-like superhuman.

In all fairness the human reactions that Redstorm is trying to emulate are not at all easy to do. Modeling real human reactions under stressful conditions like a hostage siege is a tough nut to crack. This was one of the biggest things I wanted to see in follow-ons to Rainbow Six, and I even mentioned it in my first review.

No matter how you slice it, this title is a step forward and shows great promise for future Rainbow Six titles. The graphics are richer and the AI is more sophisticated. The basics of the game interface have stayed the same with some great new additions that enhance not only the tactical side of the game but the immersion factor as well. Commands such as "cover" and the much requested "snipe" command have been added along with a bevy of new weapons to be used in single as well as multiplayer action.

Installation was a snap, the only weird thing here is the video card picker is a separate entity altogether. It would have been nice to have it within the program itself but it’s a minor point, and something you need to use if you have multiple cards in your system. Once you’ve chosen your card you can head into the game proper and redo all the bindings to your hearts content, although this time the keys are much better laid out and will need little if any refining.

Intro and Game Modes

As usual, Redstorm treats us to another intro video that plays out better than some games I’ve played and it’s done from within the game engine itself. If there was an Oscar award for intro movies, the Rainbow series would have their share of the golden little men on their mantelpiece.

Once you’ve gone through the intro sequence a couple dozen times, (if you’re like me and just love to watch it over and over) it’s time to head into the main screen and pick your poison. As in the other Rainbow games we are given the options of SINGLE for campaigning, MULTIPLAYER when you need to beat up on your buddies and TRAINING.

This year training is a bit more flexible as you can pick and choose your kits and head into the “city street hunt” and “killhouse” for some mind numbing action to hone those CQB skills. This time the AI is much more realistic but still VERY deadly, you’ll see for yourself when you head in there.

Single player allows you to start your campaign. Typical of the Redstorm style they’ve come up with a great variety of missions (eighteen in all) that will challenge even the best R6 veterans out there. It follows a chilling storyline, and once again the fate of the world hinges on the success of your Rainbow operatives. Due to the previous success of your team their services are in high demand.

The three skill levels to choose from are the same as always: novice, veteran and elite. Each has its bearing on how many tangos and hostages there are as well as the toughness and disposition of the tangos. Elite is not for the faint of heart, these guys are BAD muthas. If you’re new to the series I strongly recommend the novice level until you feel comfortable with this sim.

No plan survives contact with the enemy…

With the newly enhanced AI, this age-old adage becomes very apparent when you play Rogue Spear. With more human reactions modeled, tangos run away for backup when faced with a superior force, or their determination in hunting you down, not many plans you form will go strictly by the book. This makes RS as much a tactical thinking game as it is a shooter. Now you need to truly think of all the possibilities and "what ifs" when plotting movement and actions, always knowing you may have to improvise.

Sticking very much to the normal format of the planning screens, RS comes with a couple new features, weapons and items with which you can outfit your troops. You can easily and quickly assign a uniform, body armor, weapon and other items as well as selecting ammo for each operative, or you can assign an entire kit to the whole team at once. As always the interface for assigning and outfitting your operatives is streamlined and very easy to pick up and use.

Planning Your Mission

What can I say about this part of the game that hasn’t already been said by many people before? The planning phase is almost a game in itself.

You can easily spend hours within the planning phase marking out the routes and actions your teams will take and still come up with something new each time. A nice new feature within the planning phase is a fully textured 3D map, so that you can see in full 3D the area you will be working in. This helps when you’re looking at possible ambush and sniper spots as well as choke points. Seeing it in 3D is much better than making a mental picture from a 2D plan.

Within the planning phase there are new actions for you to use and assign to your operatives and as I mentioned before, snipe and cover. Cover is an excellent function, which I’ve used extensively on some maps and not at all on others, but it’s a great asset to have and increases the survivability of your teams quite a bit.

The ability to snipe as well as sniper rifles has been one of the most requested of all things within the Rainbow series since its inception. I like these features, but I only use them when I can’t avoid it, since I’ve found sniping to be more a liability than an asset.

Sniping vs. Stealth

Think about it... when you open up with a Barrett you’re sure to take down your target, but you’re definitely going to give your cover away. Since most of the missions depend on stealth, I’ve used the sniper options only rarely. More often I have assigned a teammate to a sniper spot with his standard weapon, which you can do as well.

Assigning the cover and snipe commands is simple. Assign the spot that you want the action to take place at and assign the direction of facing for the action. Next assign a Go-Code and voila! You now have a cover element or sniper team!

Cover is a great order as it sets the assigned team in a cover position to mask your movement or cover your back while you take care of a task such as defusing a bomb etc. You also have the option of using predefined plans for all the maps that Redstorm has supplied for us, they all work very well but you’ll find ways to improve them once you’ve played the maps through.

Once through with the planning phase it’s off to the action phase and what impressive locations you’ll play in! From an opera house to a quiet mountain villa, there are plenty of varied, interesting and challenging environments to take on. These are the largest environments of all the Rainbow games and they’ve been beautifully detailed to bring them to life in a very believable way, beware though, Rogue Spear is much more a CPU hog than R6 or Eagle Watch was because of this.

The Eye of the Beholder

If you’ve got the horsepower this is a very beautiful game to behold as a lot of attention to detail has been placed on the locations as well as the characters in the game. You’ll see weather effects such as rain and snow, footprints left behind you in the snow that can and will give your location away to any alert tango that may happen upon them.

Other details abound. As in R6 you’ll see the chests heaving from your operatives breath as well as the vapor from his/her mouth as they exhale. Get up real close to one of your snipers and watch them and you may find yourself really thinking they’re a living, breathing person. Between the realistically modeled breathing and scanning movement you’ll be surprised to see your snipers blink as well, nice touch Redstorm!

Movement is now enhanced to allow moving while crouched as well as the great ‘peek’ feature, allowing you to peek your head around a corner and giving a smaller silhouette to your enemy. No more clumsy movement by doorways to see who is inside, it’s now as easy as poking your head in the doorway and give a quick look-see. I always hated that strafing around the door while trying to ‘cut the pie’, only to sidestep and die.

You can even take care of a little loophole while peeking around corners, this is almost a cheat but not really. If you position yourself closely to the corner you wish to peek around yet stay behind it a bit, you can peek around the corner while no part of your body shows through. This is a clipping problem and one that I’m sure will be used to great advantage by those who master it, it’s not very hard but does alter things a bit in the game. I hope Redstorm can address this in a patch.

The first picture below shows my field of vision before using the 'peek' feature. The second shows my field of vision and fire after I've peeked around the corner, allowing me to fire down the wall while being protected by the wall I'm seeing through.

Not Another Pretty Face

After you’ve been amazed by the pretty sights in the game you’ll soon focus more of your attention on the AI improvements. They are very obvious in the first mission as you take down a museum and rescue hostages from certain death. I headed into the building and scanned and saw a few tangos in various positions around the foyer. We dispatched them quickly and were rewarded by some very nice death animations.

No more just dropping like a sack of potatos, these guys spin and stagger like in an old Jimmy Cagney movie. Just don’t get caught up watching them die too long as their buddies may hand out some payback.

The AI reacts a bit more realisticly this time in most of the missions: fire at them and they may do one of several things. If alone they may run and hide or run to get some help. Or, they may fire back and fire wide allowing for a much more realistic firefight sequence.

Unlike the original where it was almost always dead on accuracy for the AI, RS has more reactions built into the AI. Toss a frag or flashbang into a room and listen to them scream out “grenade!” and try to avoid the detonation. Be quick to follow up a flashbang though, because the tangos are most likely going to head for the hostages, knowing that you’re there with the intent of executing them. If that happens it’s time to do the mission over.

Future Adjustments Needed

This is an area of the game I’d really like to see changed in the future expansions and sequels; the mission should not end because of the loss of one hostage. I don’t mean to sound cold, but things like that have and will happen in real life. The loss of one hostage should not mean the loss of the mission. It gets frustrating at times, especially when you’ve pretty much cleaned house. All it takes is to leave a couple of bad guys for the other teams and on the way out a hostage gets capped while you’re extracting.

Maybe it should be changed to something along the lines of saving hostages and in some missions a VIP that CANNOT be killed. This is more of a personal feeling than anything else but I’ve spoken with several of our readers about this and they heartily agree it would be nice to see this changed.

As I said above the AI is definitely better than in the R6 and the EW expansion. We no longer see the superhuman AI around every corner, where they would just spin and fire off at you giving you little to no chance to return fire. Usually the AI acts according to their level of intensity of beliefs and training. An average ‘Joe Tango’ will have a lower breaking point than a Russian regular, while on the other hand a professional soldier is very deadly and at times a bit superhuman still.

In fact I’ve seen a couple of occasions where I’ve been shot without the enemy bringing up his weapon, not often but I’ve seen it. It gets very frustrating when the AI draws up and hits you with the first burst, meanwhile your team doesn’t hit him the first burst.

The AI is not only more deadly on the higher levels but there are some unexplainable idiosynchrocies that kind of take away from the improvements of the AI. I’ve seen tangos just stand around dumbly while their buddy is lying at their feet with his cranium ventilated, then on the other hand I’ll use a silenced weapon to take out a tango and a buddy of his from a floor above will come running in screaming and shooting. I know that even a silenced weapon is not completely silenced as you’ll hear the action of the bolt but c’mon, there’s some inconsistency here.

On the flip side now to your friendly AI, they’re also much more improved but still suffer from some weird problems as well from time to time. Your teams appear to be much more aware of their surroundings now as they fan out better and cover fields of fire better. They still suffer from slow reaction time in some instances but the biggest improvement by far is their pathfinding. No more getting stuck in a doorway as they stand there looking at you, they easily move out of your way, this is a BIG plus as that was one of the major problems with the friendly AI in R6 and EW.

As I mentioned above your teams move much more realistically now and cover fields of fire better, in the Kosovo map I was leading a trailing element and saw the last man in the lead element turn around and act as rear guard. Wow, I was impressed and it has come in handy as my six has been covered several times by an alert teammate. It now pays to put a good operative in the last spot on a team, they no longer only pay attention to what’s in front of them only.

Speaking of paying attention to what’s in front of them, I can’t understand how my teammates can continually walk into an ambush after it’s been sprung. During the campaign missions and the training missions I’ve seen this happen many times, I’ll toss a frag in a room and go in to mop up and get hosed.

As I’m lying there on the ground I watch as my teammates come waltzing into the room like they have no clue what’s going on in there, only to join me in the great virtual ‘beyond’. Some AI tweaking is needed here, if I go into a room and get hosed my AI guys should pop another frag or flashbang into the room before entering and when they do enter it should be with hostile intent, not looking like they’re window shopping at Macy’s.

I don’t mean to make it sound like the AI is bad in this game because it is far from it, it just still has some problems that can make it frustrating at times for the gamer. The AI goes from flashes of complete brilliance at times, making you think you’re playing with a human teammate to complete stupidity making you wonder how the hell they ever made it into a special forces unit to begin with.

I’ve sat back and watched my guys rush headlong to their own doom in some situations and then in others I’ve seen guys come up from behind me and toss a flashbang into a room and then go clean house, one extreme to the other.

Yes, I’m nitpicking the hell out of the AI here. Why? Because it is one of the best of all time (IMO) and with continued nitpicking and input from us loyal fans the series will continue to grow and raise the bar for all shooters. The level of immersion in this game is unsurpassed in a shooter. No other shooter right now gives you the same feeling of ‘being there’ that Rogue Spear does. With the improved AI of your team and enemies I sometimes find myself needing to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.

Animations, Maps, and Stealth

The animations of your team and enemies are as before in R6, all motion captured and very nice... truly believable. From the breathing to the way your teams scan around for enemies, they seem so alive. Hostages also have a real life sense to them, you WANT to save them after seeing them crouched in the corner in fear. I love it when they get some brain matter splattered all over them from some hapless terrorist and they bail out screaming “I can’t take it anymore!”

The mission maps are all very well thought out and designed, and they’re also quite large which makes for some nice long mission times. Some are short and sweet while others are just plain huge, with lots of sniper and ambush spots for you to pay attention to. There are even a couple of stealth missions again in RS, similar yet much more challenging than the ones before it. This leads to another point about the Rainbow series that in some places has become a hot topic for debate. Are the stealth missions really needed?

Personally, I give the stealth missions a resounding YES! Yes, on all counts that is. Yes, they are challenging and yes they can be most definitely frustrating. But, yes they are a great part of the game and another element to that sets the Rainbow series apart from any other. I’ve played through the stealth missions numerous times until I got them right, and I’ve learned that patience is the key.

Some people, including a reviewer I read a while back, said that the stealth missions really had no place in the game. I disagree.

Remember that Rainbow is a completely self-contained unit and as such operates a bit outside the normal boundaries of other agencies. To do this you will not always be able to rely on intel from other sources, so you need to gather it yourself. This is where the stealth missions come in as far as the storyline of Rainbow goes and how they fit into the storylines of the plots within the games.

I’ve passed on my compliments to the designers of the missions telling them to make sure they keep those stealth missions in there. They’re extremely immersive, for me at least. There is nothing like stealthily walking down the hall and being surprised by a towel clad Russian mafia guy to get your heart stopping for a brief moment, knowing your cover is blown. Each time I do those missions I do it with the attitude that it’s really me in the game. Tt helps me to be a bit more patient because I don’t wish to be on the receiving end of someone’s boom stick.

Another great improvement in the series has been the use of frag and flashbang grenades. The grenade damage radius has been tweaked to be more along the lines of its real life counterpart and the flashbangs will now hurt you much more if you don’t turn away from them when they go off. Watch it with those frags, they are bad news for your team if you are in their blast radius!

The one place where Rogue Spear needs some serious work out of the box is in the multiplayer aspect. I have tried numerous times to play games on the Zone (I know, I know I shouldn’t expect the Zone to be a great place to play anyway… lag city) to no avail and this is on cable modem! I expect and understand games played on services like the Zone will have some lag issues but when you have a cable host and all cable connects and your lag is on the average of 5-8 seconds there’s a serious net code problem.

With a patch this will hopefully be fixed because Rogue Spear has some of the greatest environments to play in, such as the Kosovo map where there are ambush and sniper spots galore. Over a LAN Rogue Spear just plain kicks ass and with more streamlined internet play this game will even be better to play than the original Rainbow Six was!

The game flows very well and the missions are much better designed, allowing Redstorm to show off their Sophomore skills, which cause other games to pale in comparison. For a relative newbie to the industry, Redstorm has more than proven themselves in a short period of time. I hope we see more of the Rainbow series beyond the expansion pack that is planned for Rogue Spear to be released next year.

Core Rating: 100