Since my E3 preview of Rogue Spear, my selection for Best of E3 Shooter remains unchanged. After having received and played a press copy preview of four missions, my heart has been pounding!

The new features that Redstorm Entertainment (RSE) have made in Rogue Spear are a culmination of the requests and desires of Rainbow Six fans from around the world. What started as a list of requests to improve an excellent product (Rainbow Six) is evolving into the supreme iteration of real-time REALISTIC first-person shooters (FPS). Allow me to take you through a rundown of what is new, changed, tweaked and exciting in Rogue Spear.

New Options

After installing my copy of Rogue Spear I was presented with the usual choices of options in the Graphical User Interface (GUI) driven menu. The GUI has been redesigned to accommodate more options and choices.

There are great new options here. One friend of mine wanted to play Rainbow Six but did not like the fact that he could not turn off "mouse look." That ability is now present, along with the ability to completely customize all controls as in the original. A new sound option is the ability to control the volume magnification of "footsteps." Also added was a precise mouse adjustment similar to the one found in Quake 2.

Arm patches make a welcome addition. In my multiplayer games it was very cool to see different colored arm patches, helping to identify Friendlies or "Tangos" before you shoot them (although it is usually after.)

Two new options for game play are also present. The Lone Wolf option allows you to re-enter a previously completed mission and hunt terrorists only. For instance, if the original mission was to rescue hostages that would mean taking along silenced weapons to complete the mission and not allowing you to take along big fun guns like the M4 Carbine or M-16A2.

In the Lone wolf option the hostages do not exist and 30 terrorists are randomly placed for your hunting pleasure. Be warned though. They react quickly, with force and usually with a great amount of coordination!

The Terrorist Hunt option is like Lone Wolf except you can go in with multiple team members.

One new smart option incorporated into the game was the ability to record your mission for playback later on the cinematic camera. It provides rotating views through your mission and has provided me with a great deal of magnificent footage.

Graphics!!

Graphics: WOW!! The graphics are even better than before. When I checked the graphics options on my gaming box, I was shocked to see 1600x1200!! I about fell out of my chair. My mind was screaming along thinking, "OMIGOSH Rogue Spear at 1600x1200 I can't believe it. There is a GOD!"

When my beautiful 21" Viewsonic monitor kicked the image of Rogue Spear up at 1600x1200 in the first mission I think I started hyperventilating. "Breathe", my girlfriend kept saying, "just breathe."

Want even more shocking news? The game ran ALMOST totally fluid!!! I have since kicked the resolution down to 1280x1024 for fluid play but those with a Voodoo3 and P3 may well hit the sweet spot with 1600x1200. For that matter, I may upgrade myself!! Rogue Spear supports both Glide and D3d, but the game runs faster and looks better under Glide.

Click for HUGE image.

The third person view makes a very nice return as most of the screen shots on the Internet are released using this viewpoint. If you hit "F1" twice you get to see you persona from "Cinematic camera". This one I found to be especially cool as you can get an idea as to exactly how concealed your character actually is in relation to the map.

One of the appreciated additions to Rogue Spear is the ability to crab walk and even run while crouching. I made constant use of this new ability in the Multiplayer session and it proved to be quite effective. I expect everyone will be using this new feature extensively.

Weapons:

There are many new weapons to choose from to arm your persona. The ones from Rainbow Six and Eagle Watch (the addon to Rainbow Six) make return appearances except for the CAR-15 and MP5SD5. New weapons are:

• MP5A4
• MP5SD6 (replaced the MP5SD5)
• MP5/10A2
• MP5/10SD
• UMP45
• UMP45SD
• M4 Carbine (replaced the CAR-15)
• HK G3A3
• HK G36K
• Enfield L85A1 (Sniper rifle)
• Steyr Aug
• M-16A2
• M-14
• Barrett Model 95 (.50 cal) (Sniper rifle. VERY DEADLY)
• PSG-1 (7.62mm) (Sniper rifle)
• Walther WA2000 (.300) (Sniper Rifle)
• Benelli 12 gauge M1 Tactical Shotgun
• SPAS 12 Shotgun (Automatic or single shot)

The Impact of Weapons

As I was playing multiplayer with some friends, we were trying different weapons and having fun shooting each other in the foot. What is cool about shooting each other in the foot? Well, after your persona gets popped in the foot, he limps around the maps dragging his leg. You can actually see the impact and the foot wobbling around. Nice addition!

The weapon that seemed to make the biggest impact were the different sniper rifles. If you can find a good place to hide, you can assume the sniper position and camp out waiting for potential victims to stick their heads out. The Barrett Model 95 (.50 cal) quickly became one of my favorites. The M-14 was also a pleasant surprise. It is very accurate with some long range and good knockdown capability.

The SPAS 12 shotgun was another pleasant surprise. It fires in full auto or single shot. They have tweaked the impact and spread of the shotguns to resemble a more accurate impact. Firing across the map now gets you more damage and more accuracy.

I can remember vividly firing at someone in the bunkers map from about 25 yards away as they were running straight toward me. When he got hit with my SPAS 12, his feet lifted off the ground and he was thrown backwards about 5 yards. We both shot up in our chairs and were yelling, "OOOHHHHHH that was AWESOME"!

Frag grenades are now much more powerful. They make a lasting smoke cloud and destroy a larger radius of area. When one of my friends was playing "camper" in the lookout tower of the Russian Radar Station (see maps below) he and I were throwing frag grenades at each other. He would throw one out the window and I would move. I would throw one and it would either sail over the tower or fall short and about land on me! He and I went around and around until I finally pulled a Joe Montana and hit one in the window right at his feet. Just before it went off I heard him scream, "OH CRAP"!

Flash Bangs are just like I described in my E3 roundup. They make a very annoying sound in your ears (sounds like a tornado right next to you), momentarily blind you, make your persona temporarily paralyzed (can't fire your weapon) and put all sorts of funny colors on your monitor! These new babies made a great impact on our multiplayer games. FUN FUN!!

Smoke Grenades are being considered for Rogue Spear but the team is still not sure if they will be implemented. Apparently, they cause quite a slowdown in multiplayer. They were not working in beta 1.

Maps and Planning

The first map is a mangled Kosovo. It has the remains of many blown-out buildings with some excellent sniper spots. Rain is falling and it sounds FANTASTIC! It actually stuck the hairs up on my skin. The map is BIG and if I had more than 4 computers this would have been an excellent map to play with lots of people in multiplayer. This mission has your team rescuing hostages from a helicopter crash. This one is graphically stunning!

The second map is one of a Russian dock port facility. This is another BIG map and its levels reminded me a little of the Russian Buran test site with the multiple levels and rooms. Lots of open areas though, and some great sniper positions!

The third mission is the Opera House. This map was by far the HARDEST one on the CD!! Trying to make it through solo is about impossible. Any missed shots usually get the hostages shot. We found this map to be excellent in multiplayer due to all the balconies and the high railings with great sniper points. This one is another LARGE map and is again gorgeous graphically.

Recently I was talking with Wendy Beasley (Super PR woman at RSE) on the phone about the Opera mission. I was telling her how hard it was to finish the map playing without other team members (going solo on the mission). She mentioned that the team has designed some missions that virtually require you to have several teams running through the map at the same time.

This is going to make people like me (who like to kill everyone themselves) actually have to depend on teammates to do their job correctly and use the multiple command maps that have been added to this version. A new challenge is always fun….

The fourth map (and the last) on the beta press CD was a strike against a Russian Siberian Radar facility. This one is smaller than the first three and was the map used in the demonstration at E3. Snow is falling and your persona leaves footprints in the snow as he runs.

As a result of this, more than once I was able to find out where someone went just by following their footprints. There is a lookout station that has great positions for sniping people. This map is just the right size for good multiplayer games and is fun to run in Lone Wolf because there are "Tango's" everywhere.

Go to Part Three: Sound and AI

Sounds

Spectacular! Don't expect the Tango's to go down now without alerting their fellow buddies. Many times now when they are falling they start screeching in pain. This of course alerts their compadres that something is amiss and then they come to evaluate what is happening. If the Tango's showed up in singles that would be OK but often times they show up in groups of two or more and WORK IN COORDINATION TO HUNT YOU DOWN!

The Rain effects I talked about in the Kosovo map are almost downright scary. I found I was extremely jumpy while playing this one the first hundred times or so just due to the effects of the graphics and gloomy "environment" created by the rain.

Another thing I noticed is that many times while moving around through rooms you can hear the Tango's saying, "Huh?" or "Is someone there?" when they think they hear you moving around. Footprints have now become an even more important way to locate your opponent. 3D located effects are very well done.

Altering the male and female voice pitches was another new addition that Red Storm thinks will be a big hit with players. Make your man or woman scream in high or low pitch. Setting the voices to either extreme makes shooting someone a humorous event.

Artificial Intelligence

Even with all the new update features I have discussed above, I believe it is the AI that has made the most progress. WOW! No longer do your partners get in your way. No longer are the terrorists just sitting ducks all the time. When Tango's see one of their own go down they either run away immediately, duck down and look for you or run, hide and stalk you.

If it is a hostage mission, don't expect a terrorist to stand around and duke it out with your team if he is alone. This time around if the terrorist feels he is out-gunned, he will run and alert those terrorists holding the hostages that you are trying to rescue them. Unless you can run him down and gun him down before he makes it to alert his buddies, you are going to lose that mission.

In the Opera house, this happened to me several times. A terrorist would run in a door, see me, turn around immediately and run straight toward the hostages and tell all his buddies to kill them. I always had to chase his butt down and "cap" him before he could get out of sight.

Let me share some more examples of the AI at work. This particular example happened to me in the Kosovo map. A terrorist spotted me as he saw me dart through some buildings. He did not fire right away or come straight after me. Nope, he was smarter than that. He simply walked into a building doorway (knowing I was still used to the no-so-smart AI from Rainbow Six) and waited for me as he called for reinforcements.

When I saw him disappear from sight I was thinking, "This is going to be a cake walk. That Idiot did not even see me!" I strolled across the street (like I am so smart) and just walked right into that doorway. Well, to my great surprise there was my "Idiot" waiting for me with his weapon drawn and pointed right at the door. He had set up an ambush! Just as he fired three more terrorists came running through the door with their weapons already pointed straight ahead. SHOOT, that never happened in the original!!!

One point from the original that used to get me really irritated was when the terrorists would simply look at you and then you were dead. They never aimed or raised their weapons. They would smoke cigarettes and kill you all within a split second. That glitch is no more! Now all the terrorists react like humans. Drawing their weapons, aiming, and firing realistically. Dying has never been better!

Another very cool change is the way the terrorists die. They never seem to fall the same way twice. Sometimes they fall flat on their faces, other times they fall to their knees, and then fall over. Sometimes they fall backwards. It is totally varied now and often times quite humorous.

Not only do they not fall the same way they also start in more dynamic positions. Playing the same map twice in a row almost guarantees that the terrorists will be in different places.

In fact, most will move around constantly unless they are guarding hostages. Clearing an area does not mean it is safe the next time you pass through. A wandering terrorist may enter the area, see his fellow terrorists down and stalk you from the rear!

Go to Part Four: Multiplayer

Multiplayer: This is the area that I was most anticipating. I have four machines at networked and I installed Rogue Spear on them all. I invited a few friends over to test the multiplayer code and we got down to business.

First point- Rogue Spear is only in Beta 1 right now. The anticipated release date is now set somewhere around September 15th and the team has lots of time to get all the bugs worked out. Do I sound like I am making excuses? The fact is that multiplayer is not totally stable in beta 1 but our LAN group played Adversarial games for 3 days. Did machines crash? Yes. Did we have a freaking blast playing? Yes. Did anybody mind rebooting after their machine crashed once every 5 games or so? Not a bit!

For a first beta, Rogue Spear is VERY stable. Some new options available in multiplayer are the ability to restrict weapons and equipment that other players can access. I thought this was working pretty well as we played all the different maps with the different multiplayer options. Some multiplayer options worked and some did not. For instance, playing terrorist hunt was not working. There were no terrorists in the maps so we ended up hunting each other. Every other option we played that did not involve terrorists worked.

Unfortunately, one option that does involve terrorists is Cooperative play. This was not working for us. Every time the server would click the button to start the game, that computer would drop to the Windows desktop and the rest would freeze.

All the maps in multiplayer adversarial play were working just as well in multiplayer as in single player. One map not available in single player was the "Bunker" map. Since training was disabled in beta 1 you could only access this map through adversarial multiplayer. Of all the maps in the game, the Bunker map was our favorite. We played this one using pistols only, pistols and shotguns only, or all weapons available.

Frame rates were outstanding and we found the game ran very well even on a P200 with a V1 card (with resolution turned down of course). On our 100mbs LAN, bandwidth was not an issue but as more press/ beta online games get setup, I will be testing it over the Internet to ensure it runs smoothly.

A New Standard in Shooters

The main thing I want to convey to everyone who likes playing Rainbow Six multiplayer is that RSE LISTENED to your requests and implemented them in the game. Although there are no major additions to team multiplayer options from Eagle Watch (see my review of Eagle Watch multiplayer here) they have entrenched lots of new tweaks to make playing Rogue Spear more involved and exciting. Playing with pistols only was never so easy!

Also there is a ping utility to see who is lagging the game which allows the server to eject them if necessary. The addition of false HB sensor pucks is a very good idea and should add a lot to the strategy level. New heart beat (HB) sensors are also being implemented along with heart beat sensor jammers.

Conclusion

I can't put exactly how I feel about Rogue Spear into words. I expected this game to rock and it does rock!

No game this year has me more excited than Rogue Spear, especially from what I see now. I am so excited about it I actually feel sorry I can't send everyone who reads COMBATSIM.COM™ a copy because I can guarantee all of you that you would love this game. It really is that good. Look for it to hit the stores around September 15th.