The World is a Very Dangerous Place...

Yes, the world is a very dangerous place. Following the demise of the Soviet Union, numerous terrorist and paramilitary factions have splintered off into hiding. Now, these factions are revealing themselves in violent and unpredictable ways. The usual bombings and hostage takings are being replaced by more sinister plots…

But there is a light at the end of this tunnel of chaos – a Rainbow, to be specific. An elite Counter-Terrorist group, formed in 1999, Rainbow has distinguished itself time and time again, freeing hostages, disarming bombs, and expunging wayward factions from the globe.

Rainbow was first unveiled in 1998, debuting in the award-winning game Rainbow Six. They now continue their exploits in the appropriately named sequel, Rogue Spear. (Why appropriately named? You’ll find out if you play it.) While fans of the original will know what to expect, you can be assured that there are plenty of new additions. Those of you who haven’t played the original, though, probably don’t know what to expect, and so I’m going to tell them. Right now.


Overall: 5

Most people put the “overall” score at the end. I will put it at the beginning, though. I write long reviews, and you might not want to read the whole thing to find out what I think of this game. So I will put the short version here.

Rogue Spear is a squad-based tactical shooter that uses realistic weapons and damage modeling. You, as the leader of a counter-terrorist squad, must traverse 18 missions to finish the game. For each mission, you assign team members to the squad; give them their gear and their plan. Once this is finished, you move to a 3D world, in which it is possible to move much like in any other shooter. While the terrorists have unrealistically accurate aim, gameplay is still fun and addictive, if sometimes repetitive. There is a solid graphics engine and an acceptable array of sounds. Multiplayer action is intense, and the game works even on a modem over the Internet. Buy it.

Gameplay: 4.5

At the first few glances, Rogue Spear appears to be a very complicated game. For example, the “quick start guide” in the manual is nearly 7 pages of text. After you’ve gotten familiar with it, though, it is only a relatively complicated game. Once you get into it, the game is quite involving and usually fun.
Rogue Spear is a squad-based tactical shooter. This means that you aren’t blessed with a skull thick enough to survive multiple headshots, or a leathery, flame-resistant hide. To win this game, it is important to use multiple team members, balanced firepower, and coordinated assaults.

Such phrases as “coordinated assaults” and “balanced firepower” are fun to say and think about, but how to actually put them into effect? This can be accomplished through the “planning phase”, a slick little creation that lets the player select a team of Rainbow agents. There are many agents, and all of them have different skills. They are divided into different groups – Assault, Stealth, Sniper, Demolitions, and Electronics. Within these groups, there are still widely differing skills. One assault operative may be a better choice as a grenadier than another, and some are better shots than the rest. The most important difference is leadership, the ability to lead teams of operatives well. Not surprisingly, not many have high marks in this ability.

After selecting a maximum of 8 agents, you assign weapons, armor, and equipment must be assigned. There are many weapons in the game – pistols, submachine guns, assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, grenades…you name it, this game has probably got something like it. The only notable weapon class the game is missing is, unfortunately, the one that most everyone loves. There are no rocket launchers. Such a travesty. This doesn’t make much of a difference, though, because most missions require either pinpoint accuracy or extreme stealth. Even if they didn’t, there aren’t usually enough enemies in one area to require a rocket launcher, and there are almost no vehicles at all. A more sensible addition would be a grenade launcher, preferably mounted under the barrel of an assault rifle. Oh well…

Getting back to the subject, there are still plenty of weapons. The most useful are usually the silenced submachine guns, though they can’t match the power of a rifle. All of the primary weapons have a “sniper view” which increases accuracy and zooms in on the target. The zoom level is determined by the type of weapon. Scoped rifles obviously have more zoom than an iron-sighted weapon. Fragmentation (lethal) and flashbang (non-lethal) grenades complement the arsenal, and a trusty sidearm, be it a .357 Desert Eagle or a 9mm Berretta. There is also a very handy little device, called a Heartbeat Sensor, which gives the locations of enemies in an area. Obviously, this is an essential device to successful operations.

There are also different types of armor to choose from. In addition to being able to choose what type of camouflage each team member wears, it is also possible to choose an appropriate armor level—light, medium, or heavy. A scout might want to choose light armor, because it is the quietest and fastest, assaulting members usually take the medium type, and someone who is “breaching”, (blasting doors open),
would take heavy.

After choosing everyone’s gear, you must assign teams. Teams are small groups of operatives who work together during a mission. Up to four teams can be used. Choosing a good team leader, (someone with high leadership skills), is essential to completing the game’s missions. This is where one of the interface’s shortcomings appears. It is impossible to see someone’s skills from this screen, so it is often necessary to go back and forth between the team selection screen and the personnel selection screen.

After selecting teams, the real meat of the planning phase comes—assigning waypoints. This is where the game’s open-ended type of play is brought to the spotlight. You are given a blueprint of the area you have been assigned to clear. Clicking somewhere on the map will assign a waypoint to whichever team you have selected. Waypoints, while not required, are good to put in. They can help keep you from getting lost, and they are the only things that AI players will follow. Looking back on the game, though, I found that simply going out on your own with a silenced SMG was usually more effective than a multi-team assault. This is unfortunate. (In my view, at least).

But when the time comes to make a multi-team assault, you will be able to. The game implements “go-codes”, orders that synchronize the movement of teams. If that doesn’t explain it well, consider this: A room has two doors in it. That room needs to be cleared out, and it is necessary to use two teams. So, you give orders for Red Team to go in one door, and Blue Team to go in the other. But what if Blue Team reaches its destination first and enters the room? The whole plan could be ruined! So, you set a go-code for both teams outside of each door. When both teams have reached their doors, you give the go-code, and they both charge in at the same time. Altogether, it works pretty well.

Once your plan is complete, it is time for the real thing—the action phase. This is the main portion of the game, and, obviously, the most fun.

While Rogue Spear controls like most other shooters, there are some differences: First off, you can’t jump. You can climb some obstacles, though, and all locked doors can be picked or blown open. There are no key hunts in this game. Your character is capable of crouching, (though it is impossible to go prone), leaning around corners, running, and shuffling. In another dramatic departure from most other games, your weapons can be quite inaccurate. Running, strafing from side to side, and turning all impair accuracy. Firing prolonged bursts will cause the gun to become wildly inaccurate, spraying bullets every which way. (Oddly, light weapons seem to suffer much less from recoil than heavier ones. The inverse is true. Weapons that weigh more have less recoil than lighter ones).

In addition to these differences, there is one more. The player’s existence in the game is arbitrary; you can control any of the team leaders. While this decreases immersiveness, I think it has many advantages. For one thing, one team member dying won’t end the mission. It is also easier to coordinate assaults using this feature. It is only possible to control the leader of a team, not any subordinates. (Unless the leader dies).

The game’s AI is sketchy. While enemies will look around for you when they find a dead comrade, and they can home in on an unsilenced sniper shot, the AI is very disappointing in one aspect: accuracy. And I don’t mean that they’re bad shots. Basically, if you are seen, you will be dead in approximately 0.3 seconds, regardless of your range. I regretfully agree that this might be possible with a small, easily aimed weapon, in close quarters…but outside, when dealing with ranges of 100 yards or more, there is no way someone would be able to hit you this quickly, particularly when you have camouflage on, when the weapon they are firing is equipped with only iron sights. (Believe me. I’ve fired my share of guns. A 100-yard shot with iron sights is very difficult.) I would believe it if the terrorists took 5-10 seconds to aim, and if they missed more often.

Not only does this AI flaw make the game quite frustrating, but it also eliminates the possibility of one of my favorite parts of any shooter—prolonged firefights. Charging the enemy, laying down covering fire…doing that stuff is always just plain FUN! The enemy AI is by far the biggest flaw in the game. There is a bright side, though: The rest of the game is good enough to make up for this huge flaw—by far.

I also have a complaint with the bullet physics. As far as I can tell, bullets arrive at their targets instantaneously, and don’t have anything in the way of a trajectory. A pistol has just as much accurate range as a rifle. Fortunately, bullet penetration is modeled to some extent. They are able to penetrate 3-D objects in the game. (People, trucks, cars…) However, they cannot go through part of the level architecture. Even the thinnest walls are invincible to bullets.

As for the missions themselves, they get repetitive throughout the middle portion of the game (almost exclusively hostage-rescue) but get more interesting and varied towards the end. Even when the objectives are boring, the locations are still enthralling. An art museum full of Egyptian artifact, a 747, the ruined streets of a town in Kosovo, a Nuclear Plant, and my favorite, the exquisitely layered and textured Antonium Opera House of Prague are just some of the locales to be picked through. All of them have several levels, which can be traversed through stairs and ladders—no elevators, though, unfortunately.

Most of the actual gameplay involves sneaking around, picking off terrorists one by one with silenced single shots, then moving in the rest of the team to wipe out the remaining opposition. It has a very addictive quality to it, giving Rogue Spear a solid score in this category.

Graphics: 4

While dated now, in 2002, the graphics have an indescribable quality that, for some reason, I love. The colored lighting works well, and characters are well detailed. If it is cold out, they will leave puffs of mist when they breathe, and their bodies expand and contract somewhat to suggest that they really are breathing. Muzzle flashes and pyrotechnics look very good, and when a flashbang takes you by surprise, the effect is very well done. The guns themselves are very well detailed, as are the faces and armor of your squad-mates. The motion-capture technology was very well used, and there are very good actions for reloading, crouching, giving go-codes, and the like. Just standing still will warrant nervous glances to the left and right. Kill someone and a very nice death animation will ensue. When shot in the leg, you will limp, impairing your movement. And, oh, by the way, you can watch all of this from the third-person view.

Sound: 3

Unfortunately, the weapons sound rather bland. The only real good weapon effect is the crack and echo of a sniper rifle; all the others aren’t worth mentioning. Enemies will yell when injured, though they all seem to speak the same language. The voices of your teammates are mostly the generic, filtered radio voices that can be expected from a “special ops” game.

The menu music, on the other hand, is quite good. Just listen to the main theme in its entirety and I hope you’ll see what I mean. There’s no in-game music, of course, but that’s a good thing.

Multiplayer: 5

Not really a category, but I think the multiplayer in this deserves special mention.

This is one of the few games I can play multiplayer on, (my modem is pitiful) and I’m glad that it is. Amazingly, it is possible to get in 4 and 6 player matches with a 28.8k modem. (I told you). Lag is a problem in larger matches, but when you do find a lag-free server, it is bliss. Respawning is handled Counterstrike style—that is, you don’t. When you are dead, you are dead until everyone else is dead, then the new match begins and everyone is back. While frustrating for Newbies, I like this method much better than Deathmatch-style respawning. A lot of heart pounding is involved. You’ll like it. Probably.

Another nice feature is the ability to edit your own quick messages. The game gives you a list of pre-made sounds, though it is possible to add your own. Great fun.

Well, is there anything left to say? Let me think…yes, there is. Ding Chavez’s real name is Domingo Chavez. No one calls him that, though.


My computer’s specifications: Dell Computer Corporation Windows XP. Pentium 4 1.66 Ghz, 128 MB Ram, ATI Rage 128 Pro 16mb video card. Full installation of Rogue Spear.