Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear

Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear is a tactical shooter, in which characters are affected by realistic factors and can be killed with a single bullet, thus promoting planning and tactics over force and firepower.[5] Rogue Spear is very similar to its predecessor, Rainbow Six, and uses the same engine and gameplay, albeit greatly modified to feature improved graphics and animations, improved artificial intelligence, and new mechanics such as camouflage selection and the return of the hands-off "watch" mode from Rainbow Six: Eagle Watch.[6][7][8]

Rogue Spear's basic gameplay remains mostly unchanged from Rainbow Six. The game follows a campaign of several missions, with objectives ranging from rescuing hostages and defusing bombs to gathering intelligence and planting surveillance devices; there are various approaches the player can take to complete said objectives, but Rogue Spear takes an approach that promotes stealth, as enemies can now react to the player's presence if they are heard or seen, such as investigating the area, fleeing, or attacking hostages.[5][7] Before each mission is a briefing that details the situation and advances the plot, and a planning stage where the player selects the Rainbow operatives they want for the operation (categorized into Assault, Demolitions, Electronics, Recon, and Sniper based on their skillsets), sets waypoints and orders for their color-coded teams on a map of the area of operations, and equips their operatives with appropriate weapons, equipment, and uniforms for the mission. During the mission, the player can control the leader of any team at will, while teams not controlled by the player follow the orders assigned to them in planning. Injured operatives cannot be healed during a mission, while deceased operatives are permanently gone for the rest of the campaign playthrough, forcing players to plan carefully to avoid casualties.[5][6][7][8]

Rogue Spear features two free-play modes outside the campaign: Lone Wolf, where the player must complete an entire level using only a single operative; and Terrorist Hunt, where the player must defeat up to 30 terrorists in a level, with no other objectives aside from clearing the entire level of enemies.[6]

Rogue Spear's online multiplayer consists of two modes: cooperative and adversarial. Cooperative mode has players team up to complete missions against AI-controlled enemies in formats similar to the singleplayer missions, while adversarial mode pits players against one another in deathmatch and team deathmatch modes. Rogue Spear does not support dedicated servers, and games are limited to sixteen players per server.[6][7]

In 2001, Rainbow, led by John Clark, handles a spike in terrorist attacks conducted by various seemingly unaffiliated terrorist groups. Meanwhile, the former Eastern Bloc has fallen into disarray since the dissolution of the Soviet Union a decade prior, with conflict, crime, and corruption increasing as money and necessities become scarce.

Investigating a thwarted nerve agent attack in Oman, Rainbow, assisted by an anonymous informant, sources the agent to anti-Western oil baron Samed Vezirzade. Surveillance of Vezirzade leads Rainbow to an illegal arms deal between a Russian military unit and Russian mobsters connected to arms dealer Maxim Kutkin and kingpin Lukyan Barsukov. Rainbow interrupts the deal and recovers weapons-grade plutonium, leading them to believe Kutkin is assembling nuclear weapons. Rainbow plants surveillance devices in Vezirzade's mansion and Kutkin's private spa, and learns Vezirzade has been supporting terrorist groups for his own gain; they also learn he is aware Rainbow is after him.

Rainbow locates and raids Kutkin's nuclear weapons facility in Siberia, destroying the facility and recovering two nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the informant leaves to "set things right"; Rainbow analyst Susan Holt learns the informant was Barsukov himself, who was suspicious of Kutkin (his son-in-law) and needed Rainbow's investigations to confirm. Suddenly, Holt and Barsukov are kidnapped by Kutkin; worse, Clark learns two more nuclear weapons were not recovered from the Siberian facility. After rescuing Holt and Barsukov, Rainbow learns Kutkin is personally moving the nuclear weapons to the West, and they intercept the shipment, securing the nuclear weapons and killing Kutkin.

With Kutkin defeated, Rainbow raids Vezirzade's personal fortress in Azerbaijan, killing Vezirzade when he fights back. However, Kutkin is revealed to still be alive, having used a double to fake his death. Aware his downfall is imminent, Kutkin seizes a nuclear power plant in Ukraine, intent on causing a Chernobyl-esque nuclear meltdown to take as many lives with him as possible. Rainbow storms the plant, killing Kutkin and preventing the meltdown.

The threat finally over, Clark debriefs Rainbow and notes that Kutkin's spa has been sold to Barsukov, who claims he has retired from crime and will settle down to operate the spa legally; however, Rainbow continues to monitor Barsukov with a hidden camera, and it is implied he has not retired after all. While discussing his plans with an aide, Barsukov suddenly turns his attention to the hidden camera and, after rebuking Clark for invading his privacy, shoots it with a pistol.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear was met with positive to mixed reception upon release. Review aggregator Metacritic displays a score of 85.97% for the PC version,[9] 75.77% for the Game Boy Advance,[13] 72.62% for the Dreamcast,[14] and 60.07% for the PlayStation.[12] Video game review aggregator GameRankings displays 76/100 for the Game Boy Advance[10] and 75/100 for the Dreamcast.[11]

Many reviewers noted Rogue Spear's similarity to Rainbow Six, and commended its various improvements on the original. Tal Blevins of IGN deemed Rogue Spear "certainly in the running for Best Action Game of '99", praising its improvements over the original Rainbow Six in graphics, game mechanics, level design, and AI improvements.[6] Michael E. Ryan of GameSpot similarly praised the improvements in graphics, game mechanics, and weapon diversity, but stated the largely unchanged and "cluttered" planning stage did not work with Rogue Spear's larger, more detailed levels, and failed to provide an accurate feel for the actual level depicted.[7] John Lee reviewed the PC version of the game for Next Generation, rating it four stars out of five, describing it as "More of the same, but then it's hard to ask for anything more."[36] Greg Orlando reviewed the Dreamcast version of the game for Next Generation and also rated it four stars out of five, saying "A title that works on many different levels, Rogue Spear is a must-have for the Dreamcast-owning shooter fan."[37]

Reviewers found notable issues with the game's AI. Blevins noted that while Rogue Spear's AI was considerably improved compared to the original Rainbow Six's AI, they acted inconsistently and often failed to react to obvious threats.[6] Ryan called the game's teammate AI "flaky" and noted teammates were far more likely to die in combat or even in accidents such as falling off ladders, which he critically contrasted with the enemy AI, which he described as very reactive and "rarely, if ever, miss[ing] their targets", making the game "overwhelmingly difficult for all the wrong reasons".[7] Gestalt of Eurogamer considered AI flaws to have greatly let down the game, recalling an incident where he watched almost an entire team of operatives get killed by a single terrorist without firing back once, with only one team member surviving because "he'd managed to get lost earlier on in the mission".[8]

• Rainbow Six official website
• Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear at MobyGames
• Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear (Dreamcast) at MobyGames
• Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear (Game Boy Advance) at MobyGames
• Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Rogue Spear: Black Thorn at MobyGames