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E3: Best of Show
by Eric "Snacko" Marlow
 

Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear

Next stop was to speak with Carl Schnurr, producer of Rainbow Six: Rouge Spear from RedStorm Entertainment. While not a revolutionary upgrade from its predecessors, Rouge Spear represents continuation and improvement on what was already a great sim.

Most improved in Rogue Spear are the motion capture aspects. The range of motions has been greatly enhanced: if a terrorist/friendly gets wounded, you will see the limp. You will also see the terrorists nodding off.

The AI and graphics have been heavily reworked as well: improved special effects and character models have all seen a dramatic enhancement. The flash bang effect now affects your retinas for a 30-60 second window. There are several new weapons including 3 new sniper rifles. There will also be an "encumbrance" model included that better simulates being weighted down by dress, equipment, and wounds.

MiG Alley

Andrei Nadin was kind enough to walk us through Mig Alley. I think this sim has a good chance of giving Falcon 4.0 a run for its money because of the depth of campaign play and the sense of environment.

Multiplayer includes support up to 8 players and they can work in opposition or cooperation.

The modeling of the terrain and objects in the Mig Alley world was nice, but it's not up to the standard that sims are demonstrating. While "eye candy" is not what it's all about, in my opinion it really helps with the suspension of disbelief and it contributes to the overall enjoyment of the experience.

The use of a Forward Air Controller (FAC) really sets Mig Alley apart from other sims. You will be given the ability to interact with a pilot who's sole purpose is to ID and communicate enemy activity. The FAC will fire Willie Pete (White Phosphorus) rockets at your intended target and you are to follow the rockets in with an explosives strike. You will then be scored as to how accurate your strike was.

Click to continue

 

H&D
Hidden and Dangerous

Hidden and Dangerous was an interesting sim. Set in Europe during WW2, this first person shooter gives you the ability to perform commando operations behind enemy lines.

While the motion capture of the soldiers could stand some improvement, the mission selection, ordnance, and general atmosphere are incredible.

SSI: Naval Heaven

For the grognards, SSI had the most going on. Between Flanker 2.0, Harpoon IV, Destroyer Commander, Silent Hunter 2, and Fighting Steel, the hard-core fanatics should be satiated for some time to come.

Carl Norman, Rick Martinez, Sean Decker, and Joel Billings were all kind enough to step us through their products.

Flanker 2.0 - A lot has been written about this already, so I won't attempt to repeat the details. Suffice to say that multi-player will be robust and allow cooperative missions. The number of players allowed by the multiplayer missions will be determined by the available bandwidth. As the comms code has yet to be tweaked, the maximum number of on-line players has yet to be determined.

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