Rogue Spear (RS) is the sequel to Tom Clancy's Rainbow 6 (R6). As such, it is the second entry from Red Storm Entertainment in the tactical-shooter genre that they largely created. It fixes many of the problems with R6, adds a host of new features, improves on virtually everything else, and manages to top its predecessor in most ways. If you liked R6, you'll likely love RS as well for reasons I'll explain below.
The visuals in RS are a significant improvement over those in R6 on several counts. The models and animation are even more realistic than before. The cut-scenes seem to be of higher quality, which makes me think that the developers have had a chance to get accustomed to their own technology. Further, the architecture and surroundings seem more detailed and alive, as do the enemies one faces. What I said in my review of R6, however, is equally applicable to RS, namely, that the greatest challenge the graphics face is that they're produced by a proprietary engine that powers the game. I still think the developers would have done much better to license engine technology from Id Software, Epic Games, or some other company. Graphically, the game simply falls short of its competitors, and that's a pity. Also as with its predecessor, however, this is only a minor complaint; i.e., RS's gameplay again trumps the need for really fabulous graphics.
To their credit, the developers have done some really neat little things with the game. One can see the mist emanating from each operative's mouth as he breathes in cold areas, the engine's handling of bullet-holes and so forth is much improved, the special effects for night-vision and especially those that occur when catching some feedback from one's own flashbangs are a big improvement. RS displays much more polish than R6 in virtually every visual aspect, and while it does fall short of other games on the market in terms of its pretty-factor, it looks more than good enough to get the job done.
The audio in RS is an utter treat to my ears, especially the music. I positively love the music used at the main menu, and I've ripped all of the tracks from the RS game CD into MP3 format for frequent listening. Even the mission-planning music is pretty darned good. The composer, Bill Brown, has really outdone himself in adding to the game. All of the sound effects are equally well done. The rifle fire is crisp and well differentiated among the various guns. Flashbangs and grenades sound great, the mutterings of enemy guards are a treat, and so forth. My only real complaint with the audio in R6 was that there wasn't enough music, and RS takes care of that complaint rather nicely. As such, I have no complaints about the audio in RS.
The interface for RS is essentially the same as for R6 with a couple of additions. All the same, great features are there for commanding squads in real-time. The planning phase is quite similar to the planning controls in R6, though the new options are much appreciated. In addition to what has been done before, RS also features an option simply to watch the AI-controlled teams go to work. Frankly, I thought that was the coolest option of all, as it was simply a blast to watch the teams execute the plan I had designed. Past the first few missions, however, it simply isn't practical due to limitations of the AI. The interface succeeds even better than the interface in R6, and is very usable.
The game mechanics retain the same basic flaw I noted in R6. That is, because one's intelligence data is always incomplete, and because the AI simply isn't good enough to react to the "unexpected" very well, it's essentially impossible to construct a workable plan without having played through (and failed) the mission a few times. This discourages the player from putting in the effort at the outset, since it's all likely to be wasted. Instead, the player ends up having to run through the mission again and again and again until he's got something that works, and that can be very irritating.
This is particularly true of the stealth-based missions. It's nearly impossible to get the AI to play those missions intelligently, so the player is forced to go in alone and fail again and again and again until he knows the routes of all the guards by heart and can just sneak through them. Though the stealth missions are pretty well designed, they were some of the very most frustrating obstacles in the whole game because of their limitations. It's utterly galling that killing even a single guard, even when done without anybody noticing, ends the mission. It may be realistic, but it isn't much fun.
A second, fundamental problem with the game mechanics is that RS, like R6, supplies no in-game save. This was bad enough in R6. It's doubly reprehensible in RS because of the ridiculous difficulty of some of the missions. Apparently, it needs to be screamed into the ears of developers that gamers must be able to save wherever they wish! Get a clue, fellas. Being forced to play through the same stupid thing time after time after time is just not fun at all.
Fortunately, however, RS improves upon R6 in several ways as well. The addition of snipers really adds to the mission possibilities. There's just something really cool about hearing that your sniper has a target in his sights when everyone is ready to go. You give the order to proceed, and one terrorist, at least, drops instantly as the other teams race into the area from all angles. When such a mission is brought to a successful conclusion, there is a real feeling of accomplishment. I really enjoyed using (and playing) the snipers. My only wish is that their field of view wasn't so limited when covering an arc. Unless the player gets the positioning just right, the sniper can end up staring uselessly into a wall.
The additional options for covering a particular firing arc are very welcome, as this was a serious omission in R6. It greatly adds to the possibilities during the mission planning phase, as it becomes possible to draw terrorists deliberately into a crossfire from a waiting squad. This addition to the gameplay alone is worth the price of the game, in my mind, as it makes the tactical picture so much deeper. It also helps the teams stay alive when the "stuff" starts hitting the fan. Ordering everybody to hold position and cover their butts is a viable option in RS, which was largely missing from R6.
The story, if anything, is even more compelling than the story of R6, though this may be simply because of the higher quality in the presentation of the cut-scenes. I really loved the opening movie to RS. The cold sensation creeping across my skin as the pulse-pounding opener builds to a climax is really something. It instills the feeling that a nuclear detonation is only one slip-up away. I realize it's just a video game, but the suspension of disbelief is palpable at times. There's just something about the way Tom Clancy puts these things together that makes them seem more real, and RS carries on that tradition in its gripping story rather nicely.
There's a lot here to play with. A total of eighteen missions feature a great variety of new environments, with more detail than ever before. The player and enemy AI have been improved, though not sufficiently as I'll explain in a moment. There are a number of new weapons to try, including several really neat sniper rifles. The selection of characters has some of the old and some of the new. The multi-player features are even more interesting than before. I could go on like this for a while. When you buy RS, you're buying a lot of game. The replayability factor seems to have been increased this time around, as the different difficulty levels seem far more sharply contrasted than in R6.
The ability to save and view mission replays adds a surprising deal to the replay factor as well. I guess that's not really replayability, per se, but it does bring me back to the game again and again to watch past triumphs, close calls and so forth. I wish the replay features were a bit more flexible, and not so sensitive, it seems, to file corruption—I've had problems with this on several occasions for no obvious reason—but they're largely workable as they are.
Where the game really fails is on two points. First, the AI still isn't good enough for the task at hand. It's just utterly awful to see your highly-trained operatives kill themselves with grenades, blind themselves with flashbangs, get killed breaching a door because they get "stuck" in place, get stuck in a tight corner and be unable to move, walk casually through an area while an apparently unseen terrorists nails them one by one, and so forth. Maybe I expect too much, but the state of the art in gaming AI is simply insufficient to power a game as ambitious as RS (or R6 for that matter). The enemies do seem a bit smarter in RS, but they still don't cut it as far as I'm concerned. It really shatters the illusion of reality when a bad guy's head explodes from a well-placed sniper shot, and his colleagues continue to walk over his body with nary a peep.
Second, some of the missions are almost bloody impossible in light of the problems with the AI. The infamous "Temple Gate" mission, for example, was a complete and utter nightmare. No matter what I did, I simply could not get my teams to be of any use in the opera house. They would either walk stupidly into crossfire, stop in places where they could be seen, walk too loudly and be detected, or pretty much anything else that alerted the bad guys and got the hostages killed.
Finally, I abandoned all hope of using any teammates for the first 99% of the mission, and went in alone with the stealthiest guy available. I'll bet I played that mission close to 100 times before I finally managed to get the hang of sneaking through the building, killing all but the last terrorists guarding the hostages. Even then, I had to play the mission another dozen times or so to get the final takedown just right. It wasn't satisfying by the time it was over; it was irritating. This is rendered only the more frustrating in light of the lack of any ability to save in-game, but I've berated that failing elsewhere.
The multi-player aspect of RS is incredibly frustrating. I thought the network code in R6 needed some polishing. If that's fair to say of R6, however, then I can state with certainty that the network code in RS sucks, plain and simple. I have a fast Internet connection (384 kbps SDSL at the time of this writing). Despite the speed and quality of my connection, over which I can enjoy butter-smooth network play with any other game, RS plays like crap. The lag is ridiculous, essentially to the point of being unplayable. Maybe it's fun over a LAN, but Internet play is essentially useless as it stands. Maybe the developers will patch the game or something. I sure hope so, as it has incredible potential if only I could get into a good game with a good connection.
If you are a fan of the tactical-shooter genre, then RS is a no-brainer buy. It improves on virtually everything in R6, with the sole exception of its lousy networking code. I can't recommend it highly for people for whom the single-player mode of a game is the oft-despised warmup for the real show, that is, the multi-player mode, but all others should enjoy it. It does have its problems, as I've noted, but overall RS delivers a very compelling gaming experience.
05/23/2000