Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear

Developer: Red Storm
Publisher: Red Storm

 

System Requirements Pentium 233 Mhz, 64 MB RAM

Recommended Pentium II 350MHz, 128+ MB RAM, TNT2 card

Ratings
Code Issues Graphics: 8 Much improved over the original, but still slightly lagging behind some of the better first person shooters. Audio: 8.5 With the right 4-way speaker set-up, don't be surprised if ol' Sheriff Jed comes knocking on your door because of neighbor's who have reported hearing gunshots fired.  Interface: 9 As easy as it was for the original, they made it even easier this time around.	Play Issues Gameplay: 9 What can I say?  This game is a blast! Replayability: 7 When its over, its over. But what a ride. Multiplay: 7 A few bugs here and there, but a patch could easily correct these. Learning Curve: 9 If you insist on using your own mission plans, she can be a tough mistress to master
Other/Notes Documentation: 7 Tells you what you need to know without spoiling the need for the strategy guide Pros: Graphics, level designs. Cons: Clipping, the AI in certain situations. Overall: 9.1 "Simply because it took a revolutionary idea and made it that much better with such a quick turn around."

In 1998, Tom Clancy's software company Red Storm rocked the computer entertainment world with a true first-person squad-level strategic game, Rainbow Six. Combining the immersion of a first-person shooter with deep strategic elements, the game was an instant hit that spawned an expansion pack. A year later, Red Storm has released the sequel to Rainbow Six, Rogue Spear. Is it another expansion pack or a full-fledged sequel?

Rainbow Six is the name given to a highly elite group of counter-terrorists comprised of the best of the best from intelligence agencies around the globe. Though the game is played from either a first person or third-person perspective, it has more in common with turn-based squad games like Jagged Alliance than it does its action brethren such as Quake. You will find that any skills you have picked up from playing Quake style games are next to useless here. You simply cannot barge into rooms with guns blazing. There are no hideous demonic monsters aimlessly wandering hallways. Instead, you will find that careful planning and deep strategic thinking will win the day. The positioning of your troops and the actions you assign to them will spell the difference between the smell of victory or the agony of defeat.

As team leader, your first job is to go over the mission objectives and Intel reports provided to you from the mission briefing screen. With this knowledge, you can put together the right team for the job. Missions will vary between defusing a bomb to bugging a phone, but most involve the rescuing of innocent hostages. As part of Rainbow, all Intel gathering is done in advanced, you need only worry about the actual mission itself. After reviewing mission objectives, it's time to assign personal from a limited pool to one of up to four squads. Personal are chosen with mission objectives in mind. If you need to bug a phone, you'll need someone with the requisite skill. If you need to scout out the mission area due to a poor Intel report, choose someone with a high stealth skill. Your job than is to break your members up into different teams, up to four is allowed. When creating a team, it is best to have a clear goal in mind for each. If a team member is lost in action, the other members can attempt to finish the job, providing the task is not skill specific (such as defusing a bomb). But loose the whole team and you are pretty much screwed. Each team should have one leader who has the highest leadership ability available to you, in order to keep the other squad members in line. When the mission begins to look grim, team members may fall apart and overreact without the strong sensibility of a leader to keep them in line.

Next you'll arrive at the equipment screen. You will need to match the proper weapon with your team. Want someone to be able to blow doors open? Arm them with a shotgun. That scout becomes pretty useless without a silencer on their weapons. Not sure what rooms the hostages are in? Load up on flashbang grenades to stun occupants in order to buy you the time needed to secure the area. Likewise if you only expect tangos (the term used for terrorists), load up on frag grenades for some heavy-duty room cleaning. New to Rogue Spear is the ability to choose the type of ammunition you want. While hollow points are good at damaging a target, they don't pass as easily through armor as a steel-jacketed bullet will. Of course if your target isn't armored, that bullet very well might pass through the tango and into a hostage. Armor also plays a role as movement rate and stealth has to be balanced with the need for protection. After you have gone over your Intel, picked your personal, split them up into different teams and, finally, outfitted them to your wishes, it's on to the meat of the game, the mission planning stage.

Within the mission planning stage, you will be represented with a detailed map of the area. You can view it in 2D or 3D, both having their usefulness. From a predetermined starting location, you will begin carefully plotting out the various teams' movements. Each squad will move along a path, as determined by you, along a series of waypoints. Waypoints are essentially go-to spots. Within the action sequence of the game, team members will move from one waypoint to another waypoint performing actions as designated in the mission planning stage. At each waypoint, you set the team with instructions to be performed at that spot. These instructions may include things such as securing a stairwell, or even how to open a door. Further, you need to set their attitude towards tangos, do they storm a room with disregard to innocent life or put their own life in jeopardy by identifying targets before they fire. You can also set their speed between being cautious, normal or even blitzing. For example, say you want a room cleared containing hostages. A waypoint would be plotted right outside the door where your team could set a door charge. After the charge goes off, you would set a second way point right inside the room with instructions to blitz in on the stunned occupants and than acquire legitimate tangos before firing. But say you need to cross a large open area where snipers could be hiding. You would set a waypoint to an easily defendable area with the instructions that the team should blitz to the area and ignore enemy fire.

Initially it sounds easy, but remember that the more teams you have the more carefully you need to plan. You have the option of being in control of the leader of any group. Your squad mates will follow you regardless of the initial planned instructions. But if you are the leader of the team needed to bug a phone, you must set those instructions during the mission planning stage if you want your engineer of the group to perform the action. Combine this with the fact that you can not be everywhere at once and you'll find that you are dependent on giving the other groups the proper instructions before you set out. Don't be surprised if you have a pad next to you when you play containing each team and detailing their individual goals. In the heat of combat, one miscue from the leader can be disastrous. And with up to four teams performing different actions at different locations, things can get confusing fast.

As difficult as everything sounds, there are a few options you have to help you out. The most obvious is that the missions strategic plans are already implemented. You may find yourself tweaking them more to your liking, but they help you jump into the game as well as allowing you to see how the planned mission plays out in actual combat. The second is the fact that you can jump around to the different team leaders and take direct control of the group. The third and probably most useful is go-codes. During the mission planning stage you have the option of assigning one of four go-codes to a waypoint. When a go-code is placed, it serves as a gate. That is a team will move to the waypoint and halt. They will inform you that they have reached one of the go-codes area and will not proceed until you issue the code to do so. How does this help you? Say you have two teams whose goals are different but dependent on each other. This may arise through the need to have one team secure an area so a second can pass through it with hostages. In order to have them arrive at the same place at the same time, you can issue a go code to both teams at that spot. In this way, if the team needed to secure the area doesn't arrive in time, the second team will be waiting in the wings. Now you can simply wait for the first team to secure the area than issue the go-code for the second team to advance.

The graphics are a major improvement over the originals. We have realistic snowflakes and footprints in the snow. The animations for the tangos have been beefed up making them look and feel more realistic. An improved sniper mode also lends itself to a stronger level of suspense. The new graphical animations for your teams include the ability not only for your squad mates to duck, but now they can move forward while crouching and peek around corners. The ability to actually lay on your stomach and crawl, unfortunately, is still missing. The locations also look much improved as your team member's stalk tangos through the N.Y. Metropolitan Museum of Art, snow covered exteriors and the now much hyped 747 scenario. The sound still remains top notch from the original with great sounding gunshots and music. However, the game is not further enhanced with either A3D or EAX.(correction: patch now supports EAX)

The pacing of the game is right on cue. You will find yourself at wits end trying to get through a mission in one piece and the next find yourself on a cakewalk (okay, maybe not that easy) for a nice breather. As noted earlier, the locations are great looking which helps with the superb level layouts. Worth noting too is that these are not a loosely collected bunch of missions that end up no where, but an actual plot line threads itself through. Just to give you a taste, Rogue Spear is the name given to a nuclear device, 'nuff said.

But there still are a few problems left over from Rainbow Six. For example, there is still the clipping problem. Clipping is when an arm appears through a closed door as the tango within is opening it. The most glaring is how the AI reacts. They can walk right past a dead comrade yet come running when they hear a door open. There is also the problem of the AI for your own men. They seem more interested at times in doing a Conga line than in fanning out to secure a room. The Special Force's AI in Sierra's Half-Life react better (granted there aren't as many of them working together as you have here), but I for one would like to be able to pick a formation for them to be in. Obviously not a game killer, but with the great looking animations and audio that suck you into the game, no one wants to be reminded that it is ONLY a game. As this review is posted, Red Storm has promised a forthcoming patch that very well may fix these problems (except that of formations, perhaps in the third installment?). The only other problem, which should be obvious by the graphical quality of the accompanying screenshots, is the fact that you need a pretty powerful system to get everything up and running. But I must say it is well worth the price of admission.

The multiplayer aspect should not be forgotten. When you pick the RIGHT teammates (one's who don't have a fondness for placing a bullet in your back), Rogue Spear can be a blast. You can square off with opponents in deathmatch, but you also have the options of working as separate teams out to accomplish the same goal, the neutralizing of tangos.

For those who have never played Rainbow Six, I suggest you start there. The game is still worth playing and can run on the slower systems. If you jump into Rogue Spear, you may find yourself only craving more when you finish and taking a step back to the original game may prove difficult. For those who have played both Rainbow Six and the expansion pack Eagle Watch, it's time to come back where you belong. Some psycho is back out there threatening the safety of the world and your leadership and planning skills are needed to sort this mess out. Rogue Spear improves upon the original in all facets.

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Reviewed by A. Sage